octolilly [through the years]

My sweet Drew,

You are 21 months old today!

Last night was your first night sleeping in your crib with the front side removed. For a few nights we’ve let you sleep on your mattress while it was just on the floor but it ended up feeling like a giant sleepover every single night. You would scatter blankets and pillows everywhere and one night I came in to check on you and you were UNDERNEATH the sofa chair. Your tiny head was sticking out. Snoring.

We still haven’t bought you a real toddler bed (and probably won’t for another month or so) but we knew that just having the mattress on the floor wasn’t a clear enough distinction of This Is Your Bed. Please Stay On It.

Daddy put your crib back together last night and you waltzed through the doorway of your room and saw it and shouted, “BED!” The minute we put your mattress in it, you ran full force and shimmied up onto it and I said, “want to go night-night?” and you laid your head right down and grinned like a little weasel. Of course, I’m not sure if weasel’s grin. But if they do, I think your smiles would be similar. Sneaky-like.

I kept the baby box (the baby monitor) on the edge of the nightstand all last night and had the volume turned up extra high. I wanted to hear your first thump so I could come rescue you.

Apparently, I had enough pillows and blankets on the floor to protect your fall because I NEVER heard a thump or a cry from you. But I checked on you in the middle of the night and sure enough, you were in the floor. All curled up, snoring. I tucked you back in and hoped you’d stay put. This morning I opened your bedroom door to find you back in the floor again.

You got really sleepy this afternoon and so we trekked upstairs so I could tuck you in for a nap. I forgot your juice cup downstairs so I just left you in your room while I scooted back downstairs. You screamed and cried and banged on the door shouting OPEN DOOR. OPEN DOOR.

When I came back in, just a few minutes later, this is what I found:

You were so sleepy that you climbed into bed by yourself, wrapped the big snuggly blanket all around you and went off to sleep.

It’s just really amazing that you are big enough to whirl around through the room, jump onto your bed, shimmy down quickly, and when hearing Daddy outside your bedroom door after his long day at work to say, “Daddy? Open door!”

You are actually talking quite a lot. You know a gazillion words. But you have been stringing them into small sentences for a few months now. “Peese, mihk?” “Turn music iPod on?” “Wheresa Daddy?” “Daddy work!” Those are just a few of the phrases you regularly say now.

The stairs are currently your favorite thing in the world. You call them steps. Which is fine. Because they ARE steps. And you say “down steps” and “up steps” for downstairs and upstairs. You scoot down them on your bottom sometimes but mostly just on your tummy. Not head first. I didn’t allow your Daddy to teach you that. 😉

The tiny kitchen we bought you for Christmas is still something you are enjoying (your Daddy taught you to put your stuffed penguin inside the oven and now you bake your penguin on most days, which is horrid but very, very cute). Interestingly, you have figured out how to take the entire kitchen APART! I found the sink in your bed the other night. What could you possibly need to wash in your bed?

But for all the toys and wonderful wigglies that your family and friends gave you at Christmas (and boy, you got A LOT and folks were really generous), you still love the mundane everyday types of items that you find in the house. In fact, you sometimes love them more. Which would have saved us a LOT of money if you’d just sent us an email.

Rolls of tape are your current fascination. You started calling them sticker rolls this morning. I’m not sure how you figured out how to pull a piece of tape off but you did. Our sticker rolls are now starting to become depleted. But you still can’t get the duct tape roll to “open” and for that, I’m grateful. All we need is for you to discover how wonderful duct tape is.

You are still fighting a cold (I’m calling it the Fungus of the Bungus because I’ve never seen so much snot and tears all mixed together and snears or tot don’t quite get it). It’s miserable to see you so fussy and sick.

But even in the midst of your funk, you have a few bright spots in your day.

It’s normally when you start running the circle through the living room, kitchen, and dining room. You get started and then CANNOT STOP. You wiggle your head back and forth and giggle and get really dizzy. I imagine it’s like being on drugs.

Hmm. I might try that if I get in a funk. The running around in a circle. Not the drugs.

You also forget about being so sniffly and coughing up both lungs when you start driving your cars ALL over the house. Even on the grandfather clock.

I’m hoping the cold is over soon. I want you to be able to play more and enjoy some of your new toys and I’d really like to get out of the house more. I know you LOVE it when we go outside and since we haven’t been out much at all lately, I think we’re both getting stir crazy.

Your daddy took us out for dinner last night and when we got out of the car and headed towards the restaurant, you looked up at the sky and said “ceiling?”

I think that was a major clue that we need to get outside more often. So. Please get better soon. I’m trying to help you with all the Vitamin C and hugs and warm baths and chicken noodle soup and picture-time.

Picture-time is when we curl up with Elsa, my laptop, and scroll through my pictures and videos and look at family. You absolutely LOVE doing this. I’m so impressed that you can remember faces and names of people you don’t see very often.

You even remember them at odd moments during the day. Yesterday you asked where Wilma was when I was pouring some milk into your juice cup. And this morning you asked where Gammie was when we opened the front door to wait for the Oil Man to deliver some more oil so we can be warm. And a few minutes ago I heard you whispering Poppy, Poppy, Poppy while playing with your dump truck.

It’s obvious that you have an imagination and memories. I think, perhaps, that the best way to sum up how different you are at 21 months is that you love to pretend now. Your pretend phrase is “doot da doot” and I hear it a lot when you drive bananas pieces around on the table.

I love you so much it hurts.

Mommy is struggling right now with thoughts on faith and it feels at times like perhaps my depression is back. But when you peek around the corner and grin so widely that I see all your precious teeth, you don’t know how much you help heal my soul.

And when you whisper night-night to me and say I LUFF YOU in the dark, you don’t see the tears that pour down my face.

Your Daddy and I thought we had to be out of our minds when we decided to have you. We weren’t in the best place financially, or even emotionally. We were still new at marriage and it was all we could do to stay best friends at the end of our long work days.

But we ached for you. And God blessed us with you.

We hope and pray that we can show you love and grace for years, and years, until we are both gray and have grand-babies and great-grand-babies scurrying around our feet.

But I don’t know what our future holds. I have wept this week as I’ve read stories of families who have lost their sweet children at a young age. I simply cannot comprehend losing you. It feels wrong to even write about it.

But if God grants us the sweet blessing of long days ahead, I want you to someday read these words and know that I do not take our precious days for granted.

And when I see you sound asleep, I will snap pictures of you and giggle at how one day you will be in awe that you were so tiny.

And we will smirk about how it looks like you are about to start disco dancing.

I love you! A bushel and a peck. And a hug around the neck.

Love, Mommy

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Drew, Letters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.