15 Months

Dear Katie,

On June 7th you turned fifteen months old.  I started writing this on June 8th, the very next day, but that was a day and a half after we moved from our apartment to our new home (which we own!), and things have been crazy since then, and please forgive me for not finishing this within a week, even, of starting it.  Please also forgive me for occasionally zoning out over the past week and a half while you ran around the apartment doing unbearably cute things, as usual (the cute things are usual, not the zoning out) instead of paying as much attention to you as you deserve and as I would like.

While we're at it, I'd like to ask your forgiveness for the times when I lose my patience with you (when I'm telling you NO, keep your hands out of the dog's water bowl, or YES, you must come here now to get your diaper changed, or NO, you do not throw your bottle or the phone or the remote control onto the floor in such a forceful manner) when you wilfully ignore me.  I know you are just testing out what you can do, figuring out which parts of the world you have some control over, deciding how you have to move your body parts to make certain things happen, seeing how water splashes or how gravity pulls things crashing to the floor or what's the heaviest thing you can carry from one place to another.  I know you are not doing it to make me upset - even though you look straight at me with that mischievous glint in your eye while you are doing it - and usually, honestly, usually your enthusiastic love of all things chaos-inducing only makes me love you more.  Lately I've been a little stressed. 

I think you've noticed, because you've been a little extra sensitive, too.  Usually when I say "no!" to you, the only change in your behavior is that you look straight at me while you do it again, but yesterday I said, "no!" and you looked at me and did it again while your bottom lip started to quiver and your eyes started to tear up.  So I picked you up and held you on my lap and rubbed your back and told you that I was not mad at you (and I wasn't), but that you could not throw the phone because you might break it or injure someone or something else with it.  But that it was all right, I loved you very much, I was not angry, just please don't do it again.  You laid your head down on my chest and looked very sad.  I held you until you looked a little happier, and I kissed your neck, which made you laugh and arch your head back in extreme ticklishness. 

The big news right now is that we have moved.  Heather and Arek used to be our neighbors, and they were wonderful neighbors, but we found a home that we could buy, and so we decided to move.  We have moved into a 2-unit building.  We're on the second floor, and right now (a week and a half after we moved, still) the whole place is filled with boxes. 

On the Friday before we moved, Daddy put you to bed and I went over to the new place.  I had decided to go over to the new place to do some painting and to have some alone time, because frankly, you'd been wearing me out the previous evenings.  You cried and cried until I let you get out of your crib, and wouldn't go to sleep until 9:30 or 10, which is MY bedtime, young lady, so it is therefore too late!  So I decided, "hey! I am more than just a mother, I am an independent woman!  And I can go over to the new place and spend a night all by myself.  I can eat my frozen pizza and my pint of chocolate ice cream, and drink my diet coke and water, and I can blow up the huge Aerobed and stay up as late as I want, and sleep in as late as I want, and do some painting (which I actually really love to do - there's something about the bare clean expanse of a freshly painted wall that makes me feel like I've really accomplished something) in peace!  It will be an adventure!"

What actually happened is that I stayed at home with you and your dad until about 7:45, and when it was time to go, I waved to you and your dad in the doorway, and as I drove away I cried a little bit.  You are fifteen months old, but that was the first time I was going to miss both your bedtime and wake-up.  I had missed your bedtime a few times, but I had always been there the  next morning when you woke up.  I wondered what I was doing, leaving you and your dad there on a night when you would probably want to play until 9:30, when I could enjoy spending time with you after having been gone to work all day. 

I forged ahead, though! I went over to the new place anyway, and you know what I did when I got there?  I had a pretty good time.  I heated my frozen pizza and then I ate it.  I drank some diet Coke.  I ate a little bit of my ice cream.  Nobody cried for me, and nobody needed me to take care of them.  And then I painted your bedroom a lovely pink color, so that it would be nice for you when we moved, and so that it hopefully wouldn't smell like paint anymore by the time you slept in it for the first time.  I painted for hours while I listened to the radio, and I wore myself out, but I had a good time.  I  called your dad at about 9:00 to see what was going on, and he said that you had been asleep since 8:30, and that you hadn't made a peep since then.  I stayed up painting until almost midnight, and then I went to bed on the Aerobed.  In the morning, I kept waking up, checking the time, and then going back to sleep.  I finally decided to get up at 7:42.  Later I asked your dad what time you had woken up, and he said you had gotten up at 7:30.  So there you go, I had 12 extra minutes of sleep!

Just so you know, I'm aware that it's a little bit pathetic that my first big night away from you was spent painting your room after eating frozen pizza and ice cream in an empty condo.  But there it is - a first step along our road to your someday independence and separation from me.  Our first night apart, and we were both very brave.  One of us didn't even cry. 

Last Monday, while the movers were packing up our boxes and furniture, I kept wondering what you were thinking.  Were you confused?  Were you worried?  You never seemed upset - you played and ran around and ate raisins and Cheerios and drank milk and water pretty much the way you always do.  Molly, our dog, was way more upset than you were.  Molly seemed frantic, and kept barking her head off.  I think she was worried that we were going to leave her behind.  I like to think that the fact that you were so unconcerned is an indication of the immensity of your sense of security.  I hope you feel so safe that it would never even occur to you that it would be possible for Mom & Dad to leave you behind. 

On the 7th we went to the doctor for your well-baby checkup, and you got two more shots (the last ones for "a long time," according to the doctor!).  You also got weighed and measured, and as the doctor says, he's running out of options to talk about just how big you are compared to all of the other babies your age.  "I've already said she's 'bigger than 95th percentile," he said.  "I guess now I can put 'even bigger'!"  You weigh 31 pounds 5 ounces, and you are 33 1/2 inches tall.  THEY say (some of them do, anyway), that a person's adult height will be twice their height at two years of age.  You aren't two yet, of course, but if you double your current height, you will end up at 5'7", an inch taller than I am.  We think you will be a tall girl.  Almost everyone who sees you thinks that you are older than you really are.  You have 11 teeth now, at various levels of protrusion from your gums, including four pointy molars.  Your hair is getting longer and curlier all the time. 

You walk like a pro now.  For a long time, you only wanted to walk on flat surfaces like our floor, a sidewalk, or a parking lot.  You wanted nothing to do with any crazy uneven grassy surfaces, with their bumps and valleys, all covered by a layer of fuzzy green stuff that prevented you from seeing the bumps and valleys.  Lately you have decided that maybe the grassy stuff is ok, too, maybe because when you fall down, the earth beneath you is softer than a sidewalk.  In any case, now when I walk across the grass and call for you to follow me, you will.  Last weekend you played in the sprinkler in the back yard with our friend Arek while Heather and your Dad watched and I took pictures.  Over and over, you approached the sprinkler with great trepidation, winced, ran through the water like you were stepping on hot coals, then ran straight to me, laughing hysterically, and clung to my leg.  Arek thought you were so funny that he laughed so hard he cried. 

You seem to learn more words all the time.  A couple of weeks ago, I realized that when you walk to the door and pat it and say "asigh? asigh?" that you were trying to say "outside."  "Outside?" I asked you, and you nodded vigorously.  You also say: door, ice (you LOVE ice, which is good, because now when you get restless at a restaurant, we ask for a glass of ice, and we feed it to you piece by piece, and you are mostly content), dog, cat, hi.  You and I took a trip to Seattle a couple of weeks ago, and by the end of the trip you were calling your Uncle Josh "Joss."  You call your Dad "Da! Da!" Often when he is in the bathroom with the door shut, you like to stand on the other side of the door, rocking from side to side and yelling Da! Da! 

And sometimes, now, occasionally, you say "Ama," and I think that you mean me.  One night a couple of weeks ago you woke up after 10, after having been asleep for hours, and you were crying and crying.  Your Dad went in to try to calm you down so that I could go to bed, but you kept crying.  Sometimes you have a very strong preference for either your Dad or me - who knows why you have the particular preference on any particular day, but you do.  That night I went back to your bedroom door and poked my head in, "Does she want me?" I asked.  And I heard you say, "Ama?!" through your tears, and my heart melted and I didn't care anymore if I got to sleep right that minute or not. 

A couple of days ago I bought a new CD by a group called the innocence mission, and I brought it home and played some of it for you while we were eating dinner.  I played "Over the Rainbow," and you recognized the song and rocked back and forth and smiled your huge toothy smile.  You also recognized the next song, "What a Wonderful World," and after that I skipped ahead to "Edelweiss," which is the song that we have sung to you every night for months and months now, since you were 3 or 4 months old.  You didn't recognize it at first, so your dad and I started singing along with it, and your eyes got wide as you realized what the song was, and then you smiled.  If I haven't told you before, my sweet girl, you have an infectious and heartbreakingly beautiful smile. 

There is another song on that CD called "Bye-Lo," which apparently is an old traditional lullaby.  The second verse is "Mama will love you, Mama will love you, Mama will love you, All my life."  And while I listened, I got a lump in my throat, not just for me and you, but for this universal experience, for the way parents hold and rock and love their babies and sing them simple songs, for the way everything seems so simple then (now), and for the way parents keep loving those (former) babies no matter what happens later, no matter how complicated the relationships become.

So right now, that song is for you.  I want you to know that no matter how complicated things get between us, no matter how many fights we have, no matter how many things I say that make you roll your eyes, no matter how many times I get upset with you for refusing to do what I ask you to do, and no matter how many times I don't understand what you want or need or are trying to tell me, I hope you remember: mama will love you, mama will love you, mama will love you, all my life.  (Daddy will, too.)

Love,

Mama

Comments

[Krista]

Oh, what a sweet and poignant newsletter. I am getting much too emotional over here. Jessie, you understand the mind of a baby so well. I love you too baby Katie! Especially the smoocher in the last picture.

[Angie]

Wow, Jessie, I've always thought that you have an amazing way with words, but your letters to Katie take the cake. She is such a lucky little girl to have these to read when she gets old enough.

Thanks for sharing them with us too!

[Laura]

Jessie,

Lovely entry.

Re: painting Katie's room -- I didn't help with the painting of Gabrielle's room because I was expecting her at the time, but I did put clear Winnie the Pooh themed decals on the wall behind her changing table (two nights before her birth as it turned out). Every time she pats one, smiles at one, etc. it reminds me of when I put them up, before I knew her for real, and the memory + her enjoyment makes me so happy.

I can totally sympathize regarding tiny little girls who don't believe in reasonable bedtimes. It's been hot here and that plus the late sunset doesn't make for early bedtimes.

Laura

[Mike Harris]

Oh, my gosh, Jess, this was such an immensely beautiful letter ...

[Brandy]

I love your way with words! I have been reading your journal for so many years now... I'm not sure that I have ever left a comment, though. You are amazing.