Bad Things Come In Threes

Dear Connor,

In my last letter, I told you about one of the best moments ever. In this letter, I am going to talk about this morning, which was the exact opposite of the best moment ever. First, when you woke up this morning, I picked you up and discovered that your pee had soaked through your diaper and onto your onesie, pajamas, sleepsack and sheets. Awesome. 

I cleaned and changed you, fed you your bottle of milk, put you in your playpen and went upstairs to change your sheets. When I came back downstairs, I immediately smelled it--you had pooped. A lot. In fact, you had pooped so much that the poop had squished out of your diaper and was smeared all over your pants and the playmat that you had been sitting and rolling around on. Lovely. 

I cleaned and changed you again and put you in your highchair. I cut up blueberry waffles and a handful of grapes for you and began tackling the mess in your playpen, wiping and disinfecting the entire playmat and also all of your toys for good measure. While I was doing this, you vomited all over yourself and your highchair. 

Oh. My. God. When it rains, it pours.

Love,

Mom

Playground Antics

Dear Connor,

Over the weekend, Daddy and I took you to a playground and you had a blast on the swing. You kept giggling and shouting "weeeee!" as you swung back and forth. It was the first time we ever heard you say "weeeee" and it was absolutely adorable!

Later on, I was watching you and Daddy run around. You guys were about 15 feet away from me and Daddy turned you around and pointed me out to you. When you saw me, you beamed and started running toward me. I squatted down and you ran right into my arms and gave me a big, tight hug. It was one of the Best. Moments. Ever.

Love,
Mom

19 Months

Dear Connor,

You turned 19 months old today! I still think of you as my little baby (and let's be honest, I always will) but you are already such a big boy who can do so many big boy things:

-You have added a lot of new words to your vocabulary over the past few weeks: cookie (you say "coco"), duck, quack, baa (for sheep), eye, belly button (you point to your belly button and say "beh beh"), car and sit (you often say it to Mochi, I guess because you hear Daddy and me saying it to him all of the time!). When you want me to pick you up, you hold your arms out toward me and say "up" and when you pee or poop in your diaper, you tap your crotch and say "duh-tee" (dirty). I am especially proud of the fact that I just taught you how to say please; you say it like "peas" in this adorable soft-spoken voice.

-When you're so tired that you actually want to nap, you let me know by walking over to the spot on the couch where you always take your naps and laying your head down on it. 

-You love to dance and have some seriously awesome dance moves. My favorites are when you wiggle your butt and this hilarious one where you walk and squat to the beat of the music. 

-You love coconut water and yogurt smoothies. If I'm drinking one, I try to share it with you but you always end up hogging it all to yourself. Thanks a lot. 

-Daddy and I bought you a lot of gender-neutral toys but the whole boys-love-cars thing must be innate because you love to play with cars now. Sometimes, you even pretend pieces of your food are cars and push them across your high chair tray and say "choo choo." 

-You continue to be the friendliest baby ever! When Daddy was at the dentist last week, you and I were waiting for him in the waiting room and you walked up and said hi to every single person who came into the waiting room. Your friendliness is cute but we do have to have the stranger talk with you soon.

-When I'm mixing something in my KitchenAid mixer, you like to look into the bowl and imitate the mixer's circular motion by moving your upper body in a circular motion. So funny!

-In addition to teaching you colors, numbers, the letters of the alphabet and useful things like that, I have taught you to push your cheeks in so that your lips pucker like a fish whenever I say, "Fish face!"

I love you more and more every day, sweetie.

Love,

Mom

Nap Prisoner

Dear Connor,

I was able to sleep train you so that you can now fall asleep by yourself at night but I still cannot get you to take naps on your own. You have so much to do, so much to see, so many toys to play with! You just cannot be bothered with naps so when it's time for one, you fight it. I lay you down in your crib, you pop right up, I lay you down, you pop back up, lather, rinse, repeat. If I just leave you in your room, you scream and cry for the entire hour or so that you should be napping. The only way I can get you to take a nap is to lay down on the couch with you and wrap my arms around you. You eventually fall asleep and then I can get up off the couch. 

Except that sometimes, I can't get up off the couch. As soon as I move my arms, you stir and grab them in your half-conscious state. So I lay back down, put my arms back around you and wait until you drift off again. But when I attempt to get up a second time, you immediately sense it (what are you, a ninja??) and reach for me. If your flailing hands don't make contact with my arms, you wake up and start crying. There are times when I spend a good half of an hour trying to slip off of the couch without waking you up. Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes I have to lay down and hold you for your entire 1- to 2-hour nap. When it's the latter, I usually get annoyed. I have laundry to fold! Emails to write! Lunch to eat! But you know what? There are worse things in life than having to hold you for a few hours, feel your sweet breath on my skin and watch your eyelids flutter while you dream.

Love,

Mom

Egg-stra Special

Dear Connor,

Daddy and I took you to your first Easter egg hunt today! I forgot to bring a basket for you but we didn't need it--you found one egg, quickly lost interest in it, threw it back on the ground and then spent the rest of the hunt racing around the playground like a crazy drunk person (you run in a zigzag pattern and it is hilarious). Fun times!

Love,

Mom

A Day At the Zoo

Dear Connor,

Daddy and I took you to the Bronx Zoo yesterday and you had so much fun! You'd been to the zoo before when you were 11 months old but you were more interested in the animals this time around. You were especially impressed by the giraffes and kept pointing at them and saying, "Ooooo!"

You also liked seeing the pretty peacock and the big, ferocious tiger:

You enjoyed playing in the field of daffodils, too:

But my favorite part of the day was when I knelt down to fix your sweatshirt and you grabbed me and surprised me with a sweet little kiss:

Love,
Mom

Dining Disaster

Dear Connor,

"It'll be fine," I told your dad.

"But it never is," he replied.

"He'll be good this time," I said.

Oh, but you were not, little boy. The three of us went to a restaurant tonight, a casual Indian place in Jackson Heights. We sat down. We ordered. And then my sweet baby boy was replaced by a crazy monster child. Your dad knew this was coming. We've seen it happen before in other restaurants. But I'm an optimist. I always try to believe that everything will be okay, that people are good and that children will be well-behaved when they should be. But what I call optimism, your dad calls naivete and tonight, he was right.

You screamed because you didn't want to sit in your highchair. You screamed when we took the menu away from you but then you threw it on the floor when we gave it back to you. You screamed because you wanted to play with my earring and I wouldn't let you. You generally like Indian food but the only thing you would eat tonight was the papadam, so you basically had a bunch of chips for dinner. You spit out the idli. The samosa. The uttapam. And you smashed it all in your hands and wiped it on the table, your clothes and my jacket. When you became bored with playing with your food, you started crying and kicking the table. You made such a scene that when the waiter came to take our dessert order, he didn't ask us, "What would you like for dessert?" but just told us matter-of-factly, "You can take dessert to go." 

So we took it to go, as we will be doing with all of our restaurant meals from now on because we are never eating in a restaurant with you ever again.

Love,

Mom