Happy 1 1/2 year birthday, Baby Girl! I love you so much.
Every month I mean to post a monthly birthday letter to you and each time, I let other things get in the way. I want you to know how much I love you and since I am so bad about filling out those little books with all the milestones, I know I need to do this for you, so no more lame excuses.
You have had a very eventful last month. You got glasses for your accommodative esotropia, which is a fancy way of saying crossed eyes due to constantly trying to focus to see, poor thing. At first I felt incredibly guilty for not noticing earlier (you grandparents pointed it out to Daddy and I), but apparently we caught this quite early compared to most people, and you will probably fare much better because of it. The opthamologist even says there is a chance that you might not need to wear glasses one day as long as you wear them as much as possible now. Now I feel extra guilty for making fun of that cross-eyed photographer that I had to follow around for three whole days at our annual meeting a few years ago. I am pretty sure that you have this problem due to some sort of cosmic payback to me. Don't ever make fun of other people, even if you think the irony warrants it (I don't make fun of cross-eyed people in general, just cross-eyed photographers, they are in the same sort of group as editors who can't spell (ahem!), midget basketball players, taxi cab drivers with no sense of direction, chefs who drown everything in salt, or color-blind designers.) Let this be a lesson to you (I bet you will hear that phrase from me a lot—I have a whole lot of speeches already planned for you based on mistakes that I have made that I am certain you don't need to repeat.)
We picked out some really cute frames and now when you wear your glasses you look very smart and adorable at the same time. Not surprising. We are still trying to convince you to wear them most of the time. You will wear them for a while and then when you seem to remember they are on, after about 20–30 minutes, you pull them off and usually hand them to us. Sometimes you want to keep holding on to them and bend them into shapes other then glasses, like maybe kitty cats or elephants and tv antennas, and that is when we have a sort of tug of war. So far I win, but there have been some close calls.
This month we also found out that you most likely have an allergy to tree nuts. Your Aunt Linda made a delicious treat of Toddler Truffles for you (in an attempt to get you to eat food, another new fun characteristic you picked up this month being an aversion to eating food, even foods you loved before). They are these yummy balls made from black beans and lots of sugar and walnuts, all blended together. They are actually quite tasty. You seemed to think so too, at least for the first 2/3 of the ball, but before you finished the whole thing, you suddenly got very angry and refused to hold the ball and huffed over to me and practically threw it at me. You huffed and puffed and I asked Aunt Linda if she put razor blades in your food again and we laughed at you. For a minute. And then your face started getting red and just a little bit puffy and your lip started to swell up a tiny bit and then you wanted to nurse. That was when we realized that you were probably having an allergic reaction. So we called your doctor and talked to a nurse who told us to give you Benadryl, which made everything better, except for you got super clutzy. It was kind of cute but mostly scary, especially when you tumbled down the two stairs from the dining room to the living room. That was when we realized we needed to follow you around everywhere for the rest of the day. Luckily it also made you very drowsy, so you mostly slept it all off. And so now we have an appointment to take you to the allergist next week.
Usually you are not clutzy. You started walking at only 10 months old and so now you walk like a pro. You even run and you have some great dance moves. In fact, you love to listen to music, especially while you are eating. You particularly love to spin around and do what I starting calling your chicken wing dance. This is when you bend both of your elbows while rocking back and forth and simultaneously going in a circle while sporting a huge smile. The smile makes everyone who sees you dance think it's the most adorable brilliant baby-dance they have ever seen.
You also have quite a vocabulary. You have for a while, but each week you add to it. When you were less than one year old, you already said "kitty" (your first word) and "mommy" and "daddy" and "more". Then you said "shoes" and "ball" and "cereal" and "yes" and "no". Now you can repeat most words that we ask you to (I guess our days of cussing are over) and you can say "cereal" and "Clydie" and "book" and "up" and "down" and "flower" and "bird". I am sure I am forgetting a ton of words that are in your repertoire. You mostly say "mommy" when you want something, but I think you know that it refers to me. In that weird enabling sort of way, I kind of like that you associate me with need. That might also have to do with the fact that I am still nursing you, which I can tell a lot of people think I should stop doing. I wasn't so ready to consider until this last week when I had a snow day off work and you treated me as your own personal udder. I am currently devising a plan to start weaning you. You also sing songs on command. I don't know the words to them, but you make these songs up right on the spot.
You also know what a lot of words mean that you just can't say yet. You can point to most common animals in your books when asked to and you know most of your body parts. When you can't say a word, however you get very aggravated and starting this week you might even have a temper tantrum when I don't understand what you are pointing at or what you want. So, I think you have started to go through the terrible twos. My father has let me know my entire life how lucky I was that he didn't throw me off the second floor balcony of our apartment when I was going through the terrible twos and there are brief moments when, for the first time of my life, I completely understand what he was going through. But those moments are so brief. Because aside from those moments, you are such a sweet pleasure to be around, I am constantly looking forward to seeing you and smiling about the funny things you do and say.
I love how when you wake up in the morning, when I come pick you up from your crib, you give me your biggest and best smile and you get so excited like you are saying to yourself, "Look, that lady is here again. I'm so glad." I don't know how I was ever able to wake up before without having that smile jump start my day. You are everything I ever imagined you would be and more, and each day I wake up I can't wait to see the exciting person you have become.
