February 17, 2011
Dear Nicky,
You were a busy little bee this month. You added two new words to your vocabulary, for a total of three (if you don’t count “uh-oh” and animal noises). The first was “no”, which I’m sure will get a lot of use over the coming years. The second was “hi”. One of my favorite moments this month was when we were sitting on a bench at the running trail and you were waving and saying “hi” to all the people who went by. You got so many smiles and I’m sure I’m not biased when I say that everyone loved you!
Making friends is one of your favorite activities. You aren’t shy around other people and you LOVE other kids. Sadly, your best friend at school has been promoted to the next class so now you’re a little lonely at school, but we still run into her on the playground and on our way in and out of school every once in a while. Even though neither of you can talk yet you get so excited to see each other and have full on conversations in lion roars and pointing, I kid you not.
Your play has gotten so much different lately. You push all of your wheeled toys along on the ground, pretending that they’re driving and saying “vroom, vroom”. You make your animals walk along surfaces and roar. You love to pretend to talk on the phone. But one of your favorite types of activity lately is organizing and cleaning. You love taking things out of containers just so you can putt them back. One of your favorite iterations of this game is to take all of the bottles out of the fridge door, and then try to put them back. I’m just waiting for that one to end in disaster. Although, if it did I’m sure I could count on you to help pick up the mess. You’re very good at helping me clean up the chucked food around your highchair after meals. You insist on closing any open cupboard that you see. We can’t have the dishwasher open without you trying to help unload the silverware. You love to help sweep and to hold the cord when I’m vacuuming. But my favorite cleaning habit you have is that about once a day you walk into the kitchen, grab a hanging dishtowel, and then take it into the dining room to clean the windows. What a helper!
I wish that this tendency to clean extended to your toys, but sadly it doesn’t…yet. We end up playing a version of Where’s Waldo with the computer mouse whenever you touch it. Since it’s so portable it travels with you wherever you go in the house and you deposit it somewhere in plain sight where it just blends into the background. I’m starting to understand why FarFar Roger super glued all of his remotes to large pieces of plywood when daddy was little. When it comes to technology, you still love the laptop- especially to watch videos of yourself- but you definitely don’t think we should be wasting our time with it. Without fail, within 10 seconds of opening up the laptop, you march over and happily close it every time. You’re patiently teaching us to focus on the important things (namely you) – thank you!
Everything about you helps us put the important things in perspective. We’re so lucky to have you around!
Love,
Mommy