fifteen months

Dear Joshua,

Woooo boy! You're already fifteen months old and yet it seems like only a couple of months have passed since your birth.  On the Labor and Delivery floor at the hospital not too long ago I was flooded with memories of your birth just last year.  I thought, "It can't possibly be that that was two Octobers ago." And yet it was.

At the same time, it seems like you're three or four already.  You run, run, run right after your sister. You hunt for her on the playground, yearning for someone to follow.  It's torture when she shuts her bedroom door in your face or you're kept downstairs by that awful babygate that blocks your ascention to your beloved sister.  You can keep up with her in almost everything she does -- not fully, but you can stay pretty close.  You want so badly to do what big kids can do.

You love Julianna's shoes.

Your spirit remains one of the sweetest I have known in a child. You lean on everyone to "give them lovin'."  You give the best open-mouthed kisses and at bedtime you eagerly sign "Goodnight" to everyone, always Julianna first.  And you keep on doing it until she looks at you.

We regularly have to check the trash can or keep the garbage closed away in the pantry, else we throw away something valuable like one of your toys.  You are proud of yourself for learning how to throw things away, even if they are things that shouldn't be put in the trash.  I am proud of you for being able to follow simple directions.

Speaking of the trash can in the pantry, that reminds me that we never had to do much baby-proofing in the kitchen or bathrooms with your sister.  We just told her no and she learned to stay out of the cabinets. You are quite the challenge on the other hand.  We have had to put rubber-bands around the cabinet knobs all across the bottom of the kitchen (this was after you broke a Pyrex dish by pulling it out of the cabinet).  We used rubberbands for several reasons, but mostly because we're getting old and we're already getting out of the mindset of having babies in the house.  I dread the day that you figure out how to get those off. Anyone who doesn't believe me when I say we're really in for it, should have seen my face when I got out of the shower one day and found you playing with the bristles on a toilet bowl brush.

Joshua, you're not just a challenge. You are fun! You begin dancing within a split second of hearing music playing. You have the cutest little dance. It's like a tiny bounce-bounce, swing-your-arms-twist, follwed by a gigantic smile and the most adorable little ham-it-up head tilt. These are the things I wish I could capture in my memory forever.

You're communicating better and better these days. You will come up to anyone willing to listen and you sign "please" and then bark like a dog, essentially telling us that you want to go outside and pet the dog. You know how to say many words, but you still have a lot of trouble making them come out when you want them to. Nevertheless, each day it seems you add new vocabulary.

I love to see you with your "Baba." If you are tired you will get your blanket and lie down on it on the floor, smooshing your face up against it and rubbing the satiny edge through your fingers.  That is one of the three words you say most consistently (Baba, ball, and Mama).

You are becoming a better sleeper. You sleep from roughly 8:30 pm until 7:00 am and sometimes you still wake in between, but you can get yourself back to sleep now.  You go down without a fight and you will sleep almost anywhere if the need to take a nap finds you.  You are also what I like to call "transferable."  Unlike your sister, we can transfer a sleeping Joshua from one location to another without waking you up.  It helps get those trips to Target done a lot easier.

Here is your perfect Santa Ho Ho face from Christmas Day. I'm so glad that I was finally able to capture a picture of it to show your girlfriends that you will no doubt have drooling over you in high school.  You are beautiful, kiddo.  Even if people *didn't* tell me that all the time I would know it.  But I'll try not to call you that when you're in high school, OK?

You pretend talk on the phone and you passionately exclaim, "Pop!" if you are ever reminded of talking to my dad on the phone.  You love to push buttons.  Anywhere and everywhere if you see a button, you assume that it was meant to be pushed.  We have to pull you away from the Wii and DVD player all the time and you've even developed a recent fascination with belly buttons.  You'll come up to me or your sister and lift our shirts so that you can stick your finger in our belly buttons.

So let's talk about your eating, kid. It's gotten a little bit better but it's not up to par by any means. Last month you would practically eat nothing. Occasionally, we could get you to eat yogurt or cheese but some days you'd be satisfied with just a cup of milk. We started holding your milk back until after we'd gotten you to eat a few bites because you were basically surviving on liquids alone.

For whatever reason, you're doing a little better now. You're back to enjoying fruit and we've found that you love grilled cheese sandwiches.  We can tell you've lost weight, or maybe just grown taller and not wider, but I'd love it if you could eat a little more of anything. I don't even care if it's a vegetable or not, just eat more, please!

You don't go back to the doctor until April so we won't really have any growth statistics until then. And let's just hope that we don't have many sick visits between now and then either.

Joshua, you've made life so different for the three of us since you entered this world 15 months ago.  Still, I find it hard to remember what it was like without you and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I love you.

Love,

Mama