Dear Junior

Dear Junior,

Oftentimes I go through our days together as if I'm watching a magic show.  A magic show with lots of "crayons stay on table, please" and "not in your mouth, please" and "can you please share with Mommy?  No? Okay..." and wiping up seemingly endless yellow snot and the occasional poopy diaper (though Daddy takes care of 95% of those).  But magical all the same.  And I wonder if every mom feels as lucky as I do.

You make so many moments special, particularly when you flash your winning grin--with your teeth showing and your face all scrunched up and a giggle gurgling from the back of your throat.  You give me this face when I come get you in the morning.  When we lie down to nurse.  When you see me enter the room.  When you walk, because you realize that you're actually walking.  

You reach out for Mommy all the time.  Still in your clingy stage, and Daddy tries to reduce the amount of time Mommy holds you to alleviate my foot pain, but I keep telling him--I don't mind.  That's right; Mommy doesn't mind.  These years will be short, my little.  So very short. And soon you'll be too big for me to ergo to sleep at church and too heavy for me to carry to and fro.  So no, I don't mind at all.  Let me carry you whenever you reach for me, and joyfully and with gladness and gratitude.

And you're just plain busy.  It's often fun just to sit back and watch you do your thing:  pick up the poker chips and put them on the couch.  Then bring them to the table. Then bring them to and from a cardboard box on the floor in the living room.  Grab your baton and walk about as you carry on with the rest of your many tasks.  Visit the stuffies--Birdie, JJ, Froggy, Bunny Blanket, and Sleepy Sheepy continue to be your favorites.  You grab them with great excitement, then pat them lovingly on the back.  Then you carry them in one arm and continue on your merry way.  You like the bigger stuffies--ones that are half your size--so you look funny as you amble about with your treasured fuzzy friends.  Mommy can't get enough of it.

You do a funny thing with books: you just flip the pages back and forth with extreme interest.  And you attempt to write, but always with the wrong side facing the paper.  You shake your head no vigorously when we ask you questions.  Sometimes your no means no.  Sometimes it actually means yes, we think.  

I continue to watch with great amusement when you drink out of your straw cup.  It feels like such an achievement to have had you skip the sippy cup altogether (to avoid dental problems). Now I need to figure out how and when to wean you from sucking your thumb.  Oh, your left thumb.  That will not be easy.  You and it have been such close friends for almost an entire year now...

You're mostly obedient, though you do like to cry out when you don't get what you want sometimes.  That always makes me uneasy, but thankfully you settle down pretty quickly, and Mommy and Daddy encourage each other not to give in.  We remind ourselves that you need us to provide the structure that you don't know how to create, and creating that structure will give you boundaries that make you feel like life is safe and predictable.

You have an extensive palate.  Right now I think the only food you really shun is corn. Yellow corn. Poor, poor yellow corn.  You'll eat everything from dried seaweed to roasted mushrooms, roasted sweet potatoes (including the purple, white, Chinese, North Carolina medium, and North Carolina jumbo varieties we tried this weekend), green beans, spicy tofu, garlic anything, brown rice, avocado, yogurt, carrots, and all kinds of fruit.  But not yellow corn.    Oh well, more for Daddy!

You bring us endless delight, my little.  I treasure each day with you and am so thankful I get to be your mommy.  

Lots of love to Bathands,

Mommy