Here’s my entry for Tara’s Gallery at Sticky Fingers- head over there and have a look around at the other entries!
Are words really necessary here?
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 is my entry for Tara’s Gallery at Sticky Fingers. Why not head over there and have a look at the other entries?
It was only in June last year that my sweet little baby looked like this…
He was all big grey eyes and long whiskers and soft honey-coloured fur, with a squeak that melted your heart. He snuggled me nonstop. He was a lovely-mannered kitten, Snowball and Wily kept him well under control, and he was an absolute joy.
And now?
One hulking great teenager, who could eat ten times his bodyweight, who will do anything for food, who brings dead birds and mice inside and leaves them in the bedroom as presents for us. Admittedly, he’s still a heartbreaker, still a lovely snuggly affectionate cat who likes nothing better than to plonk himself down on my laptop keyboard and present his tummy for a rub while I work. Snowball still has control over the food bowls and keeps him well in line, and he and Wily have developed the kind of cameraderie that comes from months of being bossed around by, shock horror, a GIRL!
I do miss that sweet little kitten, but I love my stroppy teenage cat even more. Maybe it’s good preparation for twelve years’ time, when this little monster decides to do the same thing!
