Fourteen Months

Dear Peeper:

You are fourteen months old today. I'm happy to reach this milestone, because I've felt kind of silly saying "thirteen months," because it seemed like I should just call you "one," but you are so different - already - than you were on your birthday, that it just didn't seem right at all.

This has been a huge month for you, developmentally. You've started walking, and your signing vocabulary has just exploded.

If you count things like waving hello and goodbye, clapping - which you'll do if you hear "yay!" or "hooray!" or other people clapping, pointing to things, you have over twenty signs, at least half of which you've learned in the past month.

You also sticking out your tongue when asked, "Where's your mouth? and - new today - raise your hands when we ask "Where's Peeper?"

On a less exciting note, you've also been sick, off and on, for the past month. Which totally sucks.

Mostly, you've had a runny nose and felt icky, but the past week, you had an ear infection, and then an allergic reaction to the antibiotics. That's no fun. You should stop that. Really.

Along with being sick, you've not been real interested in "chewin' food," and earlier this week, you were eating so little and nursing so much that your diapers were looking like the old days.

You've not gained much weight lately - four ounces from twelve months to thirteen, and nothing since then.

When I asked the nurse about it, she was sort of noncommittal, saying that well, the scales vary, and yes, if you'd not been eating much that would make sense, and so on.

Then I mentioned that you'd learned to walk in the past few weeks, and she said, "Oh! That explains it!"

I suppose if I'd started the kind of walking program than you had, I would've maintained my weight over the past month, too, huh?

I'm looking forward to getting your height measured at your checkup next month, because you seem alot taller.

When you look taller up against furniture, it might have to do with standing up straighter, but your jammies are also getting awfully snug in the neck-to-toes direction, so I don't guess it's just a matter of perspective.

You are definitely changing from a baby-shaped person into a toddler-shaped person.

Which is fitting, because you are totally a toddler now, what with the walking and the signing and the understanding what we say, and everything else.

And we are loving (almost) every minute of it.

Now, stop being sick, so we can love the rest of it, too.

Get well soon, Roo-Roo.


love,
Mama