Dear Timothy,
You are 20 months old today.
You are 30.5 inches tall.
You weigh 25 lbs.
You are becoming quite a little person. You've always had personality, but you're starting to show that you have a sense of humor and also a strong sense of what you want and when. You're such a strong little boy, and I see a future of leadership for you.
You adore your socks and shoes. You spend a good portion of your morning pulling each and every sock out of your sock drawer, unmating them, handing them to me, taking them back, putting them in the drawer, taking them out, and on and on and on.
You love spoons! Every morning, you'll come in to the kitchen, spy out a specific spoon and bug me to death with "pleases" until I get it for you. It then becomes the Spoon of the Day. You carry it around and chew on it and stir your toys and your socks and other things you find in drawers and bins with it. Sometimes you'll keep that same spoon for a couple of days, and other times you'll trade it out after naptime.
You're speaking so much these days. You chatter on and on like a little monkey, but you also say several words:
remote = ma-mote
socks = dauckx
shoes = sounds kind of like a cross between "juice" and "chews"
milk = mi-mi
please =peas
thank you = nee naw!
potty and diaper are the same word = boppy
Diesel = Deedo
all done = aldi
steps = dessssssss
go = do
nose = no
mouth = mau
teeth = tee
oh maaan! = oh maaaan! (you say this at exactly the right moment! The other day you didn't make it to the potty on time and you looked down at the puddle at your feet and said, "oh maaaaaan!!")
uh oh = uh oh (you say this whenever something gets dropped. sometimes, though, you say this even when you've thrown an item on purpose. We're working on it!)
You're doing pretty well with sign language still. "Milk" is one sign you know for sure, and you've started saying "mi-mi", just to make sure there's no mistaking what you want (of course, pulling down my shirt and putting your hands down my shirt are other more subtle, but helpful signs for me to know what's going on). I guess it's a good thing that MoMo really did NOT want to be called Mimi, huh?
You also know how to sign and say "Please". I've gotta admit, I love that you use it. You signed alone for about 2 days and then started saying the word. Now, half the time, you don't even sign, but if you especially want something, you pull out both barrels. You look at what you want and say "peas!? peas!?" in a really high-pitched voice. It gets frustrating because you don't understand what "show me" or "what do you want?" mean. You think I should know what you want and you get upset because you said please but I'm not giving you what you want. You're teaching me how wonderful good communication is in a relationship!
We're working on "thank you". Currently, you say "Nee-Naw!" when you're trying to say "thank you". I know what you mean because of how you use it. You started saying it when you'd hand me your socks out of your sock drawer because that's what I tell you when you hand me your socks. Monkey see, monkey do! You know the sign for it, but you'll only do it when prompted; it's not automatic yet. "Thank you" is a hard concept, anyway, I think. "Please" is easier because it you don't say it, you don't get what you want, but with "thank you", you've already gotten what you want, so why are you saying something else? Nonetheless, you've gotten to the point where you'll say thank you whenever you're prompted and sometimes you'll say it without prompting.
A few months ago, Daddy and I got bikes and we got a little bike trailer for you and now we take a family bike ride almost every day! At first, you hated the trailer, but the seat design is not supportive (it's basically just a canvas hammock, which they do so that they trailer can be folded up for storage and transport), so your head got pushed forward which caused your helmet (tiny helmets are SO cute!) to push down over your eyes. I finally busted out my
crazy-good uh
mediocre-at-best (oh, who am I kidding?) lousy sewing skills and made a little pillow and velcroed it to the back of the seat, so now you sit forward and your feet touch the bottom and you LOVE bike rides! You just watch out your windows and chatter to us and every time a dog barks you say "Dee-do? Dee-do?". It's been a lot of fun. More than once, you've fallen asleep in there, so I guess it must be a pretty smooth ride.
You play very well by yourself. There will be whole mornings or afternoons go by where I'll be working in a room and you'll be in there with me, but you'll just be playing quietly. You like to take toys out of one container and put them into another. Of course you always have your Spoon of the Day with you, which somehow amplifies your fun. You also like to sit and look at books, and I'm so glad about that! Both your Daddy and I hope that you grow up to be a reader.
You have 9 teeth. You're working on 3 more, but I'm not optimistic that you'll have them anytime soon. siiiigh. I'd really like to be done with teething now! (just in case peer pressure works on you right now, you should know that Asa has 12 teeth and Ty has 8, and they are both younger than you. Just sayin'!)
You don't sleep. It's been months since you slept more than 3 hours at a time, and in all reality (although I don't like to admit it because that makes it true!), you actually wake up closer to every 2 hours. I'm REALLY ready to be done with this! Let's go back to
March 6, please!
You have learned a lot of animal names and sounds. You don't say any of
the names, but as soon as you see a picture of one that you recognize,
you say the sound it makes!
You also know how to say and find the following body parts: teeth, tongue, mouth, eyes, hair, nose, knees, feet, hands, tummy button, elbow
Bath time is no big deal for you these days. I'm not sure when the switch happened, but it really was like a switch got flipped. One day you hated baths (the actual bathing part, not the play-with-toys-and-water part) and the next you were just fine with getting your hair wet and being soaped. It's still not your favorite thing to do, but you don't scream bloody murder when it happens. Thank goodness!
Every day you understand us more and more. You're able to follow small commands like "take it to daddy", "put it on the shelf", "put it in the sock drawer", and "shut the door". You don't always manage to remember what you've been asked to do, but you do pretty well. The other day, I was cleaning in my room and you were rustling around in the other room. I thought you were playing with your toys, but then you waltzed into my room carrying a new roll of toilet paper, and I knew you'd been in the bathroom cupboards. I told you "you go put that back!" and you just turned right around and waddled your way back to the bathroom and very carefully placed the roll on top of the package. It was so cute to watch! I'm having to be careful about giving you orders, though. Somewhere along the line, I got into the habit of repeating my commands as soon as I'd given them. I've been saying things like "Put it in your sock drawer. Put it in your sock drawer." without giving you any time to do anything about it! I'm not sure why I started doing that, but I've been working on it, and you know what? You're perfectly able and willing to help even when I just say it once.
You love to "do" (go). Whenever you want to go outside, you head for the door saying "do? doooo?" Your voice gets higher pitched with every repetition. Once we're outside, what you do depends on which door we've used. If we go out back, you wander around, follow Deedo, dig in the dirt, swing, push around your lawnmower, or step up and down off the back step. If we go out front, you make a beeline for the sidewalk and take off on a walk. You don't go in the street or on the grass, but you love to go walking down the sidewalk, stepping on every little thing and chattering on and on.
I could keep talking about all the things you do and how quickly you're growing and learning and changing, but this letter would never end. Instead, I'll close with cute pictures.
I love you, baby boy.
Love,
Mama
