RUS 21 Months

Dear RUS,

I was just telling Daddy tonight that you are my little ninja! Your favorite thing to do is slip silently and stealthily into the shadows and escape out of whatever room you are in. Sometimes you're not so silent, as when you announce "bye-bye! bye-bye!" over and over again as you walk away, but I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've gone to get something and then turned around and gone, "Where's RUS?" and had to search the house for you.

At home this is no big deal, because we live in a ranch house and the number of places you can be--now that we've locked you out of the two hall closets, our bedroom, and the bathroom--is fairly limited. But when we were on vacation, oh man, you were a little escape artist. I lost track of the number of times we had to run around the house (and outside) looking for you. It was so bad that Uncle A asked me at one point, "Do you ever watch your kid or what?" He had a point. Nobody else's kid was always disappearing!

Your favorite place to escape to? The bathroom in Uncle Surf and Aunt Cali's bedroom. Once Grandpa found you in there sitting on the toilet reading a magazine. Another time Grandma found you in there having opened all the drawers (so that nobody could open the bathroom door) and shaking baby powder all over the place.

It's not just us, either. Twice Daddy has gone to pick you up from school and happened to find you randomly wandering the hallways.

Now, in both of these episodes the teacher came running out looking for you right away, but you really are a little sneak! Now, you talk a lot but it's often hard to tell what you're trying to say. But the teacher said that in one of the cases, it really sounded like you said, "I'm going to find Daddy, Bye-bye!" and sure enough you ran into Daddy in the hallway. Kind of eerie!

Lately your favorite word is "Outside!" which I am starting to be able to recognize. Most of what you say is tough to understand although you are very clearly trying to say a lot of different words, and you have a lot of fun imitating things we ask you to try to say.

You absolutely adore spending time outdoors and every chance you get you put on shoes and knock at the front door demanding to leave. I am dreading the day you figure out how to open our front door. Thankfully it's kind of hard to turn that knob otherwise you would ALREADY be escaping out that way.

I love you, my sweet RUS,

Love,
Mama

RUS 17-18 Months

Dear RUS,

You are learning to communicate in all kinds of amazing new ways. Since you moved up to the toddler room at day care you have had so much more interest in trying to verbalize words, although you are very much comfortable with signing and sign a lot more words than you speak. And even those words you do say aloud you tend to sign as well. Your day care teachers are picking up quickly on your signs. It's not uncommon for us to hear from them that you repeated a particular hand movement over and over and over again, and often it's a sign that you use regularly at home--bird, cat, bear, R, train, or helicopter, to name a few of your favorites.

Of these, however, your absolute favorite sign is--to no one's surprise--R's name. You look for her everywhere you go, and if she leaves the room you immediately start signing her name. You are very carefully attuned to what she is doing, to the point that we really have to be vigilant lest you try to steal what she's playing with, destroy whatever she's making, or otherwise be involved in her activity. You two have started playing together more although Daddy and I still have to be very, very vigilant!

You look up to R in a lot of ways and she clearly influences a lot of what you do. For example: you love to have headbands or bows put in your hair and sometimes even ask for them when we're playing in R's room. Here you are rocking a headband and bow just the other day!
Another thing I think you've picked up on from R is that you, too, love princesses. R has a box set of princess board books and you love them. Your favorite is Princess Perfect, the pink one, and you will specifically (and forcefully!) request this book as one of your choices when we send you to the bookshelf to find books you want to read. It's not in your bedroom, so it's not one of your bedtime favorites--at night we've been reading a lot of Time for Bed; Mama, Where Are You?, Hippos Go Berserk; Llama Llama Red Pajama; The Line Up Book; and Yankee Doodle. It's so funny to me because you are so decided about which books you want to read--I literally have to hold up the book for your approval before I can start reading it!

You're still a very cuddly little boy and you love to have one of us hold you while you rest your head on our shoulder. I cherish those moments since I know they'll pass by far too quickly.

Love,
Mama

RUS 16 Months

Dear RUS,

You are the most delightful little 16-month-old! We are having so much fun communicating with you: your sign language vocabulary continues to grow at a decidedly faster rate than your spoken vocabulary, but you have started saying quite a few words lately. New ones just this week include "Daiyah" and "Rhodah" -- Daiyah is a girl who used to be in your daycare class but graduated to the Toddler room around Christmas time, and Rhodah is your teacher, who you absolutely adore.

You are pretty decided on what you like to eat, and you nod your head yes or no when we put food on your high chair tray. Thankfully you're not too picky--yet!--and I think you get a fairly balanced set of meals. You walk EVERYWHERE and new developments are that you know how to open doors (NOOOOOO!) and climb on top of a lot of things you shouldn't be climbing on top of.

Your favorite thing in the whole world is reading books. I love it. I absolutely love it. It's so funny because you already know which books you want to read and which ones you don't. If I pick up a book you either nod yes or shake your head no, and if I try to read a book and you've shaken your head, you will swat it out of my hands until I find a book that you nod yes to. Your favorites seem to rotate but you've been really in love with: Five Little Monkeys; any and all of your touch-and-feel books; a pair of lift-the-flap 123 and opposite books that R received for her first birthday, I can't even describe your love for these two books; Jamberry (you love to shake your head and raise your hands when the canoe tips over and all the blueberries fall out!); Goodnight Moon, and Baby Cakes. But your absolute ultimate favorite? Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. That's the one that if anyone asked me, I could recite the entire book word-for-word.

Daddy taught you to do the wheels on the bus, and when we sing B-I-N-G-O you love to clap along. Drums are your favorite instrument, and we have to dig up R's toy drum she got from Uncle A and Aunt M for her first Christmas for you to start playing with.

You are still my little cuddlebug, and you are always walking around holding a stuffed animal on your shoulder cuddling with it. You love to have us hold you and cuddle and you take little "cuddle breaks" throughout the day to just curl up close to something or somebody and suck your thumb for a minute or two.

I love you, my sweet sweet boy,

Love,
Mama

RUS 14 months

Dear RUS,

You are 14 months old! We are having a ton of fun with you--watching as you clearly understand what we are saying and respond to everything!

You have started officially toddling. I've finally come to terms with the fact that you're not an infant anymore--today, just a few days after taking your very, very, VERY first independent steps, you demonstrated just how bold you're getting, and you walked three big steps all the way from me to a chair in our living room. We also saw you stand up from the floor without holding on to anything, and try to walk over to the art table. Before long, you're going to be exclusively walking, and I'm already mourning the end of an era in this house.
You're very impish, and you love to climb on things and look through things. The climbing is borderline scary, though, because you are so bold about getting on top of anything you can possibly reach. You open all the cabinets (except, of course, for the ones we've locked, and we've had to lock a few new ones to keep you out of them!) and you regularly crawl down to R's room and bang on the door for us to let you in there, since you know that is where all the toys are!
You've also got some very decided opinions about things, and you know what you want and how to communicate when you're not getting what you want. It's fantastic--and your picky eating, while still a little pickier than R was at the same age, is not nearly as picky as it used to be. You are eating a good variety of foods and you're still really good at feeding yourself.

Love,
Mama

R 39-40-41 months

Dear R,

It has been three months since my last newsletter for you, and there is much to share!

You love naming and identifying words that rhyme. You'll randomly shout out words and then make up a rhyming word and declare, "That rhymes!" Sometimes the words are actual words. Sometimes they actually do rhyme. We have fun with this, especially when reading poetry at night before bed. It is really exciting having you play with word sounds. You love to identify sounds that words begin with, and when I write things for you, I often ask you to tell me what the first letter should be.
We've instituted a reward chart which is working fairly well. Grammie made your first one (the red one on the fridge in the picture above) but we've had a few others since then (the current one is on the left of the red one). Usually you get a Dora sticker for setting the napkins around the dinner table, and we sometimes surprise you with a sticker for being good or doing something wonderful or showing kindness towards others. You love picking out your surprises (they are all little things, some from Grammie and others that we've found or gotten while out and about).
You still enjoy playing with Pocha. The last few weeks we haven't heard much about him, but he was around a lot the last few months. But as your interest in playing with Pocha has waned, you've gotten a lot more involved with your dolls lately-- specifically your princess dolls (Cinderella, Ariel, and Cinderella) that you got for your birthday this year.

In fact, lately our house feels like it is overflowing with talk about Princesses, Princesses, Princesses! To give an example, we have six different Cinderella books in the house, plus a seventh one that I checked out of the library last week. Having all these versions of the book are my fault, as I loved Cinderella as a girl and so whenever I see one on sale or super-cheap, I snag it. We've also received some for free from various family members. Three of the versions we have are Disney books but each one is somehow different.

In one of the Disney Cinderella books we have, the first page starts off with a brief description of Ella and her father, including the mention that Ella's eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots. You have asked someone to read this particular version of Cinderella to you at least 100 times in the last month, so I'm sure you about have it memorized by now. Today, as we were reading Fancy Nancy, Explorer Extraordinaire, when I got to the wildflowers page (which includes a picture of a forget-me-not), you exclaimed, "Ella's eyes were as blue as forget-me-nots!"

I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea what you were talking about for a minute there, but it's just another sign of how sharp your memory is for all kinds of little details. Nothing gets past you these days.
You've also seen some changes at your day care. The school just hired a new teacher for your classroom, ending a search for a new teacher that actually started way back in May. This meant that the classroom assistant that you had for three months also moved on, and we were sad to see her go! She super-generously gave you a $5 gift card to a local toy store and we took you there to let you pick out anything you wanted. You picked out this blue princess doll, who you have variously called Cinderella or Mary (of Mary Had a Little Lamb fame), and you've carried this doll everywhere ever since you got it.
I asked you if I could take some pictures of you with the doll so that we could send them as a thank you to Ms. A, and you were SO happy to cooperate! Do you know how happy this made me? You were even brave enough to sit in our tree and let me take pictures. They came out so gorgeous. Daddy and I are going to frame one of them for our living room.

We love you so much, baby girl!!!

Love,
Mama

Re: R's Monthly Letters

Believe it or not I am actually working on one for R. It's going to be her 39-40-41-month letter. I really am behind on hers, but it is coming!!!

RUS 13 months

Dear RUS,

You have reached the age where every day--literally--every.single.day there is something new that we discover that you can do.

You've really picked up on the concept of signing as a way of communicating what you want. I mentioned in an earlier post all the signs you're doing on a regular basis, but even bigger than just the individual list of signs is the fact that you're actively trying to imitate and approximate the signs we do for you. At breakfast we sign "hot" when telling you that the oatmeal is too hot and we have to blow on it. You make the cutest--oh my goodness, it is SO CUTE--scrunched up little face with a blowing noise to imitate us blowing on your spoon, and you sign "hot"! I so want to get this on camera but it is all in the moment. It works when I'm holding the spoon and blowing and you're blowing, but if I tried to put the spoon down, grab the camera and say, "RUS, blow the spoon!" you'd be like, "What are you doing? What's going on?"

At school drop-off time your room is empty because all the babies get dropped off in one of the classrooms while the teachers wait for enough of their baby friends to trickle in before they break up into their individual classrooms. Sometimes this means you and I get a few minutes of bonding time as we play with the toys in the classroom just the two of us. Today you climbed onto the climber and started opening a bunch of books and pointing to the things in them. You love to look at books, you absolutely love it. You really enjoy turning the pages and pointing to whatever you see on the page. So we were sitting there and I was telling you what everything was that you were pointing to. Then I got up to sign your sign-in sheet and when I came back you were looking at shoes--and you were signing shoes-- I could not even believe it! I said, "YES! Shoes!!!" and you signed "shoes" again. Then you pointed at a picture of an apple and said "aah, ah, ah!" (which is what you say whenever you point at something) and then you pointed at the shoes again and signed "shoes." It was OBVIOUS you knew the sign for shoes and you were purposefully signing shoes because you were looking at the shoes.

You are also getting so much more interactive with your toys. You love to play with blocks--watching Daddy make creations with the Duplo blocks or knocking down every tower we try to make with our wooden blocks. You are able to put the Duplo blocks on top of one another in the appropriate direction although you're not always strong enough to make them click together. But it's impressive to me that you recognize which direction you need to turn the block in order to try to get them to nestle together!

On the eating front you are very good with a cup--you can even hold it and tip it yourself although after a few seconds of holding it you will invariably tip it a little too far onto yourself. You can hold your spoon yourself, scoop food onto it (or pick up food with the hand not holding the spoon and put it on the spoon) and bring the spoon to your mouth. Sometimes the food falls out, and you're still getting the hang of how you should hold the spoon, but--can I just say, WOW! We are very very impressed with all that you are doing!

You are a pretty good eater. But food that is very colorful you tend to avoid for some reason. We're sometimes sneaky and wrap things, like broccoli or shredded carrots, in a piece of penne pasta or a tortilla to get you to eat them. Sometimes you just throw the food off the tray. Fairly soon we're going to have to start the "as soon as you throw food you are done" rule.

We haven't settled on the perfect arrangement of chairs etc. around the table (our FisherPrice high chair is just so huge and bulky!) but right now you and R are sitting across from one another which I think is just perfect because the two of you laugh and copy one another throughout the whole meal. It's so great to see you light up at your sister's antics!!

Love,
Mama

RUS 12 months

Dear RUS,

I am still in shock that my baby is 1! Looking back over this year, you have been the smiliest baby ever. You still sleep through the night. In fact, you are a perfect angel when it comes to nap times and bedtimes. When you're tired, and we carry you into your room, you are practically lunging for your crib. You roll over, put your thumb in your mouth, and put yourself right to sleep. For awhile--when we were trying to transition from holding you until you were asleep and laying you down, back when you were 9 months or so--I established a good night routine that involved reading Good Night Moon and occasionally Baby Cakes or Jamberry, and then laying you down. But you don't really need the routine. You're tired when you're tired, you recognize your angel dear zebra lovie (we have the tiger one at day care), and you're ready. If you're not ready for a nap, you signal your displeasure by crying the minute we try to put you in your crib. I don't even fight it, because I know you'll sleep when you are ready, so if you cry I pick you up immediately.

You've got seven teeth now--four on the bottom and a third one poked through on top just a week or so ago. The way you've been gnawing on your toys, we think a fourth one on top is about to come through.

During your well-baby check up at the pediatrician's office, you were 20 lbs. 4 oz. (about 25th percentile) and 30.25 inches long (about 50th percentile), and he pronounced you in perfect health. We also had a check up with the pediatric cardiologist about your VSD. The hole is still there, but the cardiologist is not concerned at all. He still expects that it may close on its own, hopefully before you start school, and there is nothing we need to do differently--you don't even need prophylactic antibiotics before dental work (which was a previous practice for children with heart defects that I think is being discontinued because of lack of proof that it is effective).

You are babbling and talking more and more and more every day. You sign "more" regularly at the table and say "na-na-na" for banana although this is inconsistent. You babble ma-ma-ma and da-da-da all the time and it never ceases to melt my heart. You use exclamations--"DA!" or "BA!" in reaction to your toys and to us, and you love to blow raspberries. Grampie taught you to stick your tongue out, and to say "uh-oh!" both of which you do all.the.time. We always know exactly when you're angry or don't like something, because you immediately start crying, and once we give you what you want, you are our little angel again. This happens most often in two situations: when you want a particular food that you can see in front of you or when you do NOT want your diaper changed.

You are cruising like mad, although when you want to get somewhere you immediately start crawling. You're a regular Speedy Gonzalez on all fours! You love to crawl all the way down the hallway and start banging on one of the bedroom doors--usually R's bedroom, because you know there are lots of toys in there for you to get into. But if we were given 3 guesses as to where we could find you playing at any given moment, our first guess would almost always be in front of R's play kitchen, opening the cabinets, pulling out the sink, and dumping out all the play food. You could entertain yourself for hours with that thing!

When playing, your favorite things to do are to climb and to open and close doors. If there's something you can try to climb, you are trying to do it, like a fearless alpiner ignoring potential obstacles ahead. And if there's a door that can be opened or closed repeatedly, you're on top of it! You continue to love the Roll-A-Round Dinosaur, and we've recently been pulling out stacking blocks and duplos which you are really enjoying discovering. One of your favorite toys is this book--a vtech Rhyme and Discover book that R received from Great-Grammie and Aunt L for her first Christmas. You push the buttons and open and close the different pages and just seem absolutely enthralled with it.


Happy birthday, sweet, sweet boy!!! We are so looking forward to another year with you and continuing to watch you grow and change.

Love,
Mama

RUS 11 months

Happy 11 months to a happy boy. You really are a very happy little guy. You've been happy at school, which you started a couple of weeks ago. You spent the first few days exploring the room. Then you got to know your new friends. Now you seem on a mission to assert your dominance. Your teachers tell us how you are always going after the food when someone is fed at school, and today Mommy heard that you like to go up to the little babies in your class and take the pacifiers out of their mouths. I'd like to think you're just trying to be helpful - after all, you hated it any time we tried to give you one.

You're really starting to absorb everything you see and hear. Sometimes you seem to try to imitate us when we talk or make sounds (today you were imitating daddy's hiccups). You are getting back to signing now that the novelty of pointing at everything has worn off some, though you still point a lot when you first wake up from a nap. You can sign mommy and daddy, more, all done, food, water, and your own version of banana. You blow kisses, wave bye-bye, and even play peek-a-boo with us. You have taken quite an interest in books lately. In the car, in the pack-and-play, or even just crawling up to the bookshelf, you will flip through your board books and stare at the page, sometimes babbling a bit before turning the page again.

You still like to push the chairs around and you do really good with your walkers - and your sister's strollers for her dolls. But just as often, you're happy to crawl around to get where you want to go. Often, you'll push a toy along with one hand as you crawl, or hit a ball and chase it across the room. Your favorite thing lately has been pulling up on the kitchen set and pulling out all of the toy food and toy pots and pans and scattering them everywhere. And speaking of scattering, you cannot stand to see two blocks stacked atop one another. As soon as someone starts stacking blocks, you cannot resist rushing over and not just knocking them over, but really flailing away at them until no two blocks are within 3 feet of one another. I even tested this with just lining a few shape blocks alongside each other and you still had to come over and destroy any semblance of order. You are entropy incarnate.

With three teeth and more on the way, and all of the changes you're going through, you take it all so well - thanks for being such a trooper.

R 38 months

Dear R,

One of the biggest developments in the last few months has been your interest in artwork. There have been huge transformations in the kinds of things you create with your crayons and other art supplies, so I decided to feature some of my favorite things that you've done in this monthly letter.

I love the colors on this one. If I didn't already have my favorite beach landscape of yours taped to our kitchen wall I might've considered adding this one up there.
Another abstract skyscape. The purple mixed in makes me feel like this is a painting of the sky at dusk.
You drew this next one during your rainbow phase. If you can't read the writing on the picture, it says "Rainbow Alligator." There's another one on the other side, too.
And here is where everyone should start to be astounded. One of the changes that has occurred in the last few months has been that you've started coloring in the lines. You like to find random shapes and fill them in--like if you are coloring a picture in a coloring book you want to color in every shape you can find. If I draw shapes for you, you want to make marks on every single one. Depending on your mood, you'll either draw a single dot, scribble one or two little scribbles, color in the entire shape very heavily, or color EVERYTHING in and around that shape as if you want to obliterate it from the page. We were VERY impressed when you colored in this giraffe! I was particularly taken with your color choices.
But THEN, you colored in this toucan, looking at a picture of a toucan on the cover of one of RUS's board books. I absolutely love how well you colored in the bill in stripes of alternating colors! It's phenomenal!
And here you are proudly showing off your creation!You've been doing so much more than just artwork lately, too. Just this morning you did several somersaults entirely on your own. Previously we'd always had to help you along. You're having a great time with friends every day at day care, although your "best friend" changes daily. That's good, though--you want to have good friends and I don't think you need to tie yourself up with just one best friend yet.

Love,
Mama

RUS 10 months

Dear RUS,

You are 10 months old, and the parade of milestones keeps on coming. Since learning how to pull up, you've become a pulling-up, cruising fiend. The first thing you do when we put you on the floor is crawl to the nearest thing that you can pull up on, and I've actually seen you climb cushions and make it quite high!You're processing newer signs and hand movements. Right now you do "so big", or as Grampie taught you, "Show us your muscles!", you blow kisses, you sign all done and more, as well as milk, and when we say light, you raise your arms in the air (although you don't do it in relation to the actual light changing yet).

Lately, your favorite thing to do is point. You point in every which direction and it is the funniest thing! At a spaghetti picnic at GiGi and PopPop's house this past weekend, Big D (J's uncle) and I were laughing and laughing at you pointing like you are the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.Speaking of the Wizard of Oz, that'd be an awfully cute Halloween costume, don'tcha think? I've actually been thinking of trying to make you a pirate for Halloween since you've still got just the one little pirate tooth and it's so adorable and pirate-y. But we can see your second tooth on the bottom working its way through so I know you'll have more than 1 tooth by the time Halloween rolls around. I'll have to keep brainstorming until we hit on just the right costume idea.

Love,
Mama

R 36-37 Months

Dear R,

I've been debating whether I should address this monthly letter to both you and your friend Pocha. We've been learning a lot about Pocha the last few months. I've mentioned before that you like to ask for stories and you tell us who the story should be about. There have been a lot of stories about Pocha. I like to start the story and then ask you to help me with details: "There was a little girl named R. And she had a friend named . . ."

"Pocha!"

"Okay, Pocha. And Pocha and R loved to . . . "

At this point you start to get impatient and say something along the lines of, "No, YOU tell me!" So I have to be careful not to ask you to supply too many of the details of the story. We make up all kinds of stories, often loosely based on real life and what we've done that day or yesterday or the day before.

These last few months have also shown your growing love and (dare I say) obsession with Dora. You love Dora and when given a choice of dvds to watch you almost always choose Dora. We have three different Dora books that we've read to you over and over and over again, and you insist on wearing your Dora pajamas (you have two different ones now, thanks to your two sets of grandparents) as soon as they are fresh out of the laundry.

You've been working hard at jumping farther and farther, and you practice standing on one foot and hopping on one foot every day. You get better at them each day--it's wild! We think you'd love a gymnastics or a dance class to practice your coordination.

You have also started drawing actual pictures and tracing letters and numbers. The other day we played quite a few games of tic-tac-toe while you practiced making X's over and over again. You got really good at it by the time we played our last game!

Love,
Mama

RUS 9 months

So my sweet RUS,
You are 9 months old and the milestones just keep on coming. For about a week you've been full-on hands-and-knees crawling, and your increased mobility means we have to keep even more of an eagle eye on you. You love to pull up on anything you can find, although you mostly only pull yourself up to your knees, not to standing.

I took some photos of you in an outfit we got from Grandma and Grandpa to commemorate you turning 9 months. They came out pretty cute, if I may say so!
In the last month you have started really communicating with us, and you sign "more" by clapping when we ask you if you want more food, and you wave goodbye by moving your fingers in and out of a fist shape (it almost looks like the ASL sign for "milk" but not quite).You and R continue to be wonderful playmates. She has the greatest time picking out toys and telling you what to play with. Good thing you're easy-going and generally happy with whatever she gives you. I've had to step in a few times though and insist that she not steal toys from you, because she will commandeer everything in sight if she can! But you both love playing together, and she will be the first to sing you songs or comfort you if you start to look unhappy.
And one final milestone this month: you got your FIRST TOOTH! The lower one on your right--we can feel it clinking on your spoon as you eat. You love everything we give you to eat, and you are a pro at picking up pieces of puffed rice (a cereal kind of like rice krispies but puffed instead). I don't think we've given you anything you haven't liked yet.
Love,
Mama

RUS 8 months

Dear RUS,

In your eighth month, you and R have reached a new state of happiness together. When you were born, she had more than a few moments when she told me and Daddy that we should leave you behind while we went and did something with her. Now the tables have turned. She's the first to remember that you need a toy when we're moving from one location to another, and she loves to pick out toys for you. Uncannily--because she never seems to take very long in deciding which ones to pick out-- the ones she gives you seem to be the ones that capture your attention the most.

You're moving. You are REALLY moving! If you are on your belly, you army-crawl your way across whatever room you're in, often making a beeline for a toy or something else you want to try and chew. In the last few days you've gotten better at trying to get your knees under your body as you crawl, and you're closer and closer to actually getting up on all fours. I saw you do that once in your crib, but you don't do it much at all. Your crawl is actually more of a caterpillar crawl.

You've naturally fallen into a more consistent schedule. I'm so relieved, because I was starting to worry that we were damaging your sleep by not having a more regular naptime for you. You have just started taking naps really consistently at the same times, and I'm able to anticipate when you'll need to eat, lay down, or get some floor time. You take a short morning nap around 8:30 or 9 and then a longer (sometimes 3-hour) afternoon nap around 1. You still sleep through the night--thank you so much for that amazing gift.

You're also our smiliest baby. You smile at everybody, and whoever is talking to you tends to get big toothless grins out of you. We also love trying to tickle you and R often sends the "tickle bug" your way, and your laugh just makes everyone around feel incredibly happy.

Thank you for you,
Love,
Mama

R 35 Months

Dear R,

What a month! Of course the big news is that your Grammie and Grampie now live close enough to visit with several times a week. This means lots more attention for you! It's great. You've helped Grampie plant a garden and enjoyed quite a few meals over at their house in their high chair.

You know that your birthday is coming up in June and it's already a topic of conversation just about every day. You've started planning out what kind of cupcakes you want to have and you sing yourself happy birthday several times a day.

You have become very interested in two kinds of stories: stories that we read to you and stories that we make up. When I make up a story, I usually start like this: "Once upon a time, there was a little girl/boy named . . ." and then I dramatically pause so that you can fill in the name for me.

Sometimes you insist that I come up with a name. Most of the time though, you want to come up with a name yourself. I've told stories about Marisa (the name you've given to most of your dolls at one point or another), about you, about RUS, about Grandpa, but lately, as in the last two weeks or so, you've wanted a lot of stories about "Jack."

(Perhaps unrelatedly, you've also generally been insisting that just about all of the stories I tell be about little boys, and I've noticed that you almost always use the male pronoun when describing your stuffed animals and other similarly androgynous/anthropomorphic items. The feminist in me is only slightly worried at this trend: there have to be good stories about little girls, too! And a doorknob can just as easily be a girl doorknob as a boy doorknob, right?)

Anyway, I've just about exhausted my repertoire of stories about boys named Jack (your favorite of course is "Jack and the Beanstalk" and every thump we've heard or made lately gets turned into the giant walking and ready to yell out "Fee Fi Fo Fum!"). That doesn't stop you from asking me and Daddy several times a day: "tell me a story about Jack!"

We've told you about Jack-be-nimble, about Jack and Jill, about Jack Horner who sat in a corner, and we coincidentally happened to check out not one, but TWO different library books (randomly, as I rarely read the books before grabbing them, I just check for appropriate amount of words per page and interesting pictures) centered on little boys named Jack when we went a week or so ago. This was very thrilling to you, as you pointed out JACK! It's JACK! when we first read the books.

As we've told you more and more stories, you've started to get really involved in sharing in the telling. Sometimes, for example, especially when I am making up a story about someone, you will jump in and start telling the story too. I'll be telling you about how someone is walking down the street and you'll chime in that he is going to the restaurant! Or I'll start saying that someone woke up in the morning and you'll say, "and they woke up from nap and ate breakfast!"

Speaking of breakfast, after Daddy made chocolate chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast for Mother's Day you've been asking for chocolate pizza. You describe it in great detail. And when we have to--sadly--break the news to you that we're not going to have chocolate pizza, you excitedly suggest that "maybe we can have chocolate pizza at Grammie and Grampie's house!" I try to get you to make it in your own little kitchen but you insist that you can't, that only I can make chocolate pizza.

Oh, if you only knew how much I wish I really did know how to make chocolate pizza!

Love,
Mama

RUS 7 months

Dear RUS,
I cannot believe that you are 7 months old! This has been a month full of physical milestones. You are sitting totally independently now which is so so so so wonderful. Here you are at Winterthur, in the fairies' cottage.Playing with you on the floor is still a little awkward mainly because we have hardwood floors and you're usually on top of a blanket on the floor, and the blanket isn't attached to the floor so it slips and moves when you move. Not ideal for really pushing and pulling and trying out all kinds of new things with your legs and arms.

You don't really roll when we have you on the floor playing. But two nights ago you woke up twice in the middle of the night needing attention because you rolled over onto your tummy and couldn't get back to sleep. So we know you CAN roll! You just aren't all that interested in doing it most of the time. You'd really rather be sitting up.You love your exersaucer. And I think you're just about outgrowing your bouncy chair, which makes me sad because it's so useful. When we put you in your bouncy chair you immediately start doing chin-ups. There's no way you can sit in it not strapped in because you would literally pull yourself up and fall out of the chair.

You're eating solid meals two times a day now and we're trying a variety of jarred baby food-- Daddy's made you some pureed peas and a sweet potato, and we mash our own bananas (who doesn't?) along with baby cereal. Nothing too adventurous yet but you absolutely love it all. You're getting really good with the spoon and swallowing. The most difficult thing with spoon feeding these days is dealing with your hands as you love to bang them on the tray while eating and of course they're hitting all over. It's like an obstacle course trying to get the spoon into a moving target while avoiding other moving objects!

You're an incredibly cheerful boy. You talk often, and the person who still makes you laugh harder than anyone is R. She loves to sing you songs and show you how to do patty-cake and in the car she'll try to hold your hand, which is so incredibly sweet it makes my heart melt.

Love,
Mama

6 mo stats

RUS had his 6 month check-up on tuesday, so it's time to fill y'all in on some numbers.

Weight - 17 pounds, 15.5 ounces. Yes, he's half an ounce shy of 18 pounds, but if anyone asks, I just say he's 18 pounds.

Height - 27.5 inches. He wasn't stretching much for this - his head was kinda jammed up against the little wall on the end. He just seems so much taller now, but only an inch gain since february?

All measurements are between 50th and 75th percentile - including head circumference, which was measuring low last time (we suspect a mistake in measurement).

Overall, he's a happy guy. Grabs everything he can get his hands on and shoves it into his mouth. He makes a lot of noise - but isn't babbling yet. The only consonant-like sound he really does is this "guh" sound in the back of his throat. He's eating one solid meal a day - in the evenings - and last night was his first fruit - banana. He really went for it. We'll have more tonight.

Physically, he's pretty active. When we put him in the bathtub, he splashes constantly, either with his feet laying back, or with his hands, leaning forward. He sits up pretty good with some support, but on his own he usually falls to one side or the other (or forward) after less than a minute. He does good pushups on his belly, even moving his feet as if to scoot. If you put some support behind him he really does push off too.

He's interested in everything - he stares at the cats, studies his sister, watches us as we talk to him, and smiles pretty easily at random folks he meets. His favorite thing to do lately is "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." I sit him on my lap and do the motions while singing and R tries to keep up. It takes no time before he is laughing - and spreading the laughter to the rest of us.

Well, that's about it for now.

RUS 6 months

YOIKS! My little boy is already .5!!!!

Look for more in this space soon-- I have two monthly letters to write and this is my little reminder!

R 33 and 34 months

Dear R,

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Daddy and I are in for some trouble as you get older. Or at least I am, anyway! For now, let me just tell you that you are not allowed to be almost-3-going-on-13! We've noticed that when I am talking, for example, you will try to talk over me. If I'm trying to tell Daddy something from the other room, you will start talking and steadily increase your volume the longer I keep talking.

You've also taken to telling me, "No, you don't talk now! I'm talking to Daddy! No! You don't talk! Stop talking!" when you wants to have Daddy's ear to yourself. Or if I talk to you--usually asking you a question of some sort about your day at school--you will say, "Don't tell me that!" (Translation: Don't talk to me about that!)

When I pick you up from school, I usually ask your teachers some variation of "How was R's day today?" and I often get a head shake and a knowing smile with "She was R." We understand each other in these moments: you gave your share of attitude! When you don't want to do something you're not shy about telling the world that you don't want to do it. You know how to turn on the waterworks when you want to be dramatic. And there is no way you are going to lose the "stare-you-down" game. Staring at you to try and get you to do something really doesn't work.

It's amazing how much of me as a teenager I see in you, my little not-yet-three-year-old!

But you still hold my hand when we walk across the parking lot and you love to snuggle (of course, only when you're in the mood) and we have tickle fights almost every day. You have an sweet impish streak that makes me and Daddy both laugh every day. Lately you've taken to asking for stories about different people in your life, and it's great to hear you telling stories yourself.

Love,
Mama

RUS 5 months

Dear RUS,

You are 5 months old, and contrary to expectations, you are not rolling yet! I don't know why I was so convinced you were going to roll early. Like your sister, you are really not that interested in rolling. It just isn't your thing. What is your thing, however, is trying to scrunch your abs, like you want to do sit-ups. You love to be propped in a sitting position, and you really enjoy looking all around at everything there is to see.

You are grabbing at toys left and right, and it's obvious that your hand-eye coordination has gotten markedly better. You're reaching out with just one hand for toys, rather than kind of fumbling with both hands. When you sit in your high chair at dinner with us, you pull on your tray with both of your hands to try and sit up straighter, and you have a blast with all the toys we put on the tray for you.

You're chewing on everything!! Your sister likes to help with this and we often have to tell her not to put things in your mouth for you.

You're wearing 6-month size clothes and we're getting some good use out of R's gender-neutral sleepers, too. Kind of nice to pull those out and already have them handy. We're going to have to break in the 9-month stuff pretty soon though--you're starting to get too long for the 6-month stuff.

You've got the cutest little chubby baby belly, and I'm so excited for warmer weather to come around so we can see it more often! You've also got some mild eczema on your legs and arms, which I'm trying to keep under control as much as possible. It's really not bad, but the rough spots just seem so uncomfortable to me.

Keep those smiles and laughs coming-- they are the best thing after a long day at work! And THANK YOU for continuing to be such a good night-time sleeper. It's the most amazing thing. I keep waiting for that bubble to pop!

Love,
Mama