Dear Charlotte,
Although I’m
still getting used to telling people I have a three-year-old and one-year-old,
you’re having no trouble moving right ahead in your milestones and are every
bit the busy body that a 15 month old should be. I still do, and probably always will, think
of you as my baby, but every day it seems that you grow-up just a little more
right before my eyes.
You’re getting
*this* close to completely walking. You
can walk, but you only do it on your terms.
Crawling gets you where you need to go, so why mess with anything else? I have a feeling that you may have inherited
a little of your mother’s perfectionist tendencies and you’re simply waiting
until you have it totally down pat and will start running after your sister any
day. In the meantime you don’t find yourself
limited at all and will carry your sippy cup, a book, or a toy in your mouth en
route to your final destination. A few
weeks ago I noticed you were putting your pull-puppy toy’s string over your
shoulders and around the back of your neck in *just* a way that allowed you to
pull him along behind you. Genius.
Not walking hasn’t
kept you from coasting along at the park and after Anna’s park birthday party
you became a bona-fide slider. You love
to go down the slide, but you love crawling back up it more! There’s a park close to home that boasts a
double slide and it’s truly double trouble when you both get going down and
back up. Speaking of Anna’s birthday
party, you had a blast. You’re still a
little shy, but were ready to get in on the action and loved watching all of
the other big kids play. The balloons
and cupcakes weren’t shabby door prizes, either.
You’ve expanded
your vocabulary this past month with both words and signs. You use all-done and more effectively when
signing and can say book, duck, quack, Daisy (for both cats), nana (blanket
and/or Anna), dog, more, and moo. You
especially like to make the quacking noise when you see a duck and have been
known to walk around with your rubber ducky just quacking away.
When you’re not
talking, you’re generally happy and smiley, and have one of the most infectious
laughs I’ve ever heard. Anything Anna
does is hilarious, and you love to laugh at the games you two make up and play
together. The most fun is the “1-2-3
game” where you each stand at the head of a bed (ours or Anna’s) and free fall
backward simultaneously. You usually
wake up from your afternoon nap first and nothing is more fun than going into Anna’s
room when she’s awake and playing that game for a good half hour. Seeing you two scramble to get back up and
then dying laughing as you fall again could melt anyone’s blues away.
You learned to
quack while you spent a few days with your Gigi and your Dad and I took a short
vacation to Florida. As if she wasn’t
already wrapped around your little finger, you wrapped your Gigi tighter. Unless she just played us for fools, it looks
like you girls were great for her and she loved getting all of the Charlotte
snuggles. Your favorite thing to do with
Gigi is to bring her book after book after book. She’ll read you one just as fast as you can
crawl over the bookshelf for another.
And then repeat. You love
lift-the-flap books, touchy-feely books, and Dr. Seuss tongue twisters all the
same. And your Gigi loves nothing more
than to sit and read with you.
My favorite time
of the day with you has always been bedtime.
Our special time. Even though you
haven’t nursed in three months, I had still rocked you to sleep most
nights. Your eyes would get heavy as you
sucked your thumb and twirled your hair or mine, and you’d slowly drift off to
sleep. Until you didn’t and started refusing to go to sleep for me. For
about 3 weeks straight you’d rock for 30-45 minutes with me and would scream
bloody murder if I laid you down; but Gigi or Dad could get you down in 5
minutes flat. I guess I’m not the only
one wrapped around your little finger.
You started
calling your blanket a nana this month.
You don’t keep a blanket with you routinely, but occasionally at school
or home you’ll ask for the one that stays in your crib and will cuddle up. At first we thought you were asking for Anna,
and sometimes you are, but mostly it’s your blanket when you need a few minutes
to just sit and snuggle. I called my
maternal grandmother Nana and think about her almost every day, and know that
she’d love nothing more than to see you and your sister. When I think of my Nana, I think of comfort,
security and love, the same thing you think of with your nana; and I have to
think there’s no coincidence there. Even
though my Nana isn’t here on earth any longer, I know that she’s always
watching over me. And that holds true
for me, I may not always be with you physically, but I’ll always be your
biggest fan and your number one protector.
Love,
Mom
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