18 months of Grace

March 6, 2017

Dear Big Girl Grace,

As of yesterday, you are… 18 months old! Your dad and I decided that once you turn 18 months, you are really no longer a baby, but a big toddler. You’re a big girl, my Grace!

The bigger you get, the more wonderful. It is so exciting to watch you learn new words, new

ways to play, new skills. You are more and more like a little person, who loves and engages and responds.

At 18 months old, you are a very good big sister – as we knew you would be! The first time you met your brother Isaac, you looked at him curiously, then walked right over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. It is one of our favorite moments ever! Since then, you have continued always to be ready to give Isaac a kiss or a friendly pat. You like to help burp him, and look very satisfied with yourself when you do. You rock his cradle for him, and cover him with a blanket. Sometimes, if a bottle or pacifier is around, you try to feed him or give him a binky to calm him down. You are a very good, very helpful big sister, and we are so eager to see how your relationship with your little brother will grow and change and deepen as you get older.

Grace meets Isaac

You are a very busy little girl. You are always on the move, either walking or running around the house, or rearranging your toys, or pulling all the books off the shelf in order to find the one you want, or reading one of those books aloud. You love going for walks with me, and can even walk the .3 miles to daycare all on your own (you’ve even done the round

 trip with no trouble!). You have several toys that are your favorites, including Pinky (your bear), your Dolly, Bebe, Monkey, your toy food, and then of course an assortment of toys that are not really toys, like the recycling bin and the laundry basket and diaper covers (clean or dirty, it matters not). Especially since Isaac entered the picture, you have become very mothering to your various “babies,” feeding them and patting them and putting them to bed (often in Isaac’s car seat or cradle). It warms my heart beyond description when you hold you doll and sway and sing to her, just like I have done for you so many times and like you see me do with Isaac. It tells me that these moments are as important to you as they are to me. I’m so glad!

Trying to catch a picture
of an 18mo girl on the move!

You love to sing, which delights your dad and me so much. Lately your favorite songs are the ABCs/Twinkle Twinkle (you can sing this whole tune by yourself!), If You’re Happy and You Know It (such a big grin on your face when you get to clap and stomp!), and Old McDonald (you jump in on the E-I-E-I-O part at the right place and on the right pitch!). You also sing a variety of your own compositions, always quite earnestly, with a very serious look on your face. You take your music-making seriously. Of course you also have an assortment of hand percussion and a little recorder that you like to play as well. Just tonight, you and I had a little jam session on a tin-turned-drum right before bed. You are definitely going to be a musician of some sort!

Mama's shoes are shiny!

You are a very smart little girl. You seem to understand most of what we say, and respond well to commands. Today you had a runny nose and you took the tissue out of the box, touched it to your nose, and when I asked you to throw it away you said, “Yeah,” and walked it through the living room, into the kitchen, and opened the garbage (that is taller than you are) and put it in. Smart girl! You can say a few words very clearly, and several more we have figured out, including: yeah, uh-oh, Dada, bottle, baby, down (which also means up), shoes, cheese, banana (“nana”), hot, hat, ball, door, thank you (“dee-doo” or sometimes, “do-dee”), dog, and you can whine like Klaus (and do, any time you hear a dog bark). And “Ba-ba” seems to be a general, “I want that.” You do pretty well with that limited vocabulary!

You love to wear your coat and sometimes ask for it inside, and you also love your hat. (“Hat? Hat??” Then you lean over for us to put it on.) But your very favorite thing is your shoes. We let you choose your shoes each day, and sometimes after they are on, you bring us a second pair to put on, too. You desperately want to put them on yourself, and regularly practice this skill, both on yourself and on your doll. You have recently discovered our shoes, which are much easier to get on. This week, you found one of your dad’s “slides,” walked around in it, then went over to his shoes, searched for the match, found it, and put that on as well. You were so pleased with

yourself! We were pretty pleased with you, too.

Of course, you are a toddler, and so you have your share of melt downs, as you try to figure out emotions and how to express them with your limited language skills. We are doing our best to help you with this. But all in all, we can’t complain. You are a great eater, an amazing sleeper (so is Isaac – you are now sharing your room with him!), and you are charming and delightful almost all of the time. Strangers regularly tell us how charming you are. Just today the nurse told you that you had made her day. We think you are pretty darn special, my sweet Grace!

                                                                                       Much love, my sweet,

                                                                                                Mama