My Dear Baby:
I missed your letter at 10 months because so much was happening! You are developing in communication, locomotion and learning at such a rate that I can't even really list individual accomplishments that easily anymore. What's more, you are turning into a little boy right in front of our eyes. You've always kept most of your baby fat on those chunky thighs and arms, but now your face and body are even more lean, making you look less babyish than ever. The first hair cut you just received from Auntie (my sister) didn't help matters, but you look ever so handsome. Your personality is blooming, and everyone is in love with you. (No, I'm not biased. Why do you ask?)
You recently took your first plane ride to meet all of your Pennsylvania family and loved it. When you got squirmy, I walked you up and down the plane aisle. While you are still a bit coy and shy, you overcame your reservations quickly enough to begin flirting with every single woman we passed. You even had the flight attendants wrapped around your chubby little thumb. You were flashing that gorgeous smile left and right and tucking your head into my neck charmingly. On our flight home, you even dared lean over to attempt a computer coup from the man across the aisle. Speaking of computers, man do you love them. We have thought about getting you an old keyboard to play with, but you have no interest in a keyboard that isn't affecting any change in the computer itself. I can't believe you've made that connection. You are amazing. And by the way, it was SO cute to see you in winter gear. I took you out to see your first snow one night. I don't think you were so fond of the cold. Remind me to show you the beautiful snowy night photo in which you wear an expression of profound disgust.
Even though you hated the cold, you seemed to love being around all that family warmth and love. I hope someday we do live closer. I felt at peace seeing you like that. You were in awe of your biggest cousin and learned things like how to steal toys from the younger (though older than you) cousin. Your younger cousin tried to include you on everything and patted your head when you cried. It was so sweet. It was trying to keep up with those two that finally prompted you to begin crawling on all fours and to abandon the army crawl. You still couldn't keep up. But that didn't stop you from trying!
In fact, you are trying new things and are learning and communicating like crazy. I'll just share two cute stories to wrap up this letter.
- I was reading to you the other night when you stopped the book halfway and leaned over the rocking to share to see what else might be better down there as you usually do. Only this time, after looking you flipped to your belly and slid off my lap. Then you proceeded to crawl over to the pile of books and shove them all aside with your hand. Then you dug out the book you wanted, slapped your hand on it and looked up at me hopefully. When I picked you up and began reading that one, you smiled and sat contentedly throughout. Oh my baby, you have always had such strong opinions. I have no idea where you got them. ;-)
-When at your Grandma's house, we decided to give you a bath in the kitchen sink. You tried to turn on the water as you always do. Her sink has a lever instead of knobs. When you were pushing the lever up, your arm accidentally bumped the sprayer to the right of the faucet. You glanced at it and continued to play with the water. At one point though, you pushed the faucet too far over to the point that you couldn't get enough leverage to turn it on. Seeming to find it broken you tried a few different ways, then looked to the side where the sprayer was. A light bulb went off and you lifted the sprayer, jiggled it, then set it back down and tried to move the lever again. In doing so, you accidentally moved it back to where you could get it, and the water turned on. We watched this process for about 10 minutes and any time you couldn't get the water turned on easily, you turned to the sprayer, jiggled it and tried again. It was a learned superstitious behavior. It was just like watching animal training and was fascinating. Apparently the urge to jiggle something to make it work is a programmed response. Grandma and I laughed ourselves silly and took video. I'll show it to you someday.
Thank you for making our lives so much more wonderful. We love you forever.
Mama