Dear Thomas,
This weekend you turned fifteen months old, and It’s just been one adventure after another around here over the past couple of months! We were out of town almost all of the month of August, first at your cousin Lis’ wedding in Minnesota, and then at your Aunt Ingrid’s wedding in Iowa. You had a great time doing cool stuff like playing on the beach and hanging out with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents, but you also had a difficult time with sleeping in weird places and on weird schedules. One of the most fun places you slept was on your great-uncle John’s shoulder through all of Ingrid’s wedding–you probably would have slept for a couple of hours, but all of those silly guests just had to clap at the end, and you were startled out of your peaceful slumber.
When you were smaller, we were often too disorganized to get supper put together before your bedtime, so we’d feed you some sort of baby-type food, put you down for the night, and then have our grown-up dinner around 8:00 or 8:30. Now that you eat pretty much anything that we eat, though, we’ve instituted a non-negotiable family dinnertime, and we’re all thoroughly enjoying it. You still sit in your high chair in the kitchen for breakfast, snacks, and sometimes lunch, but we got you a booster chair so that you can sit with us at the diningroom table every night at supper. Daddy and I love chatting with you and sharing our food with you at dinnertime, and it seems like you really like getting to eat like a big boy. In the past few weeks you’ve tried lots of foods, including shrimp stir fry, pot roast, and spaghetti and meatballs, and you’ve chowed down on everything! You are also having a full-fledged love affair with grapes (cut up into non-chokable pieces, of course!).
In the last two months, you have started initiating funny little games with Daddy and me. In one of these games, you grab a tissue or a cloth, hold it to your nose, and sniff on it. Then you thrust the tissue in my face or in Daddy’s, and expect us to sniff as well. Then you sniff. Then we sniff. Then you sniff. Then we sniff. You think this is hilarious. In another game, you suddenly lie down on the floor and begin sucking your thumb. At first we thought this meant you were tired, but we’ve come to realize that you’re just pretending, and that you want one of us to also lie down. One time, after lying down, I scooted towards you and eventually tickled your ribs, and now this is the expected protocol. You put your head on the floor and your eyes twinkle while you smile from behind your thumb in anticipation of the scooting and tickling. Sometimes I initiate the game by lying down while you’re playing with something else, and you reciprocate by toddling over to me and attempting to shove your face next to mine, but you often forget to lie down first, so you end up tumbling over and giggling in a heap on the floor. You also love to be chased, and will look over your shoulder at us and then take off with a screech of delight. Sometimes you misunderestimate how much room there is between you and the wall, though, so you have to turn around and run towards us for a minute before we “catch” you. And in the last couple of weeks, you also have become extremely fond of “hiding” from us behind closet or bedroom doors, and then (after waiting for us to call out “where’s Thomas? I can’t find him!!”) peaking out from behind them in response. You laugh and laugh and laugh at our surprise at “finding” you behind the door.
You’re have also begun to understand that there are certain things we don’t want you to do. A month or so ago you were very kind to us in this regard; you would express this recognition of naughty behavior by warning us just before you were about to do something you shouldn’t. As you headed for the dog bowl or the open dishwasher or an uncovered power outlet (for instance) you would stop, turn to look at us, crinkle your eyes in the most adorable smile, and then shriek at the top of your lungs as you ran towards the forbidden object. Lately you’ve become a little quieter (= sneakier), which translates to more spilled water and more instances of mom/dad dashing across the room in rapid fashion.
You’re really into getting inside of things, like closets, bookshelves, laundry baskets, boxes, but especially all of your Grandma Joan’s cabinets. Here you are in a cabinet at the Hendrickson Lake House:
You may or may not be able to tell from this picture that this cabinet is maybe eight inches wide. It can hold about three or four cookie sheets, and that’s it. Or it can hold you. You were very proud of yourself when you got in, then not quite so pleased when you were trying to get out.
Oh, and did I mention that YOU CAN CLIMB THINGS NOW? You can climb on the couch, our kitchen chairs, boxes, baskets, and you have even used your bongos as a climbing gym. But yesterday–oh day!–you climbed INTO YOUR HIGH CHAIR. Maybe that’s not a particularly stunning achievement for some high chairs, but yours is particularly tall and has a permanently affixed snack tray that I thought would have made it awfully difficult for you to make it all the way up and in. Still, now that you’ve figured out how to climb you’re both persistent and obsessed, and minor obstacle will not deter you. We can’t take our eyes off you for a second.
One Saturday morning several weeks ago, we had brought you back to our bed to cuddle after you’d woken up. Otto decided it was time to get up, though, so he went out to the livingroom to keep an eye on things. At some point a few minutes later, a squirrel must have invaded the yard, because Otto sounded the red alert in the way that only a schnauzer can. You sat up, smiled, and replied with a sweet but recognizably schnauzerish “woo woo woo woof! woo woo woo woof!” Since then you bark back at him whenever he barks. Moreover, you bark when you see a dog in a book or in a picture on the wall. You bark when you see a dog out the window or hear one barking when we’re outside. And lately, you’ve even been barking at things that dogs bark at; you point at squirrels and bark at them, you’ve barked at rabbits, and you even bark at the cats at your sitter’s house. It’s all very sweet and friendly, your barking, and pretty matter-of-fact. When other people hear you make this noise, they often don’t know you’re making a dog’s barking sound. Clearly, they just aren’t familiar with the schnauzer’s distinctive woof.
Lastly, it’s important to record for all posterity that in the last week and a half, you have begun to use a couple of words! Besides “mama” and “dada,” which used to be all-purpose but have become recognizable as your names for us, you also now say “baby” (which seems to mean anybody under about age two) and “ball”. You know lots of other words that you don’t say, including a number of your body parts and “yes” and “no” (you shake and nod your head, though I’m not always convinced you know what these mean), cow (you say “mmmmmmmmmmmm” but so far no “oooooooooooo”) and snake (you quickly exhale, though not with the initial “s”). You also sign much more reliably than a few months ago, using the standard signs for “milk”, “more”, “all done” and “help” and some you made up for “swing” and “music”. I’m working on “please” and “thank you” now. I love being able to communicate with you in these precise and meaningful ways, and I can’t wait to see what your precious and precocious little mind comes up with next. You are the most fascinating and most adorable little person I’ve ever met, and every day I can’t believe I’m so lucky as to be your mom.
Love,
Mama
