Twenty-Three Months

Dear Peeper:
You are twenty-three months old today, which means that you are now just a month away from being - Oh. My. God. - two years old!

Confession: I'm actually writing most of this post a few days early, and will double check it for accuracy then post it on the 27th, because we'll be on our way to the airport bright and early that morning, for our trip to Texas. I half-assed your last monthly letter because we were on our way to the beach, and I don't want to do that again, especially since this has been such a huge month for you.

Why so huge?

Well, it seems that you've hit that "language explosion" that everyone's been telling us to expect. It started at the beginning of this month, during our trip to the beach, and you've only sped up since then.

I've been updating my "official" list of your words and signs, and saw that in less than a month, you've about tripled your non-animal-sound spoken vocabulary!

And at this point, I'm having trouble keeping up with the new words, so I'm sure there are some that you're using that aren't even on the list.

I thought about including that list in this post, but I think I'll wait until next month, and post the full list of everything you're signing and saying at your birthday.

OMG. Next month is your birthday! Your second birthday!

I say that as though I'm surprised by it, but I've been working on plans for your party for at least a few weeks. Mostly "working" in my head so far, but now we've got a date set (Sunday 10/24 - we had to wait to see Mommy's work schedule before we could make it official) and I'm pricing bakeries (Our friend who made your first birthday cake has moved to Germany. How dare she?!) and debating whether to try making your cake - or, more likely, cupcakes or something similar - myself.

But, enough about next month, back to what you've been doing over the past month . . . .

In addition to all the new words you've learned, you're also starting to get your head wrapped around numbers.

You love to "count" objects, by pointing to them one by one, and saying, "Taa-ah, taa-ah . . . " and you're learning the actual numbers, too.

You definitely know what "two" means, you seem to recognize the numeral 1 and if I count slowly enough, you can (sometimes) fill in five, six, eight, nine and ten.

I know, it surpised the hell out of me, too.

You're getting better and better with your puzzles, even the harder ones, with really funky shapes (animals and such) and even some with no pictures under the pieces.

And you're all over the colors. You point to things and tell me that they are "bwooo" or "yehyoh" or "puhpoh" and are usually right. If I ask, you can sometimes tell me "geen" and "pik," too. (Although I think "bwoo" is your go-to answer when you're not sure.) When I ask you to "show me the (pick-a-color) one," you get that right more often than not, too.

Last week, as we were leaving the Fall Farm Fun Fest, you got all excited and started saying "Bwoo! Bwoo! Bwoo!" It took us a minute to realize that you were point right at a bright blue truck. (Cobalt. Shiny. Preeetty. Oh, sorry . . . .) A few minutes later, you pointed at your denim overalls and told me that they were "Bwoo!" too.

A while back, you evidently injured the nail on one of your big toes.

(We don't know how. We noticed it shortly after we got back from the beach. You'd not been away from us in over a week, and neither of us could remember anything happening that seemed like it should've done that kind of damage. It's been ages since you dropped that rock on your foot, and I think that might have been the other foot anyway, so it couldn't have been that. It's a mystery. But, I digress. . . . )

You have a bruise at the base of the toenail (I am so worried you're going to lose the nail, mostly because that would just be gross!) and you frequently point to it and tell me that it's "Puhpoh! Puhpoh!"

You spend a lot of time pointing out various injuries (real and imagined) on your poor little legs and feet. You've barely touched your shoes all summer, and you spend a lot of time outside, stepping on sticks and climbing on concrete and just being a kid, so you're all scratched and bruised and just generally well broken-in.

Everytime you notice one of these scratches or bruises, you say "Mama!" or "Mommy!" and point to it, signing "hurt" and expecting a kiss. You're pretty good at accepting blown kisses when necessary (and sometimes blown-and-bounced-off-two-mirrors kisses when we're in the car) and you often "self medicate" by kissing your own boo-boos.

You're also very sweet about kissing other people's boo-boos, and asking if they hurt.

The other day, I was walking around the backyard with you, in my barefeet, and told you that I didn't want to be in a certain area because it hurt my feet. (Under the trees, with sticks and pinecones and such.) After I got back on to the grass and put you down, I thought you were trying to pick something up, so I kept moving out of your way - until I realized that you were trying to kiss my feet!

When we went to the beach, Mommy did, well, to put it bluntly, a rather crappy job of sunscreening herself and got a rather nasty sunburn on her back. For several days, I put aloe vera on it for her, while you signed "hurt" and gave her kisses.

Even now, when you see the bottle of aloe vera, you point to it, and say "Mommy" and sign, "hurt." That's right. That's the stuff that Mommy put on her back when it was hurt. Little smarty-diaper girl!

Speaking of diapers, we may have taken the first couple of steps down the road to potty training. We've had the potty in the bathroom for ages, and you love to play with it, and you like to sit (with clothes on) and read, but we've not really been actively doing anything about it.

Lately, though, you've started occassionally telling us when you've pooped, or even once or twice, when you were about to poop.

We've also been lucky enough to catch a couple of poops (well, one and then the second half of another one) and pees (um, the second half of one) in the potty during nakey time, and have made a really big deal out of that. (Mommy made up a song and everything.)

So, for the past week or so, I've been trying to give you some nakey time and keep an eye on you, and give you a chance to sit on the potty and try everytime I change your diaper, and talk talk talk about pottying all the time.

You're digging Elmo's "Potty Time" video  . . . you'll do that poo-poo that you do so well . . . (Or, maybe, Mama's digging it.) and you just might get a book (probably also starring Elmo) about pottying for your birthday.

We're not in any rush, and we're certainly not looking at any kind of charts and stickers and such at this point, but we are thinking it might be time to start gently encouraging you in that direction.

As I said, we're leaving for Texas "today" and as quickly as you're picking up new words and skills, I can't even imagine how much more you'll be doing when we get home, just a week from now - let alone where you'll be next month, on your birthday.

And I can't wait to find out.

I love you my little talk-ball!


Love,
Mama