19 and 20 Months

Dear Silvie,

This may be my favorite age so far.  You are so delightfully funny and independent and stubborn.  And you love to snuggle up on the couch and read library books with me.  And you’re obsessed with your belly button and play with it all the time.  And you run in a sort of two-beat gallop that makes my heart skip a beat every time I see it.  You love “pump’n pie” and “appa juice”. One moment you’re curled up sucking your pacifier and cuddling with me, and the next moment you are tearing around the house on your “bike” in your red rubber rain boots.

On your 19 month “birthday” you walked into the bathroom and tugged at your pants and diaper until I obligingly took them off for you.  Then you popped yourself down on the little Ikea potty chair and peed in it like you’d been doing it that way for years.  No commentary, no prompting from mama, no praise needed.  You repeated this performance five or six times in the following week.  And then you stopped.  Apparently, you have proven to yourself that you know how to pee on a potty but see no practical application for this in your everyday life.  I hope you change your mind eventually, but for now I’m ok with you staying in diapers for a bit longer.  You’re growing out of all of your “baby-ness” so quickly.

At twenty months, you’ve started to put together phrases when motivated.  “Mo’ cookie mae-ee” (more cookie please) is a favorite.  “Papa home?” “Mae home, Cawa home!”  “No Aaaee” (No, Abraham!)  But will hold out 45 minutes in time out before saying “Sowwy” if you don’t want to apologize.

In fact, you can be downright stubborn.  The other day after work when I got to Miss Naomi’s to pick you up, you were sitting on her lap beside a pile of Cheerios on the floor. In the morning you had accidentally dumped your snack cup full of Cheerios on the floor.  That wouldn’t have been a big deal except that you refused to help pick them up.  You looked at them, got that determined little look on your face and refused to even acknowledge the existence of Cheerios.

Of course, this behavior got you sent immediately to a time out.  And then another one.  And another one.  And another one. You went the rest of the morning, skipped lunch, took your nap and were still refusing to pick up your Cheerios when I got there at 4:45.  I wasn’t about to let you get out of picking up your Cheerios either but we did need to get home so I ended up doing what we call a “hand over hand assist” in special education and gently forcing you to pick up a handful.  After one handful you did voluntarily pick up ONE Cheerio by yourself.  Yes, we do expect you to help pick up after yourself, and, yes, we do mean it, you stubborn little thing.

You have an interest in mechanical things that reminds me that your Miller genes are strong as well as those shared with your Grandpa Ben and Aunt Kris.  Any time Papa gets out tools to work on something, you are right there beside him “helping”.  Here you are with an Allen wrench working on one of the dining room chairs.

Silvie, I love you from the top of your honey-haired head down to the bottom of your stubborn little boot-covered toes.

Your Mama