Law Students

19 1/2 months

It's almost Halloween. This year, you will be a bat. I wanted you to be a dragon but we are lazy and we found a bat costume on sale. I don't think you get the Halloween thing yet. Next year you'll probably want to go trick-or-treating.

I haven't written about your daily routine in a while. You usually wake up between 6 and 6:30. I hear you talking and then yelling in your crib. You stop yelling when you hear me walking toward your room. When I come in, you're standing up, pacifier in your mouth, giraffe (a.k.a. the Little Dude, christened by Daddy) in your hand. You give me a kiss good morning and hold up the Little Dude for me to kiss. Then you hang out in your crib for a while, sticking your toes through the bars so I can tickle them, and handing me the Little Dude and Jingly Bear to make them dance. Sometimes you let out long incomprehensible strings of babble, and I sit there and nod until suddenly I realize that "Cow, wa, fla, te, sto, pee, oh, pee, ma, gah, bah, ma, food!" means that the clown waved his flag, and the train stopped, and all the toys and dolls cried, "Please, oh, please, won't you pull our train over the mountain? The good boys and girls on the other side of the mountain won't have any wonderful toys to play with or good food to eat unless you help us!" Or you say, "My oh my! WA DA? So! Ma ma ma!" I oblige by reciting the rest of the story and you laugh and roll around in your crib.

You also look at me beseechingly and say, "Oh, NO, oh YEAH, ma-day, today" but I tell you that song is only for after dinner-time, because once I start singing it you will never let me stop.

You seem to have inherited my tendency to always have a song, or a piece of story, or a poem, or anything with a rhythm stuck in your head. You are always dancing to the music in your head and asking me to sing. MO, MO!

Eventually you decide to get out of the crib -- a difficult decision, because it means leaving the pacifier and the Little Dude behind -- and I warm up some milk for you. We play and read, and sing and dance, and eat breakfast and get dressed. (This morning I asked what you wanted for breakfast and you replied, "Berries and honey!" This is what the bear and the quiltmaker eat in one of your favorite books. I gave you blueberry baby food -- the closest thing to berries we had on hand -- and a little honey on a spoon. You weren't too sure if you liked that.) We wake up Daddy around a quarter to eight, and you head out to daycare with him around eight-thirty.

When I pick you up in the afternoon, we head to the park if it's warm or to the library if it's cold. You love the swing, the slide, and the see-saw, and have been going down higher and higher slides on your own. My favorite park activity is chasing you around. We both run and run, and peek at each other around the poles, and both pretend to fall down so we can take a break.

We do more chasing when we get home. I try to simultaneously cook dinner and keep you occupied, so you often get frustrated when I leave the game or the book to stir a pot. But we manage. All is forgiven when I crawl around after you, barking like a doggie and wagging my tail.

After dinner (which today consisted mainly of asparagus, since you left most of the pasta and other veggies on the plate and kept asking for more asparagus) we let you watch movies. You usually want to start with "OH NO", and then we branch out, mostly with Muppets, Sesame Street, and other TMBG videos. You started out watching Mahna Mahna, but you're over that now. Other past favorites have been the Muppet Show Theme, Movin' Right Along, Rubber Ducky, C is for Cookie, Elmo's Song, Sing After Me, 1,2,3,4 and Don't Know "Y". Current favorites are Doo-Wop Hop and Rainbow Connection.

Then bath time. When you get out, we try to wrestle you into your diaper and pajamas before you pee on anything. Finally, bedtime books -- you swat my hand away if my thumb is covering part of the picture, just like I remember doing to Dida when I was close to your age -- and then it's time for bed, at about 7:45. You don't know this part, but around 10 p.m. I sneak into your room and pull the blanket over you. I like to make sure you're warm, and to hear you breathing before I go to bed.

Love,
Mommy

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on October 22, 2008 (boomark / email).