Dear Elena,
Ah, sure, apologies and all that for not writing you a birthday letter since May. Second children, blah, blah. I really do think there are more picture of you, second child, so don’t worry. I love you the purplest.
A short summary of your last few months:
- June 24 (in Arlington, OR, at the playground): You stood by yourself, from crouching while hanging on to standing: “Look, Ma!”
Elena's first solo stand
- Also that week we were camping: You started waving. Clapping too, I think. You also signed “more” once and “milk” twice. That’s it for the sign language. I mean, reaching and making whiny noises works so well.
- You love waterfalls. The one we hiked to in the Wallowas made you smile.
Elena at the waterfall
- You like tents. You enjoy burrowing into puffy sleeping bags and bouncing off the tent walls.
- Late June: You realized that banging two objects together is pretty fun. And noisy.
Smiling on cue
- July 12: You got your first tooth.
- July 19: Second tooth. Now we’re feeding you filet mignon. Rare.
- Late July: You started taking directions. You’ll “shake the water off” if Daddy asks you to, shaking your head “no.” And you notice when someone is leaving and saying good-bye; you wave to them, even with only the prompt of good-bye language.
- July 27: You started walking, first taking a tentative three steps, as Gramma Mia and I looked on, not believing that Grampa had really only stepped out of the room for a moment. Within a couple of days, you were up to eleven steps, including stopping, crouching down, and picking up objects. Now you’re a toddler, definitely preferring walking to crawling. I’m not sure you realize yet that you’re allowed to bend your legs when you walk, so you really do toddle. I can’t even remember the last time you crawled (but it was probably yesterday. Please forgive me; I have two small children.).
- You dig ice cream. It’s required in this family.
- Within the past month, you’ve started to understand concepts that seem rather abstract to me. You’ll pick up my shoes, even Mary Janes with heels, shoes that don’t look anything like your shoes in color, type, or size, and you’ll try to put them on your feet. It’s the same with hats. You don’t have any baseball hats, but you’ll pick up my Yankees hat and place it on your head. And you’ll pick up anything with plentiful buttons on one side: old cell phones or remote controls, a calculator, (a cob of corn tonight; those are buttons, right?) and you’ll talk to your favorite person on it (Tephra?). Remember, too, that you live in a family where Daddy uses his cell phone for work, I don’t have a cell phone, and I spend perhaps an hour, total, on the land line each week.
Hip hip. That's what tigers say.
- Yesterday, at the end of a hike with Sylvan on the Amazon Headwaters trail, we crossed a bridge with safety wires placed closely enough that I felt I could let you do your own thing. You crouched down, picked up some Oregon ash seeds, and tossed them over the edge. As you’ve done from nearly Day 1, you started exploring on your own, testing gravity in this case – or at least having fun throwing stuff.
- You have three words that I recognize: dog (daw), cat (a-dat), and door (doh).
- You think the trampoline is great fun, but “how am I supposed to get off this thing?”
- And I almost forgot: you’re using the potty! Okay, you’re using your diaper, too, but I just sat you on the potty last week, and you figured, “Oh, I know what this is for.” And, without fail thus far, you’ve delivered. Today, at your one-year exam (30th percentile for height, 75th for weight – taking after Mommy), the doc essentially said, “Really? It seems too early.” I know, I know. And we have to get through the year of stubbornness and running away, but I’ll take using the potty instead of yucky diapers while I can.
From this to this in a year:
I love you, Elena, you and your sweet smile.
Love,
Mommy