Seventeen months of Mabel

Dear Mabel,

It has been way too long since your Dad or I have sat down to write to you, telling you what you’re up to at this stage of your busy little life. Since it’s a rainy early afternoon and I can’t spend your nap time out in the gardens (or cleaning up the remnants of your Dad’s HUGE surprise garage tear down project…I hope you know that you have an amazing Father!), I decided it would be a good day to catch up on the neglected blog. I spent much of this morning observing you with the intent of capturing your personality and our day-to-day life with words in this entry. I know its not going to be easy because you are a complicated and busy little being, but I will try my best because I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy reading about your toddler self years from now.

At the tender age of (almost) 17 months, you are bursting with personality. Let me use some adjectives to explain this to you.

You’re…

Curious. You’re so interested in the world around you. You are constantly on the go…playing, discovering, learning, fixing, doing, running, searching, digging, scooping, dumping, pretending, dismantling, locking,  building, putting, climbing, dancing, singing, stacking, noticing, drawing, looking, listening and chatting…constantly chatting! Which brings me to…

Communicative. In all my years of early childhood education, I’ve never seen a toddler as talkative as you. It’s frighteningly impressive and as much as your parents would like to take sole credit for teaching you and working with you every single day, I think so much of it comes from your personality. You have so much to say and you want to be heard. You understand the world and you love to share your new connections with us. Your communication has allowed us to understand each other so much better. You narrate your day for us, giving us glimpses into your thoughts. You’re now able to tell us your needs; when you’re hungry you say “eat”, when you’re thirsty, you tell us “wa-wa”, when you want to be picked up you say “hold you”, when you’re frustrated with something you say “help you” and when you’ve had enough you say “all done”.  You being able to tell us your needs has transformed our job as parents. Of course we still play the “What does Mabel want” guessing game but you’re so capable of identifying and relaying your needs that that game has become much simpler. We can ask you complex questions and we can feel pretty confident that your response aligns with what you truly want. We can have REAL dialog that helps us navigate our days better than ever before.  But don’t let me mislead you; even though you have so many words to tell us what you need, want and how you feel, you can still be very…

Whiney. In my years as a nanny, I was warned by parents that I would one day experience the torture that is toddler whining. When parents would lovingly complain about their whiney child(ren), I would look at them in disbelief. Their children were always sweet little angels for me, never irrationally whiney like they claimed they witnessed. But boy, am I relating now! I can only hope that you save all of your whining for your parents because you know that we will love you unconditionally regardless of the unnecessary bellyaching. You also say “no” a lot. Even when you mean “yeah”.  Sometimes its cute, other times its not so cute. I am a very patient parent, Mabel, but I hope this whiney, “no” phase ends soon because it sure is testing!   But enough about your less than redeeming qualities …Because there are so many other characteristics that describe you more fully.  Like that you are so…

Thoughtful.  I could think of so many examples of caring things that you do but a few in particular come to mind. On our recent trip to see our Arago friends (Jess, Robby and Gabriella) in Orlando, you developed an adorable friendship with 18 month old Ella. Every morning when you woke up, the first thing you said was “Eh-yah!”… then you followed with “Chess!” “Ya-beee!” and doggy “Mo-gan!”. You were genuinely excited to wake up and see them and would get the biggest smile when you did! And any time you saw Ella’s favorite blanket laying alone, you would bring it to her because you knew she loved it. When you did, she would reply “take-you!” and you would say “fanks!” back to her. Actually, you’re very great at delivering items to their owners. If your Dad’s shoes are by the door instead of on his feet, you are sure to bring them to him (and demand he wears them) because you’re sure that he’s missing out by only wearing socks! And when we checked our bag at the airport, it made you so upset to watch the man wheel away our luggage. How dare he take our belongings! It’s these little actions that show me how much you understand and are taking in, all the time. You’re always watching and you’re already learning and understanding what makes others’ happy. That type of awareness is going to be useful throughout your life. Going along with your thoughtfulness is your ability to be very…

Sweet. I say “ability” because you aren’t pure sugar. But you have many, many moments that could make even the hardest of people melt. Like yesterday morning, when your Dad left for work and you yelled through the window “mich you! (miss you)” over and over until I had to take you outside to say goodbye again. Or when your Dad comes home at the end of the day and you run to him with a huge smile and give him a hug. Or when I ask you for a snuggle and you say “nuggle” and rest your head on my shoulder. Or when I get you out of bed in the morning and you say “Hiiii, Mama!” or when  we tell you we love you and you say “yav ya” back to us and tell us “nigh’, nigh’” at bedtime. All the whining in the world could never take away how happy it makes us to see the sweet person you are growing to be.  Speaking of growing, you’re also becoming incredibly…

Independent. You love to do things your self. We try to encourage and foster your independence as much as possible, …because we are realists and know that we’re not always going to be there to help you. We take the approach “If she’s going to keep doing (this unsafe thing), let’s teach her the safe way to do it.” So, you now can walk down stairs alone. It’s scary, I know.  But we taught you to hold the railing and go slowly. You listened and watched while we showed you and then you practiced until you mastered it. The same happened with climbing on to and off of the couch.  You’re beginning to develop a cautionary fear of heights, which has thankfully made you much more careful in your independence. You’re also a master utensil user. You poke single black beans and have picked up single grains of rice with chopsticks. You should be proud because I didn’t learn to use chopsticks until I met your Dad! You love to feed yourself and we can see a sense of accomplishment when you scoop a big mouthful of food. It’s quite adorable. You also love independent reading time. One of my favorite times is when you’re in another room and the house goes quiet and when I go to check on you, you’re sitting next to the bookcase reading.  It’s so precious to see and I hope you continue to love your books. While on the topic of reading, I should add that your attention span when it comes to listening to stories has increased drastically. Our 3 books bedtime routine takes much longer now that you’re demanding full length Dr. Seuss books and boycotting the short Sandra Boynton board books! But the day you become too independent to enjoy listening to us read to you will be a sad day and I must admit, as much as we love your independence, it sometimes leads you to being a bit…

Naughty. You’re mischievous! Sometimes in a very funny way. For example, you love keys (did I say love? …LOVE!) and you’re pretty good at spotting them out (hanging up or in the diaper bag). And when you get your hands on some, you almost instantly go for the lock buttons, which makes the car beep over and over. When you do this, I feel compelled to take them from you as a way of sparing our neighbors and neighborhood dogs from the noise. But you’ve figured this out and you know that when the beeping starts, I’m going to be in the room within seconds. So what do you do when you hear me? You RUN! And laugh and laugh. Because you’re actually pretty fast and it usually takes me a few seconds to do a lap around the house to catch you!... Other times you do purposefully naughty tricks, like feed Daisy your dinner over your highchair. (Daisy and you have become BEST friends!) Or sometimes you ask for a specific food (that you typically love) just to chew it up and spit it out in hopes of catching my attention. And when I calmly tell you that what you’re doing is a little naughty you say “Naunny Mama!”  (Naughty Mama!) and laugh! And sometimes we laugh too because at the end of the day, you are a toddler…a little unpredictable person who learns more in a day than I do in a week. You are wild, dramatic, silly, free-spirited, loveable and carefree and you are…

Ours.

Love,

Mama