Benjamin Penguin

Dear Benjamin,

During your 20th month of life, we moved. In years to come, when you grow into adulthood and find that you have to put all of your belongings in little boxes and carry them elsewhere to then remove them from the little boxes, you will understand why I can remember little from the 20th month of your life. Other than boxes. And tape. And more boxes. And then some more.

You most assuredly did cute things. You always do cute things. You most assuredly did things that made me laugh, made me feel a little flustered, made me feel happy and made me feel worried. I am pretty sure you wore my hot pink headband for about 4 hours one day. That was mighty adorable. You likely said new words you have never said before and you waffled between eating really well and ignoring everything but cookies, as toddlers are wont to do. You and I probably took a walk tor two and I’m sure there was a temper tantrum in there for good measure. We did see Nana and Grandpa in Milwaukee. This much I do remember.

I can’t really remember much else, though. It’s an unfortunate reality that some life events are so all-encompassing, so time-consuming, that they blot out the memory of anything else that happens during that time. The last time I felt this way was when you were a tiny little newborn. I know that I was walking, moving and talking during the month of January 2008, but that’s about all I can say about that. The rest is a big, puffy blur. Of course, in that case it was less an “unfortunate reality” and more a “terrifyingly new yet exciting reality that shook the foundations of my previous life to the core.” But you get the idea. Big changes leave big waves that make it hard to see anything else.

I know, last month, that I didn’t see you much and I hated that. I know that I was busy all the time and had little opportunity to play with you and I hated that. I know that Daddy had really bad back problems and couldn’t help with the move towards the end there and I rather hated that, too. Although, you were super cute about the whole thing – you would grab your back and say “ohhhh daddy back hurt” because Daddy spent the whole month falling all over the place moaning about his back. Since I have had a back problem or two in my day, I can sympathize. And apparently, so can you.

So, let’s put the month of September (and this disappointingly short monthly letter) to a close. October has been more interesting and I’ll tell you all about it in a little bit.

Love,

Mama

Dear Benjamin,

You’ll have to forgive me in advance for what will assuredly be one of the shortest monthly letters on record. It’s just that Mama’s so tired that the bags under her eyes have bags under their eyes. And this is not your garden variety parental tired. We’re moving, I’m working and in school and you like nothing better than to go, go, go all hours of the day. I’ve got just enough in me right now to muster out a “You’re great. Moving on.” But I’ll try to make this a smidge more comprehensive than that. Though, you are great.

Much of the last month was dominated by our first family vacation, so this letter will really be about that time. And since I chronicled much of our activities while on the road, I need only bring to your attention all those little details that I always inadvertently leave out. So let me tell you what it was like to take a vacation with a little man. Specifically, a little Benjamin.

In planning whether or not to take a vacation, Daddy and I did what we always do. Which is, of course, to discuss things to death until the point that one of us (namely me) no longer becomes interested in doing anything until the FURTHER point at which we impromptu decide to do the thing we eventually end up doing. Did you follow all that? It won’t make sense now and it won’t make sense while it’s happening, but when casting a glance on it in retrospect, well, it won’t make sense then either. Welcome to the family! We started our discussion with thoughts of going West. First we set our sights on the great state of Washington. But that seemed really far. So then we bandied about the idea of the Dakotas. But that seemed only mildly interesting to me, in part because I wasn’t sure if that was a good location for a toddler. I made the case for something new to us but not that far which, coming from the Midwest, generally translates as the eastern coast. Daddy wasn’t as sold on this plan, but I wasn’t sold on a vacation that would involve 6 days of driving before I finally arrived at a place I wanted to visit. In the end – and at the spur of the moment – we selected the Carolinas and Georgia.

Now, let me start by stating the facts. On the night before our departure, we were not packed, Again, spur of the moment. So we quickly assembled everything then, realizing there was no way we would be prepared in time, we postponed leaving for a day. This allowed us to stock up on all manner of toys and Benjamin snacks for the trip. All of which came in handy.  We weren’t quite sure what to expect from you during the drive so as we pulled away a nervous, chortling sound escaped from both of our throats. I think Daddy began mumbling a prayer of some sort. I just begged him to stop for an iced tea because (1) I never let a day pass without drinking iced tea and (2) the world seems infinitely more manageable with one in my hand. Truthfully, though, you were a great little traveler. Really, I mean it. You were really good natured in the car and rarely put up a fuss. Daddy and I would take turns driving and one of us was always in the back seat with you. We would tickle you or play with your toys or watch videos on the laptop. I would poke your little belly or chew on your fingers and you would do a little car seat dance and nonverbally declare it the best time ever. There were a few hiccups along the way. I recall a few meltdowns in restaurants and one evening when you absolutely refused to fall asleep even after we pleaded with you for mercy. And the trip was exhausting, but all trips are exhausting when you drive across the country and live out of a car. Overall, however, you were an enjoyable companion and we all had a good time.

There isn’t any one memory that particularly stands out for me. Chasing you around various hotel rooms as you laughed hysterically, maybe. What I remember more is how it felt to be together like that with nothing else to do but spend time with one another. We’re a close family. Close in that we really like to spend time in the company of one another. In the nearly 10 years that I’ve known Daddy, I always look forward to seeing him every day. In the 20 months that I’ve known you, I’m always eager to get home to you when I have to be away at work or school. When I am able to share some time with my family, it makes that day feel so much better. I’m not really someone who likes to be away from my loved ones, so when I get the opportunity to spend large chunks of time with the people I adore, I get absolutely giddy with excitement. I smile more. I let every care in the world melt away and for a brief period of time, I am the cool, calm and collected person I wish I could always be.  I love you and Daddy so deeply and fully that I didn’t even mind nearly sweating to death under the hot August sun, in Georgia of all places. If I was going to melt into a puddle of sassy ooze, dammit, I was going to do it in good company.  Ask anyone – ANYONE – that knows me well and they’ll tell you how much I hate the sun and the heat. But if someone would have stopped me on the street to ask if I was enjoying my vacation, I would have proudly beamed, pointed to the both of you and said, “I’m loving every minute of it.”

That’s the amazing thing about you, Benjamin. You take what would be dull at best, unbearable at worst and make it so new, so novel, so desired an experience that I am helpless to do anything but let myself be carried away in joy and appreciation. I sometimes stop and think about the life that I would be living now had Daddy and I never tried to have children. I draw mental pictures of us eating leisurely at restaurants and sleeping in on the weekends and taking a long, rambling road trip up to Washington and Alaska. They are nice images, to be sure, but they lack the excitement of, say, carrying a screaming, flailing toddler away from a stack of toys at a Cracker Barrel or a swift kick to the abdomen in the middle of the night or a noisy road trip punctuated by the sounds of Dora the Explorer, giggles and silly voices coming up from the back seat. The chaos that a child brings into one’s life is the vibrant, beaded fringe around a ring of “nice” that is pleasant and sweet but rather unremarkable. It is what makes life worth living.

Love,

Mama

Dear Benjamin,

Today I am writing your 18-month letter in the back seat of the car en route to our vacation spot. The foothills of the Appalachians are rolling along outside my window and the day, though not sunny, is very pleasant. And you are, of course, sleeping next to me in your car seat, your mouth hanging open and your pacifier dangling precariously from your lips. Yes, I said pacifier. At 19 months, you still use your pacifier religiously. There was a brief interlude there when we got it away, but you reclaimed it with a vengeance and now refuse to be without it. Although you are currently unaware of this, I have been planning an operation I’d like to call the Pacifier Elimination Project, or PEP. PEP has been strategically planned, using only the finest information from sources as esteemed as a woman in Toys R’ Us that approached Daddy one day when he was buying you toy trains. And the internet. Always the internet. PEP will involve us setting a cold turkey day and then will involve removal of the plug from your – likely – screaming hands. It probably won’t be pretty. We’ll all be upset. Trust me. We are loathe to take away comfort objects, particularly when they come in handy at restaurants and other outings, but the time has come and gone with this one. PEP will commence in 2 months and counting.

The past month was very active. Very, very active. It also heavily involved Mama’s parents, which was a nice change from only seeing them intermittently throughout the year. We spent time in Illinois, time in Michigan, time at parks, time in restaurants, time walking round the neighborhood. In short, where there was something interesting to be had, we were there. You experienced a number of firsts during this time. You went to your very first carnival. Your response was to be expected – you were less than interested in the rides and the food and the carnie merriment and more invested in pushing your stroller by yourself down the sidewalk.  Nana bought tickets for you and Daddy and I to ride on a carousel and within 3 seconds of the ride starting, you clung to my neck for dear life and would not let go. I tried to just hold you, but the carnie was having none of that and made us all sit on one of those benches. This was fine by me, and apparently even more fine by you, because you started to laugh and smile a bit then every time our bench swung past Nana and Grandpa. Which happened every 6 seconds or so because I think the carnie had the speed cranked up to 45 miles per hour. I was so nauseous at the end of the ride that I had to stop and gather my bearings before stepping down. It passed quickly and we were able to enjoy the rest of the evening without Mama embarrassingly tossing her cookies.

You also picked fruit for the first time, though you refused to eat the bounty resulting from your labor. By picking fruit, of course, I mean that you ran around the blueberry farm throwing small pebbles into the grass. But if I held you in my arms and put you near a bush, you would pick a blueberry or two. Intent on still making the experience your own, however, you would generally throw the blueberries onto the ground rather than in the bucket tied around my neck. I assuaged the guilt by assuring myself that little woodland creatures would appreciate the blueberry buffet you laid out for them and reasoned that the blueberry farmer would marvel at your toddler altruism.

You walked through a little baby swim pool for the first time as well. Walked. Not sat it. Not splashed in. Not played with toys in. You simply stepped into the pool, walked across the inside diameter, stepped out and then turned around and repeated the process about 25 times. I had purchased this little wetsuit for you that I thought would be perfect for frolicking in the water, but I think nary a drop touched the fabric. I was actually quite surprised that you did not just immediately sit yourself down and slash away in the pool, as you are a bit of a water bug. You love your bath, you love the lake and you like playing in the sink. All of these things involve water, as does a baby pool, so naturally you can imagine my surprise when you could not have been less interested.  I thought for sure that I would never be able to get you out of it, but as it was, I had to coax you into using it.

This past 4^th of July was the first that you were actually cognizant of what was going on around you. That does not mean that you savored the holiday, mind you. In fact, you were, if I may be so bold, quite the little anger pot that day. We attempted to go to the Farmer’s Market to buy some fresh doughnuts and coffee, but both you and Daddy began to throw a temper tantrum when asked to stand in a line that was as long at 15 whole people. So that idea was quickly scrapped for a leisurely stroll around the fruit and vegetable stalls. However, that idea was scrapped when you became incredibly angry that we would not let you run around tripping everybody.  Committed to doing something, I thought it might be nice to take in the parade that was winding past on a nearby street, but we were not standing in our spot for more than 30 seconds before you started screaming and demanding to be released so that you could run into the street and presumably join in. At this point, Daddy and I scrapped any plans of having you be around crowds and walked over to the quiet baseball field across the street from the apartment and let you run around for a bit. Never ones to learn our lessons the easy way, we attempted to take you to dinner after your nap and you screamed your way through dinner.  We decided to play the fireworks-viewing by ear that evening and were set against taking you, but they set them off practically in our living room, so they aroused your suspicion and we walked downstairs and watched them for a bit. You were interested, but not really. The large ones that filled the sky seemed to catch your eye, but the rest you treated with casual indifference. I kinda feel the same way.

I’d like to bring up the issue of toddler manners, though, because, well, I have finally stumbled across one of the few things in life that ruthlessly mocks everything I thought I knew about raising children.  The thing is, Benjamin, it is really hard work raising a happy, healthy, well-mannered child. I think that, at your core, you are a sweet little boy that will be very well-mannered as you grow up. It’s just something about the way that you seem to pay attention when we wear a look of disapproval. However, you, very much like your Mama, test boundaries.  You see just how far you can push things before someone steps in and says “No, you can’t do that.” Oh man was I like this all throughout childhood and adolescence. Ask Nana and Grandpa when you are older. I am the reason they went grey in their 40s. But you seem to know inherently, as do I, when a line has been crossed between ok and not ok, between nice and mean, silly and pouty, frustrated and petulant. I mean, I have quite a few years on you, so my system is more refined, but I see the early foundations of this type of personality starting to form within you. I think this will be both a good thing and a challenging thing. It will be good because I know what you are doing. I know when you are looking out of the corner of your eye (and yes, you do this), you are slyly surveying the scene, plotting your next move and attempting to get away all in one go. You don’t want to let on to what you are thinking or scheming because then someone might try to stop you. It’s exactly what I do, so I know what to look for and sometimes I amaze myself by managing to be two steps ahead of what you are about to do. It’s almost as though I can see the scene playing out in your head as clearly as if it were my own. This is good, I think. But it will also be challenging, I think, to be confronted with someone like me because I know how tenacious I can be in doing exactly what I want to do. My charming persona hides a pretty ambitious inner self and I can be very crafty. I see this in you. Because we’re smart, we can figure out how to work a situation. Daddy is like this, too, so you’ve inherited a genetic tendency towards wiliness that will likely be both fascinating and terrifying to watch.

Ahhhh… and I have resumed the writing of this letter now on the latter side of our vacation. And, humorously enough, I am in Tennessee again. We just spent two weeks on vacation, but I’ll tell you all about this in your next monthly letter. Truth be told, I am so exhausted from the trip – and my mind is bogged down with all the newly minted memories – so I am having a really hard time remembering everything that happened in July since the events of the past couple of weeks are looming so large.

Let’s see. Since you’ve turned 18 months old, you’ve become a good, if not intermittently finicky, eater. You love Mexican and Italian dishes just like Mama and Daddy and you will never turn away beans and rice, pasta or pizza. This makes our dinners enjoyable on many counts because these are the foods I love to eat all the time and I now justify their repeated presence by stating that we should stick to meals we know you’ll love to eat. You are not bad with your veggies, though you could be better. Of course, the same could be said about me. You actually seem to like broccoli, whereas I liken the taste to licking old garbage off a cruddy boot. But I put on a big, fake happy face when I eat it so that you can see how much Mama “loves” eating foods that are good for her. You also seem to love fruits and I Daddy and I are quite the fan of these, so this is good. We always have plenty on hand for you to tickle your taste buds with. When we are not lapsing into snack attacks, we all manage to eat very well and maintain a very healthy diet. Then Daddy brings home a box of Snackwells and the rest is history.

Much of the 18^th month of your life was dominated by Mama and Daddy’s discussions of where to move. You won’t remember these and let’s all pause to thank the heavens for this. We debated a house versus an apartment versus the city versus the suburbs versus a townhouse versus a condo versus a long commute with cheaper rents versus a shorter route with costlier rents and all manner in between. We’d like to have purchased a house and, barring that, a townhouse. But it just isn’t the right time. There is the matter of my position being grant-funded and Daddy losing his job and then the fact that houses are so expensive in this market that I simply cannot justify paying that much for some walls, windows and a roof. We’d like to give you space – both indoors and out – to roam around and play to your heart’s content, but when you have a Mama that chose the PhD path and a Daddy that is planning on going back to school, too, well.. space is a luxury that we can’t afford. And if you must know, Benjamin, I kind of like apartment living. True, when I bang my toe after tripping over one of your toys for the hundredth time in an evening, I curse the lack of space and beg the universe for just 200 more square feet. Just 200! And then I stop and realize that I kinda love how crammed in like sardines we are. How I can always see you and Daddy from my line of vision anywhere I am sitting in an apartment space. How it makes it impossible to be disconnected from one another because how, exactly, do you disconnect when you are all practically sitting on top of each other? Because the physical space keeps us in close physical proximity at all times, I think we tend to be very close-knit in general. Added to this the fact that you still share a bedroom with us and we spend all our waking time together or with you individually and I’d say that we are a family that tries to maximize both our quality and quantity time together.

The impending move is bittersweet. We’ll be leaving the very first apartment that welcomed us home as a family of three. I am usually not all that sentimentally attached to places, but Daddy is and I think he will be very sad about leaving behind the physical reminder of our earliest months together.  I’ll be momentarily sad, but the prospect of moving into an apartment that better meets our needs overwhelms my sense of nostalgia. Our new place is on the first floor, not the third, and there is easy access to the outdoors and to green space. The floor plan is designed to be a little more family-friendly and the kitchen is actually a kitchen and not a closet with a stove placed within. The parking is – and this is novel for us – right outside our door. We’re on a bike trail and we’re close to the library and to a nature preserve. We have a little patio. And a dishwasher. And a washer and dryer. All the little things that will make life that much easier and give us a little more time together to relax and have fun.

Still, I am not unlike Daddy in that I will be rather reflective as we make this next move. The overcrowded bedroom in THIS apartment is the first place I set you down when you got home. This hallway was where my water broke. These were the floors that I paced anxiously in those first few weeks after your arrival. When you took your first steps, they were on those floors, too. Your first bath, your first smile, your first laugh, your first word. All of these things took place in the small confines of this space we’ve called home for the past few years. It’s time to move on, but with the recognition that this apartment was the cocoon that nurtured our metamorphosis into the parents that we are today.  This is another reason that I love apartments. So many stories play out within the walls of that rented space and so many lives pass through that it weaves together a rich tapestry of experience and becomes the keeper of many tales. I can only hope that the next family will be so blessed.

Love,

Mama

Dear Benjamin,

I’ve decided to do something a little different here. In the past, I wrote you a monthly letter at the start of a new month of your life. So, for example, when you turned 16 months, I wrote a letter about all the things you did when you were 15 months old, but I called it your 16 month letter because you were now 16 months old. I got all lost in the admittedly easy math and it threw me into a whirl of confusion that was excessive in relation to the simplicity of the issue. To reduce the number of mini-migraines this has caused me throughout your life, I am going to change things up just a bit. This is your Month Seventeen letter. Chronicling the things you have done during the seventeenth month of your life. Even though you are now eighteen months. But that doesn’t really matter under the new schema. Doesn’t this have a nice, inherent logic to it? I’d like to think it does. So here we go.

Now that the weather is nice, there is scarcely a day that we are not out and about doing something. I mean, there are periods throughout every day when we are eating and resting and relaxing at home, but we spend a lot of time on outings.  This is all fine and good, but I mention this because, in this past month, you’ve increasingly become rather enjoyable company on our outings. When you were very little, I took you out all the time. It is the one constant in our life. But you also did very little. You would sit in your car seat stroller attachment and gaze around. You might smile and coo, but mostly you just chilled. When you grew out of the car seat attachment, you sat in your stroller and gazed forward. I would often come around the side to look at you and you would always turn and smile, but it still felt like a very solitary excursion. When you began to walk, that was nice, because then I could take you places and let you walk around without the stroller standing as a barrier between us. Now, though, you’re fun to bring places. Let me clarify. MOST places. Places that allow you to walk or run or throw things at will. So, not the post office or most restaurants or the library or the grocery store. But places like the zoo and the museum and parks and nature preserves. These are right up our alley. And you really enjoy them. You like to walk around, explore, crawl over things, on things, grab things, pull things, move things and show me things. Last month was really one of the first times that I felt like I was going out with someone when we would go out. It’s not that we can walk leisurely down the street talking about the philosophies of Michel Foucault and Peter Singer while swigging overpriced coffees, an activity that Daddy and I would often partake in prior to your birth. But you and I can share experiences when we go out now. I can point out an interesting thing to you and you take notice. You can point out something to me and I take notice. There is a social give-and-take in our exchanges that bring a real sense of fun and wonder to our days and evenings out. It feels less like I am dragging you someplace to assuage my restless spirit and more like I am helping to create an event for us to experience together.

But if I may, Benjamin, let me tell you about a little experience that I could have done without. Every parent goes through this and it is both unavoidable and necessary in the development of a toddler’s sense of self and independence. I speak, of course, of the temper tantrum. Not A temper tantrum. THE temper tantrum. The one that makes you stop in your tracks and acknowledge that the little gentleman next to you is rapidly becoming their own person.

One day, during your seventeen month of life, I decided to take you to the park and then mosey on over to the post office to mail a package. It had been a little while since lunch and was still awhile before dinner and bedtime, so I thought it a perfect way to wile away the hours. I popped you in the stroller and wheeled you over to the park. You ran and giggled and fell and then ran some more. It was great fun and we almost lost track of time, having been there for almost an hour. I popped you back into the stroller and crossed the street to the post office. I pushed us over to a counter and began to prepare my package for mailing. You began to make sounds. They were not necessarily unpleasant sounds, nor were they unhappy sounds. They were just these indistinguishable little mutterings. “Mmmmfff.”  “Ehhhhhhnnn.” They were quiet at first, so I set back to work carefully hand labeling the address on the package. You then started kicking a bit, getting a little louder with your sounds. “UUUUNGG.” “SOOOFFFF.” I turned to look at you with the dawning realization that you might be, in the very near future, making a fuss. I opened my mouth and made some non-committal “There, there now” statement. I seem to have offended you greatly in the process because you grabbed the tray on your stroller, planted both hands down and pushed against it, red-faced and screeching. I’m pretty sure that I can pinpoint that as the first in a series of subsequent moments in which I debated scrapping the visit to the post office, but I had to mail the package that day. In an attempt to quell the brewing storm, I started quickly rattling off all the luxuries in the world that would be yours if you would just remain patient for a few more minutes. Just five. Five more minutes and we’ll get through this line. I rolled us over to the line and you started crying loudly. I gave you my purse, thinking that you might amuse yourself by sprinkling the contents of it all over the floor, but that only seemed to enrage you more. You screamed and threw the purse. I picked it up quickly, keeping my eyes cast downward towards my shoes in a blatant attempt to not look anyone in the eye, and I quickly rooted around for a pen. A nice, clicky pen that you could use to scribble on your leg, my dress, your stroller. ANYTHING that would prevent further screaming.  I handed you the pen and you began to cry very loudly, thrashing around in your stroller, kicking your legs and slapping your hands against the tray. By this point, I could see people in front of us turning around to stare at us and I could see people behind us shifting their weight from side to side to catch a glimpse of the rising cacophony. Were they perturbed? Sympathetic? I can’t say because, mentally, I had passed out, the sheer force of my mortification keeping my body erect while the rest of me desired to slide into a pool of flop sweat on the floor. I decided to try picking you up out of the stroller and bouncing you around a bit in my arms, thinking solemnly, “hey, this never worked when you were a baby, but you are verging on the hysterical here and I’d attempt to relactate if it would just make this end.”  So I unhooked the seat belt and gathered you into my arms. By this point, even my eyebrows were sweating. I was attempting to push my hair away from my face, which had been plastered to my forehead with a mixture of perspiration and some random food substance that you had deposited there earlier, and just as I cleared a patch for vision, your body stilled – eerily – and you leaned back, and with a gracefulness I’d have easily admired had it not been happening to me, slapped me clean across my check with an audible “smack.” …………………  It took me a few seconds to gather myself after that most magnificent bitch slap. I’m pretty sure I stood there gape-jawed for a moment or two. Then you snapped us both out of it by screaming and struggling to be put down. I started to gather our things and was going to wheel away as fast as my legs could carry me when THE MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN ALIVE (aka, the woman standing behind me) said, “Oh, honey. Don’t leave. They’re a handful. Why don’t you go out there in the lobby and I’ll call you when it’s your turn.” I don’t think I spoke, or maybe I was able to squeak out a feeble “thank you,” but I took her up on her offer. We went out into the hall and I feigned a pleasantness in my voice that I hoped was masking the wavering, warbling sounds of embarrassment and frustration. You seemed much calmer once we got into the lobby and began smiling again and saying “Mama, mama, mama.” When it was my turn, THE MOST WONDERFUL HUMAN ALIVE poked her head into the lobby and pointed me towards the waiting postal worker. You sassed him a little bit; when he asked you a question, you said “no” and made a pouty face. I placed you in the stroller, you squirmed and screamed, I completed the transaction as quickly as possible and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief as I started making my way away from the counter and towards the side exit. I got about three steps away from the doors before I felt the tears building and my lip trembling and I managed to make it outside and around the corner before bursting into tears.

I can and do laugh about it now because you’ve had numerous meltdowns and tantrums since then and I’ve become seasoned following the initial shock felt by my inability to comfort you or just make the tantrum go away. Now, I feel wholly prepared for the unavoidable toddler sass you sling our way on a near daily basis. Whether it is the cruelty we inflict upon you when  we won’t let you beat the dog, pull the cat’s tail, draw on the wall, throw uncooked pasta around the room, eat Mama’s shoe or other such activities, you’re quick with a reminder of how insularly insufferable we are to you. And I understand. Really I do. You are smart and clever and your language ability has not caught up to your imagination. It’s as though you view me as a foreigner in your little land – the less I seem to understand the language, the louder you shout at me. Most days, I remind myself that your ability to express anger and frustration stems from your maturing recognition of your own wants and needs. Wants and needs that are separate from what Daddy and I think is best for you. There are other days, of course, when the tantrum is so spectacular that I, too, want to throw myself on the floor and roll around and scream and tell you “no!” But such is the stuff of life: a series of negotiations and compromises made with the hope that while everyone may not walk away elated, at least we’ll all be fairly content. I think it is truly great that you are becoming your own little person with interests all of your own. I enjoy watching you discover new things that you claim as personally awesome. Trains, for example. I find it rather touching that you are so enamored of them. Without any prompting from us, they have become your thing, and I can’t hear a train, watch a train roll by or sit in the subway car without thinking about how much you would love the experience.

Aside from your impressive advances in screaming and flailing, you’ve become very adept at mimicking us now, and I sometimes have to stop myself from doing something that I would not want you to repeat. I am thinking of the times I licked something off a sharp knife, ran with scissors, perched precariously on a rickety wood chair to reach chocolate chips on a high shelf (which I then shoveled into my mouth by the handful and nearly choked on), drank orange juice from the carton (so gross, I know) or balanced five glass plates in a slippery, wet hand. None of these actions were at all intelligent and all of them could have resulted in some rather nasty scrapes, cuts and contusions. But mostly, thankfully, you mimic the more sedate activities in the household. You pretend to feed the dog by grabbing the dog food scoop and pretending to pour kibble in her bowl. You pretend to cook and stir various soups and sauces in your little toy pots. You attempt to push your own stroller, pretend to brush your teeth, pretend to wash your hands when holding bottles that look like soap, attempt to comb your own hair and pretend to talk on my cell phone when you steal it from my purse.

This mimicry has had the effect of making me more aware of myself and my presence in this world than I ever was before. How often I have to catch myself about to do something without thinking and rethink my plans to model safer, saner behavior. Being something of an anxious hypochondriac, I’ve been acutely aware of my need to provide guidance and watchfulness over you in an effort to keep you safe since before you were born. It’s in my nature to obsess about health and it’s even more in my nature to panic incredibly over my fears of said health being taken away. I envisioned myself as the all-seeing eye that would be five steps ahead of any danger that could ever cross your path. And you would think that someone with these tendencies would be the most risk-averse person on earth, but in my case, you would be wrong. Truthfully, I sometimes think it is you that is helping to take care of me. When forced to stop and really think about the various behaviors and actions that I could undertake in a day, I choose to model the ones that will keep you healthy and safe and, as a result, benefit myself greatly. I’m eating less junk food. I’m getting more sun and fresh air and walking more. I point Daddy to the savory sweets on high shelves and request that he fetch them from me instead of constructing a wobbly ladder from a stack of books and some plastic totes. I am trying to eat slower and take smaller bites. I am trying to spend less time sitting in front of the television and more time moving around.

Thanks for helping me be a healthier, happier, saner, safer person.

Love,

Mama

Dear Benjamin,

Oh, hey. Yeah, it’s about 6 days away from you turning 17 months. Even though I know the monthly letter to you is going to be late, and I know it is because I am rolling around on the ground playing with you instead of sitting behind a keyboard, I still feel guilty. So much so that I cannot help but remark upon it EVERY.SINGLE. TIME. Somehow I must believe that if I type this reminder to myself every month that I am falling behind on my letters to you, then I will be shamed into some non-procrastinatory state, but if recording things were truly effective in changing my behaviors, that food journal would be sitting in the hands of a much slimmer woman.

I don’t know where to begin, actually. I have begun to think of myself as an alpine reporter. Let me explain. If I were part of a team of reporters working a mountain somewhere, I think the easiest job would be the reporter at the summit. Let’s say that a snowball forms and, as it rolls down the mountain, it gets bigger and bigger and causes more damage. If I was the reporter at the top of the mountain, my story would be relatively short. “There is a snowball forming. And oh, look! It’s rolling off the edge of the peak. The end.” As the snowball rolls down the mountain, the story will change as the snowball picks up speed, weight and girth. Somewhere around the middle of the mountain, a different reporter is challenged to tell a much different story. “A moderate-sized snowball is rolling down the hill at increasingly rapid speed. It appears to be swallowing up branches and small bushes laying in its path and one car hear the worried chatter of squirrels and deer echoing through the trees.” By the time the snowball gets to the bottom of the hill, the story becomes truly difficult to write because there are so many details one could explore and explain and so many angles from which to tell the story and only so many brain cells that the reporter can use to process the information. It almost becomes too overwhelming to tell the tale, so much so that the inclination is to say something to the effect of “Snowball! Big! Coming at us! Dear God, is that a clogged foot sticking out of there?!”

This is increasingly what it feels like to write these monthly letters. The truth is, every day that I awake now, I can expect that you will be doing something different. Some things are small changes or modifications to something that you have been able to do for quite a while now. You’ve been able to rise to a standing position for a while now, but now you can do so without holding on to anything –  from a seated position, from a squat, or even from a supine position. This has given you the ability to quickly change positions and locations, a behavior that forced us to make some modifications of our own. When you needed my help to get up, I could be somewhat leisurely in my response to you and could rest assured that you would stay put until I got to you. Now, however, I can hear the little gears turning in your head and before I even have time to react, you are up and off and barreling to explore something only a toddler would find fascinating. Like a discarded cheese wrapper, which, by the way, you refer to as “seeeze!” Emphasis on the exclamation point. And I do mean emphasis. Like your Mama, everything is worthy of a flair for the exuberant and dramatic. No one in this house owns keys. We own “keeeeeyce!” Trains pass by our apartment a lot, and I know this because, like a little conductor on caffeine, you proclaim “too too!” (choo choo, natch) every time a train rolls by. No, really. Every time. I never realized how often trains pass by.

Other things, like the expansiveness of your vocabulary, have really grown as of late. I have been asking Daddy to write down all the new words and expressions you have been saying over the past month.  Sadly, I think that we haven’t recorded all of them and it seems impossible to do so unless we tail after you with a notebook in our hands. Of course, if we did, you would just pry said notebook out of our hands and begin ripping all the pages out, so it seems like the diligent recording of every new word might just be a lost cause. And by the way? You take great delight in ripping paper. Actually, so do I, so I can’t fault you there. I am incapable of throwing a piece of paper into the recycling bin without methodically ripping it into tiny, tiny bits.

But the words. Let me share a smattering of the words that we can remember you learning over the past month. First, there is “bup” (bug). Did I ever mention the little black bups that live in here? We don’t really know what they are, but think they are some form of a very small beetle. They come and go often and nearly drive Daddy to drink. He hates bups. Remind me to tell you about the time that a winged, angry bup got caught in his shirt one night and he ran flailing through the house, clawing at his shirt and screaming at the top of his lungs. Your response to bups is more like Mama’s – a quick eyebrow raise and a head tilt and then on your way. However, you do seem to mirror Daddy’s tendency to want to remove all bups from the apartment. When you see one, you’ll shout “bup” and then bring one of us over to the insect and point at it until Daddy makes it go away. Daddy generally disposes of the bup post haste and I try to convince myself that I’m not living amongst committed insect killers. It’s not that I like bups per se. I just don’t like things dying.  But I think Daddy likes that you have no tolerance for bups. Recently, a bup was making a solitary march across the floor and you were watching it intently until it wandered under the piano and you could no longer see it. After it disappeared from sight, you started waving and saying “buh bye” and in that moment I thought, “Now, that is Mama’s boy.”

Our favorite children’s show in this house is “Sponba” (Spongebob Squarepants, for those not in the know). Sponba is a sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea. We love Sponba. We sit in our special little toddler-sized chair and guffaw at the antics of the wee little sponge. This is not to say that we do not have other viewing pleasures.  Daddy nor I never intentionally set out to engage you in manly pursuits. I watch torrid celebrity gossip shows and read trashy gossip blogs. Daddy is always boring me to tears by reading me quotes from financial articles. Nothing about us would suggest that we are the type of people to promote a love of big construction vehicles and large trucks and trains, but sure enough, you love these things.  You love them in person, to be sure, but you are also quite content to watch videos of these things on Youtube. I am not sure where this interest stems from. We didn’t teach you to be excited when a plane flies overhead or when a truck rolls by, and yet you are marvelously excited when these things do occur. I think it is rather endearing and sweet because it is a passion that you seemed to form independent of our own interests. I constantly try to get you to roll your eyes with me when we watched yet another American Idol contestant butcher another note, but you’ll have none of that. No, you are more content to look out the window at the random American Airlines flight soaring through the clouds.  As you grow older, this will happen more often and I am so eager to see who you will become. What will you like? What will you dislike? Can we at least agree that The Smiths are totally awesome?

Your penchant for laughing at Sponba has lead me to conclude that you are starting to realize when things are funny and independently laughing without our own laughter prompting the gleeful response. In the past, you would laugh when we were laughing, but it was clear that you really weren’t sure what you were laughing at. WE were laughing because we saw something funny. YOU were laughing because you wanted to make a similar sound. Now, however, I think you are finding things funny and laughing because these things prompt you to laugh. One day when you and I were at the park, I was sitting on this little stoop and you were walking around nearby, picking up all the wood chips and rearranging them in an order that seemed to make sense to you. You decided to amble on over and join me on the stoop and as you were trying to climb up, you gently toppled backwards and fell on your butt. As you tried to get up, you fell backwards on to your back and then couldn’t seem to get coordinated enough to get up. And then? You started laughing. It was the exact same thing I, as an adult, would do if I unexpectedly tumbled in front of a loved one as I was goofing around and then couldn’t get up from the ground. It’s funny. It’s funny to be out of shape and rolling around like a bup on its back, unable to right yourself. Once you started laughing, I couldn’t help but laugh and then you laughed even more. It was our funny little joke and, for a moment there, I had to mentally recognize how much I was absolutely going to adore hanging out with you when you get older. I love being around people that make me laugh and I love trying to make people laugh. It’s one of the main reasons I love being around Daddy. He can always make me laugh, and I him. I shouldn’t have been surprised that you have a well-developed funny bone as well, but I was, and it was one of the most pleasant discoveries I have had in a very long time.

I am also beginning to wonder if you are tidy. This is supremely wonderful if you are, as I most assuredly am not.  Daddy is a tidy man. Don’t let me tell you how many times he can be found with a broom or a towel in hand. He’s always scrubbing this or arranging that or wiping this or sweeping that. You have a particular dislike of “ock” (?) and will point to any speck of filth, dirt, crumb or snit and stare up at us, awaiting its removal. You are also quite good at handing us ock so that we may dispose of it for you. I am often being brought little things that you find on the floor of the apartment. Now, you would think that with all Daddy’s tidying, there would be very little ock remaining, but this suggests that you are forgetting that you all live with me. Ock is something I trail into our lives every single day. Be it the schmutz on my shoes or the errant pamphlets I am handed on my commute or the scraps of paper and gum wrappers falling from my bag or the Cheerios that fall from my hand as I attempt to shovel a handful into my mouth, there is no limit to the number of items you and Daddy can attend to on a given day. I’d like to think I keep you both on your tidy little toes.

You certainly keep me on my toes. Do you ever rest? Not really. You are a little man not content with sitting still. You parade from the kitchen to the hallway to the bedroom to the hallway to the living room to the hallway to the dining room to the window to the kitchen. And this is just within the first five minutes of waking. I’m exhausted at the end of the day, true, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy it. I may have mentioned this before, but when you were still very little, people would always tell me to enjoy your infancy because soon you’d be walking and then I’d regret it. I’d be sad at how active you were and how independent you became. Outwardly, I’d smile dully so as not to appear rude, but inside I was screaming, “”Heaven help me, I’m so bored and I can’t wait until the moment when I get to tear around after this child, thank you very much.” The truth is, I really like that you are active and more independent. Mostly because I get a tremendous kick out of watching you. I love to see what you are going to do next. Maybe you’ll grab a toy and beat something with it. Maybe you’ll make a loud, arbitrary sound that seems disconnected from what you are doing. Maybe you’ll stare at me and then peel off down the hallway giggling. It’s so hard to say because it’s so unpredictable and it’s so enjoyable precisely because it is this unpredictable.

Pre-child, when I used to see parents at the park with their little kids, I always found it so curious that they could take such rapturous delight in their child racing away from them or sloppily skipping down the sidewalk or throwing leaves into the air. I never quite got how that could be so amusing. From the outside, it never seemed all that interesting. But what I failed to take notice of was the way in which the child and the parent were connecting in ways that I could not appreciate because I had never experienced it. I never saw the way the child tried to get her parent’s eye or the way the parent mischievously poked the child with a twig to get him to laugh and run away. I couldn’t observe these things because I didn’t know what to look for. Now, when I am at the park, I see these subtle interactions between parents and children and I know why they are so pleasurable. I know because I know what I would do in that situation to get you to laugh or smile and I know what you could do to get me to do the same. It’s amazing how much you have enlarged my world – how you have helped me to enjoy all the things hidden in plain view that I could never take note of before your arrival. I always knew that parenting would change me, but I am tickled to uncover that all of the changes have made my life that much more worth living.

Love,

Mama