Dear Nathan,
Oh, snap ! Tomorrow you turn eleven months old & to celebrate, your grandmother taught you to high-five. Your parents, on the other hand, taught you how to slam back a shot of tequila. Both will definitely come in handy when you find yourself at one of our local bars (& believe me, if there are as many bars & taverns then as there are now, you might just find yourself partying for a week’s worth) celebrating your free will & independence oh, fifteen years from now, surely.
Because even if you’re eleven months, we can tell you’ll be the independent one. Your sister will mostly be living in our basement until she finishes her doctorate in medicine (having recently told us she wants to become a surgeon), but you ? You will be out on some backpacking adventure around Southeast Asia while we sit at the kitchen table, waiting for postcards, powerless to your wanderlust. Already you have no qualms about climbing the slide, not once looking back to see if we’re right behind you with our magical circle of protection.
You are getting really good at walking around the house, hanging on to anything moderately solid, sometimes absent-mindedly letting go. If you’ve got something in your hand but need to get somewhere, you will simply stuff it into your mouth, fall to the ground & crawl, like a dog with a bone. It’s rather endearing & i’ve a mind to start teaching you tricks, like playing dead or rolling over.
You’ve learned a ton of things this month, like blowing bubbles in the bathtub, putting blocks in buckets when prompted, opening the drawers we haven’t yet gotten around to childproofing. You have NOT learned to micromanage your temper, & sadly, i think you will be as tempestuous as your big sister. Right now though, we’re grateful to everything in the world that is a distraction. Look ! [Insert random thing here like bells, whistles, binkies, tissue paper.]
i’ve written about this before, but we are not used to having a child that won’t eat everything. Picky, if you will. (At first, we thought you’d developed an allergic reaction to your booster chair because the moment we sat you down in it, you started to cry. We’ve investigated – turns out you just don’t really like your tray. But i digress.) So you still love avocado, & i’d feed it to you at every mealtime if i didn’t think i’d get slapped on the wrist for my lazy parenting. But this month, you’ve discovered Goldfish crackers, & those are the cat’s pyjamas ! Everything else can just kinda suck it.
This month you have also developed a great love for the pink stable door to the Little People’s Noah’s Ark set, of finding yourself IN the dishwasher, for reaching out to grab my tongue, for squealing when you see Sandrine in the doorway, for smiling at all the women in the grocery store, of getting thrown upside down, for opening your mouth like a baby bird when we feed you small bites of our muffins.
One week ago you came down with your first fever. The moment that fever hit you clung to me, your hair pasted to my neck. Even though i’d rather have you cranky & cutting teeth for an entire month instead of having you burning up for a few days, your getting sick is a small reminder of just how perfect you really are, how you’re healthy, happy & beautiful. And now that i know that you’ll have me, i feel a thousand times more than blessed for being your mum.
Love,
Mum
