Tonight you literally tackled me when I came home from work. While you weren’t actually walking when you tackled me, you crawled really fast and then sort of pounced on me. You’ve clearly been watching football with your daddy again. Only Terry Tate “Office Linebacker” puts the pain on people like that, girl. Next time you pull something like that on me, I wanna hear a “WOOO WOOO!! PAIN TRAIN!!” out of you first.

Little one, you are doing such awesome things this past month that I cannot keep up with your changes. You literally evolve faster than I can type this letter, faster than I can compose the thoughts into cogent sentences, even. It’s so apparent that you are hurtling about a hundred miles an hour to toddlerhood right now, and Lord knows I’m in way over my head over here. Despite my feelings of inadequacy, you have been a source of non-stop comedy for me and your daddy. Let’s review, shall we?

Your Second Halloween. Remember this? You were THE cutest Sock Monkey Baby this side of the Mississippi. Good Lord your mother COULD NOT snap you in correctly into your costume, thus the effect was that you looked a little misshapen in the lower limb areas, which is, oddly enough, common in most variations of actual sock monkeys. I’m sure no one noticed because you were so blindingly adorable with a tail.

The Catastrophic Shit Storm of 2008. Reese, I saved you from putting poop in your gob but I couldn’t save the bathmat from your arial assault. I have managed to restore the general cleanliness of the bathroom, but not without copious amounts of bleach, scrubbing, and perhaps some swearing. As a new mother, I realize these lessons sometimes come hard and fast and often times they are disgusting and horrible and smeared everywhere. LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN.

Fascination with the Toilet Paper Dispenser and Mad Housewrecking Skillz: you’re quickly earning your street cred as an efficient destroyer of all things tidy and neat. Don’t think for a second that I haven’t noticed you hungrily eyeing up that toilet paper dispenser for the past few weeks. I suspected you were preparing for your inevitable assault, and what absolute joy you would derive from denuding the single-ply sheets from their hapless cardstock core . That toilet paper roll might as well have a huge neon sign on it, garishly blinking “THIS IS AWESOME“. You. Were. Transfixed. I knew that I could police the bathroom all I wanted, but you are crafty and diligent and you would have your way with the toilet paper. OH YES. Now I have the video proof of your calculated and deliberate assailment and the satisfaction it brought you.

The Beginning of The Yap Yap. We’re trying catch you saying Dada or Mama but instead your response thus far has taken the form of a string of the most complicated consonants and vowels and intonations that cannot be phonetically spelled. We have also noticed that you love to talk to, or talk about, everything. You talk to your books, you talk to your stuffed toys. You have conversations with yourself, in your crib, when you wake up every day. You chatter on, explaining what everything is in your lilting baby voice and it really has become one my favorite sounds (next to your father saying “You’re right, honey” or “I’ll clean the kitchen, you just relax”). I think I might look into making podcasts of your conversations so I can take you to work to drown out my cube neighbor or otherwise known as The Guy Who Watches Movies At a Reasonable Volume While Working.

Speaking of books: this next bit will please the book-loving grandmothers that you have. Reese, I’ve never really seen a pre-toddler get SO into books as you have recently. I didn’t read to you earlier in your short life only because the only things that you seemed to enjoy was crying, CRYING LOUDLY, or getting boob. You were always kind of like “meh” and considered books to be in interesting only in the capacity that you could rip their pages out or throw them on the floor or put them in your mouth. Something this month has changed in you, and now… you don’t destroy the books anymore, but you review them over and over again. And your favorites (i.e. any of the “Peekaboo Baby” tomes) are ones that we will read several times a night before bed. You’ll pick out a book, drag it over to me, scramble up into my lap and proceed to look at each page. When finished with the fifth or sixth pass of said book, I try to introduce a new one but you push the new book away in protest, insisting Not this book! THAT book. THAAAAT BOOK!! GAAAH!! So, we’ll “read” your preferred book until I cannot manage the requisite sing-song “PEEKABOO” any more.

REESE. YOUR WILL. IT HAS BEEN MADE KNOWN.

So my doctor once told me that the span of four to eight months is considered the “Golden Age of Babies”: named such as this is the time frame where babies start to exhibit interactive behaviors, start to eat foods not originating from boobs, and are not typically mobile (which I’m quickly finding out was a good thing). Right now, the rate at which you absorb and then demonstrate your new-found knowledge is dizzying enough to me, but the really amazing part is how much I’m learning about you. I’m thinking my doctor is wrong. I think the Golden Age is starting right now. It’s like a switch has been flipped recently, and you can so accurately mimic our sounds and motions and routines. Tonight, you watched me do the “cheek pop” with my finger over and over. And you know what? You attempted to make the same sound, using the same motions, and then you laughed that glorious hiccup-laugh that tickles my soul.

This month you’ve learned to grunt (like your daddy), blow kisses (to your momma), wreck the toilet paper, brush your teeth with your special toothbrush, brush *my* teeth with the same toothbrush, and whenever you take a drink of any beverage, you make that “ahhhhhhhhhhhh” sound of utter refreshment every single time. I think it’s the same sound I make when I pick you up out of the crib each morning, hug you tightly, and breathe you in.

Love,

Momma

NEW! NIPPLE-SHAPED! DOORBELL!

5 years of homeownership, and for only the first 2 months did our old doorbell work. 1 new transformer, new chime, and doorbell nipple later… DING DONG, BABY! DIIING DOONNNG!

Despite appearances, The Pink One has been fighting an insidious and stubborn stuffy nose. This, however, has not stopped her from playing with all of her toys and reading most of her books.

Later this week I’ll post a video clip of Reese getting into other mischief, as pre-toddlers are inclined to do.

Now I have a great big pile of toilet paper.

Who has been calling Reese all night long?

Most of the time I spend with my daughter does not have much to do with poop.

In fact, prior to the evening past, I could count on one hand the number of times that we’ve had some mishap with a poorly aligned diaper, or perhaps a diaper that has “runneth over”.  However, last night may go down in history as the most disastrous fecal-related incident that I have ever known.

Those with delicate constitutions may want to skip the next couple of paragraphs.

I was alone that night as Chris was out for orchestra practice, so it was just me and baby girl.  The night was going pretty well, the girl was in good spirits for the most part. There was no warning of things to come; nothing really could have prepared me for what was going to happen during bath time. I mean, you just don’t read about events like this in all those baby books you get as a first-time parent.

Bath time started out innocently enough: Filling her big plastic tub with warm water, her toys floating aimlessly in the rising flood. It was time to chase down the ankle biter and strip her down for the tub. And strip her down I did! Diaperless, she screeched and panted and scooted down the hallway, back towards the nursery. I chased her, eliciting yet more breathless giggles.

Scooping her up, I walk back down the hallway with a squirmy, kicky, naked baby. I laid her down on the bathmat for only a moment as I turned to pull a towel out of the closet.

That was when I smelled it.

At first, I thought it was just her passing gas. My daughter, farting up a storm in the schooled tradition of a drunk frat boy. But this. This was stronger.

I turned back to pick her back up and…

SHIT. WAS. EVERYWHERE.

I dropped the towel I was holding to snatch her hand, which was literally milliseconds from placing a gob of poo into her pie hole. Poop was all over the bathmat, on the side of the bathtub, on the floor, all over the baby. It was pretty much my single worst nightmare of parenting, and it was there in full, odious technicolor.

Imagine this: You, trying to keep a shit-covered baby from squirming all over the place, “spreading the wealth” as it were, AT THE SAME TIME you are desperately trying to reach for ANYTHING to clean up all of that poop or at the very least CONTAIN IT. On top of all that, you also have to also keep her from PUTTING HER OWN WASTE INTO HER MOUTH.

New parents, let my example be a warning to you: If you are going to bathe your baby, PLEASE remember to keep the diaper fully locked in the upright position. Unless of course you are okay with pressure washing the inside of your bathroom and your baby.

There just isn’t enough bleach in the world to make that bathmat feel clean again.

IN UR HOWSE. WEARIN UR HATZ.

Yes. Yes, all those articles of clothing reside in my closet.  Though a pair of my funky socks had to die for my “sleeves” as you might see in other photos. 2 kinds of fishnet stockings, 2 tank tops, 3 skirts, and 2 belts.
DIY. I live thee and love thee.

Yeaaaaaah. After a 12 hour day and 13 hour day back to back, I sort of fell flat on “Harajuku Girl” and it became more like “Punk Girl”.  Oh well. I looked dope.  Not as dope as KittehBeth. MEEEEEYYOOW.
We had KittehBeth and her friend Miss Molly helping to hand out chocolates while Punk Girl and Sock Monkey Baby canvassed the neighborhood and collected choice candies.  Hell. Yeah.

We just blew way the heck past your actual thirteenth month birthday. How did that happen? YOU’RE NOT OLD ENOUGH TO BE ASKING SUCH QUESTIONS.

Right now, we’re more like thirteen and a half months into the writing of this Letter. We have a lot to cover, so I’ll summarize in a nice and tidy list:

What’s AWESOME This Month

1) The relationship you have with my boobs is NOW OFFICIALLY OVER. It’s done. I was afraid I would miss nursing you. Isn’t that crazy? That I would miss being the one person who could instantly smooth over any bad mood AND put you to bed in a comforting way, who would have guessed? So far it’s only been 2 weeks of booblessness, but you don’t really to seem to miss it much at all. (I won’t mention the part where you yanked my shirt down this morning and giggled at my right boob.)

Now I’m going to share something dreadfully adorable with my readership that may embarass you when we bring this up in dinner conversation when you’re sixteen: Do you remember the moments just before I would nurse you? You would giggle. No, really. You did. You would get really excited and giggle in anticipation of boob. It was so odd, but it always made me feel like my heart would burst with happiness that anyone would be so glad to see my boobs.  Now that I don’t nurse you anymore… you have transferred that special giggle to other things. For example, you giggle in anticipation for breakfast in the morning. Specifically, you giggle for bananas. We’re not talking about that Gerber-fied mush in a jar.  We’re talking authentic Chiquita bananas. YOU LOVE THEM. YOU LOVE THEM MORE THAN MY BOOBS.

2) Do you even realize how cute you are when you talk? I mean, I don’t know if you’ve actually said much more than “Bisshhh bissshhh” or  “Bay Bee Buh Buh Bah Buh” but I think we had a “Dah Dee” last night. Oh, yeah, and on occasion I have heard a “Mahmahmahmahmah” out of you too. You seem to understand a lot more than you can say right now, so I’m not concerned. If you take after your Mama in any way, you most likely won’t have a problem with talking.

Really, take it from anyone who knows your Mama.

3) Walking! You’re not doing it yet! But you are TRYING. You love to practice walking. I love to practice with you, although I have to take breaks to wipe tears of laughter from my eyes because when you walk, you have the determined gait of a besotted sailor.

4) Crawling! At high rates of speed AND daring heights! Currently, you have become bored with the pedestrian “flat” landscape and have opted to scale the graduated terrain of the central staircase at the Winthrop Manor. It would be irresponsible of me to suggest that you scale the mount unescorted, so to ease the concern of our dedicated readership I will assure them you never climb them alone.

5) One more thing: You’ve started eating WAY more food than before. I think the uptick in eating is related to your imminent growth spurt and your walking practice.

What’s NOT AWESOME This Month

1) The sheer size and volume of your waste output has increased THREE FOLD. And by THREE FOLD I’m referring to the number of diapers you can soak though in a single night.

2) TEETHING. Oh My Dear Goodness, teething is such a bad time. Between the fever spike, the loose stool, the resulting diaper rash from the poopy diapers and then the pain…damn molars!  The only upshot to the teething is you’ve found a way for us to reuse the endless political propaganda mailers IS BY CHEWING THEM INTO A PULPY MESS. Take THAT John Patrick Carney and your NON STOP JUNK MAIL!

Uhhhm… That’s pretty much it. I really can’t think of anything that was NOT AWESOME this month. I mean, aside from me not getting around to writing this two weeks ago.

What’s AWESOME Right This Very Minute

You sit about 6 feet from me, sitting with your Fisher-Price nursery rhyme radio. You are wiggling back and forth in time to Pop Goes The Weasel, and it is ridiculously sweet. You got moves, girl.  That will come in handy if you’re ever challenged to a street-hop dance off.

Love,

Momma

I’m thrilled to announce Chris has recently accepted a promotion to a new role within his company to “Supervisor, Quality Control”. It’s a field that’s a little different from his previous role as “Configuration Management Engineer”, but he’s stoked to have gotten the position. Congratulations, honey. We’re very proud of you!

And here is a picture of baby girl and her daddy. I’m not sure what they are doing, but they sure look busy doing it. Perhaps they are working together on Reese’s own career development plan?

You know, some people have pet monkeys that are better behaved.

I guess The Pink One couldn’t resist the buttery golden toasted wheat bagel, but that’s no excuse for poor manners.

I want my bagel back bagel back bagel back, gimmee my bagel back bagel back bagel back…

The wonderful Bark Park in Powell is closing it’s doors due to low membership numbers. This saddens me because it’s a very nice property and we had met a lot of our greyhound friends there. So today, on the last day of it’s existence, we brought Ronin in for one last run.  Ronin was joined by Bosco, Toe, Leeza, Dawn, Blondie, Remus, Irish (who is available for adoption!), and a few other hounds who were new to us.

Ronin, with his girlfriends Rooftop Dawn and Blondie.

Reese was just beside herself. I don’t think she’s seen so many doggies in one place at one time. (A big thank you to Scott & Bosco for the awesome photos.)