Odessa, 21 Months

Oh baby. I love you so much. It isn't until you are a parent that you can understand the depths of love that one can have for their children.

Life with you is getting to be really fun! The newborn phase, with your endless crying, was tormenting. As an infant, I realized how my personality doesn't match well with the needs of a young baby. I need alone time. I write and read. This is how I maintain any semblance of a emotional equilibrium. But now you enjoy a little more independence, which gives me some of the time that I "need". You also love to be on the go! I can tell that you get bored at home by mid-morning. So every day that we are home we go out and play and have fun together. Sometimes we get out just to run errands -- grocery store, bank etc. Other days we enjoy peaceful time at the library and the park. And some days I have a lot of energy and we will go to the Children's Museum or the community center indoor gym -- Odessa-centric places like that.

You are VERY sociable. You love to go around restaurants and say "Hi" to everyone at their tables. Much to the chagrin of the staff. At school, they call you their "greeter" because you will stand at the gated doorway and greet everyone who goes by. When you see other kids playing, you don't hesitate to go right over and join in. I have to watch you carefully, because you will follow kids anywhere. At a Le Leche League meeting the other day, you went around to each of the moms to sit on their laps -- and they were complete strangers. I am so happy that you are so confident and comfortable around people. I hope that trait continues.

You have been teething for what seems like forever. But these past two months all that effort paid off and you have gotten approximately 6 molars. I say "approximately" because it is really hard to get a good look in your mouth without getting bitten. BUT, a couple of weeks ago we had a couple really rough nights where we only got a few hours of shut-eye. That was tough but it all seems to be going better now (knock on wood).

Schedule. Schmedule. It used to be so random and now your patterns are quite consistent. Which is good for me because I need routines. You are an early riser. I am really not sure how to change that. So we get up at 5:30 most mornings. Your nap time is around 12 p.m. depending on how busy we are. If I nap with you (and I usually do, one of my all-time favorite parts of the day) you will often sleep for 2-3 hours. It is such a nice reprieve in the middle of the day. You go to bed around 9:30 p.m. I am trying to make that earlier in the evening but I am not very good at it. 1) I wonder if you go to bed at 7:30 or 8:00 if you will still wake up at 5:30 a.m. Maybe you would and that would be good for you and you need more sleep. Or maybe not. 2) It is hard for me to want to stop all the evening activities to start our bedtime routine. We are generally hanging out with Daddy or Grandma or Auntie Kiki. 3) By the time our bedtime routine is over and I nurse you before sleep, I am ready to go to bed but 7:30 just is too early for me. So I tend to keep you up until I am more ready for sleep.

*After a couple nights of sleep experimentation, I came to the conclusion that you will not be ready for sleep at any point before 8:00 p.m. I think that you need about 10 hours a night (8 ish till 6 ish in the morning). So if we are reading bedtime stories at 7:45 p.m., then we are doing really well. And if you fall asleep rather quickly, I can still have 1-2 hours of "me" time. Sadly, "me" time = laundry and catching up on emails. But I am the neurotic one so that is my problem, not yours.

You say SO many words now! I don't even think I can list them all if I wanted to. You are quite confident about shouting "no!" and "help please". Recently we discovered that you can say "butterfly". You just talk all the time and it is so nice to be able to communicate with my little dictator. And you understand even more! When we get home, you will often run through the front door and then spin around quickly trying to escape again ("wait...I just remembered -- I don't want to be home"). Sometimes I am not quick enough and then I have to either chase after you or bribe you to come back in. The other day the I said "come in for cookie!" and you spun right back around again! Already I am black-mailing my child for dessert.

Another funny thing that involves dessert is that whenever we say "Kiki" (as in Auntie Kiki) you look towards the kitchen and ask "cookie?". V. cute.

I didn't really have a plan, but I always imagined that you would likely self-wean. But something changed in the past couple of months. I don't even want to us to wean, just to nurse less. Some days I am totally fine with your being my Velcro-baby who nurses frequently, but there are some days that I just am irritated by so much nursing. So we are working on nursing less. You don't like it very much and sometimes I feel bad because you do love your "na-nas" so much.

Your hair. I think we are at the point where we should address your hair. For awhile there I was concerned that a "good hair day" for you meant that it didn't look like you had been recently electrocuted. But now your "wisps" have developed into very cute ringlets! Grandma bought you a special shampoo for babies with curly hair and it seems to be helping quite a bit. I also now know that I need to wet your hair and comb it out each morning to get your ringlets back into shape.

I have been thinking a lot about your birth recently. I think it is because I am starting to think about giving you a sibling. Or not. Its a tough decision and one that we will cover at a later juncture. For you, we had planned an all-natural, water birth. Apparently, this plan was in contradiction to your own plan for exiting the womb or you are terrible at reading maps. Being the dramatic girl that you are (or just a terrible map-reader), you decided to attempt to get out sunny-side up and "brow presentation" which means that you had your neck tilted backwards. Well, guess what, that didn't work for my pelvis. We ended up in the hospital with a c-section. I was just so happy to have a beautiful, healthy baby that I didn't really figure out what had "gone wrong". But now considering being pregnant again, I wanted to know what happened and if I wimped out or really needed the c-section. After reading my medical records and research on the Internet, it is pretty clear that a baby can almost certainly not be born in the position in which you chose.

Of course, there is always room for doubt and so I am still thinking about "why" you ended up in that position -- what could I have done to change prevent/change that? You know what, I guess that I will never know. But I do know this: however in life your plans may contradict mine, I love you very, very much.