Dearest David,
Last week you turned twenty months old. Last week! Shocking, isn’t it, that I’ve left writing your newsletter this late. I had more pressing things to do… like building brick towers, teaching you to thread beads, drawing, dealing with your demands for more juice (milk!) or another grape… that kind of thing!
We’ve been very sociable this month! We’ve been out and about at a slingmeet and picnics with various cloth-nappy-using people and had a wonderful time. I’m relieved to see that you don’t seem to have inherited my social awkwardness, you’re such a friendly and social little boy, and you make friends so easily. You’re gentle with babies smaller than you (you stroke their hair and say “aaaaah, baby!”) and this has transferred to the way you treat your toys- Tiger now gets carried around wrapped up in a blanket, fed milk, and has his nappy changed regularly. (He fits a medium Itti.)
You’re so bright, David. You can do playtray puzzles in five seconds flat; the shape sorter at incredible speed. You probably use 100+ words now (I can’t keep track, you learn so many every day) and understand everything we say to you. Whether you choose to do as you’re told is another matter, but at least we know that you’re able to understand! You love books- story books, word books, books of facts. You sit with your 100 Words books and name almost everything in them, as if we don’t know what those things are called, and I’m convinced you think we’re stupid.
Your favourite foods this month are grapes and apples and goats’ milk. And nothing else, apart from the occasional sausage. The milk must be served pink (Crusha, not Nesquik, because we don’t like companies who push formula in developing countries), although the tiniest splash of it will do- I’m sure you can’t taste it and it’s just a psychological thing. You also love ice cream, although you’re not allowed to have it any more- cows’ milk is causing you so many problems and I think it’s time for us to push for a dietician’s referral. You seem to have cottoned onto the whole cows’ milk= tummyache thing and won’t eat cheese on its’ own any more, you clever thing. Also? You are never eating Skittles again. That was an interesting sugar high.
You can climb and run and jump like a pro now. You’ve even managed to master the big climbing frame with the slide on at the park and frighten the life out of Grandma and Auntie Hester! You are utterly fearless. You love to tip cold water over yourself (and Daddy) in the bath, and I’m sure you’d do it to me if I let you play with the tap.
Your hair is getting really rather long. You hate having it washed, but that might have something to do with your mean mother accidentally washing it with tea tree shampoo and then getting it in your eyes. Still, I won’t cut it, I won’t bow to pressure to “just run the clippers through it”, because it doesn’t get in your way and I love it. So there.
It’s time for me to wind up, because it’s late and I have work to do. I love you, smellybum, and please stop this growing up thing, alright?
Love,
Mummy (and Daddy who’ll cry when he reads this, as usual)
This portrait hangs above my bed.
It’s funny, I take portraits for a living, and yet I can’t capture anybody in the same way I capture David. I have so many photos of him running and smiling and pulling funny faces, but this is the one I feel truly shows him the way he is, or, at least, the way he was at that moment in time.
I don’t have a good memory. I remember details, dates, times, little things, but I have to keep notes. David changes so rapidly that I need to keep taking these, need to keep track. Or else, it’s gone, and I can’t get it back.
And I want it back so much.
Dearest David,
On Friday you turned sixteen months old. This newsletter would have been published then, if you hadn’t decided to wake up and stay awake and HYPER!!! all night on Thursday.
I’m pleased to report that the behaviour I mentioned in the last newsletter has greatly improved. You’re just generally more chilled out, and we’ve found strategies that work for preventing the tantrums before they happen. (Thank you, parenting books!). You do still get frustrated when you’re trying to communicate and we don’t understand you, and you do have tantrums when you’re massively overtired, but it’s much, much better.
Talking of tiredness, Master David, you’ve decided that you don’t need to sleep any more. Thursday night was a case in point. It took half an hour of driving around to soothe you to sleep. We got you home, tucked you in, and went to the pub with Grandma keeping an ear out for you. We arrived back at about 11.15pm. Fifteen minutes later you were very, very awake, and you stayed that way until 2.30am. This will pass, I know, but please could you start sleeping again sooner rather than later?
Your favourite and most frequently used word this month is “again!”. You use it when you’ve run out of grapes or cheese, when Daddy swings you up in the air, when the cats run away from your attempts at affection. Everything is funny and everything must be repeated over and over again until you get bored. This takes a while, but watching you is so hillariously funny that neither Daddy or I mind.
You have a wicked sense of mischief which has really developed over the last month. Last night we left you running around in an undone vest and an Itti Bitti nappy. You disappeared from the living room and reappeared thirty seconds later, minus the nappy, grinning wildly. You can climb onto chairs, and the kitchen table, and the windowsill, and the sofa, and pretty much anywhere else you’re not really supposed to be. It’s wonderful to see your personality developing in this way.
Your eating has improved again. You actually managed to eat a piece of pasta, WITH SAUCE ON, and not die from the horror in the process. And then you ate the whole bowl. You’ve discovered that you like toast again, and eggy bread, and peas, and sausages. We can give you a bowl and a fork and a spoon and let you get on with dinner without everything ending up on the floor- it’s nice to not have to load your fork for you or hold your plate down.
We’ve spent a lot of the last two or three weeks outside, as the weather has been glorious. For some reason (unknown to your father and I, who are both a little geeky and therefore allergic to sunlight) you love it, and would happily spend hours running around the garden in a nappy and a t-shirt. Yesterday was the first day in weeks where it wasn’t nice enough to go out, and you were as miserable as the weather to begin with.
For some reason you seem happier now, more secure. You’re very generous with your hugs for all and sundry, and you’re much calmer: I actually managed to change your nappy without a fight yesterday morning. (Let’s not discuss nappies and what’s landed in your collection this month right now, that’s a whole other blog post, and will probably be written when I’m less sleep-deprived.) You have many more calm moments than you used to: you’ve actually learned to sit still!
I’m going to wind up now, because it’s 10pm, and chances are you’ll be awake soon.
I love you, son, and I can’t wait to see what the next months and years will bring.
Mummy (and Daddy who will cry when he reads this.)