15 Months

My Darling Tori Anne,

Amazingly enough, another summer in your life has gone by, and here you are, 15 months old. It's becoming more and more obvious that you are moving away from being a baby and plunging headlong toward being a kid. As much as I wish I could keep you my little baby forever, you are growing up.

You continue to amaze me. You are an incredibly agile child, and just a couple of weeks after walking became easy for you, you started climbing. One day you climbed the entire flight of stairs in our house; your Daddy was working in his office when he suddenly heard the pitter-patter of your little feet. I was working at my desk downstairs and didn't see you go. Fast as we could we bought a baby gate for the bottom of the stairs, and after much wrestling, cursing, and screaming we got it secure. Now you climb up the two steps to it and hang from the bars much like a prisoner on cell block C. We never carry you up the stairs anymore; we just let you climb. We almost never use the stroller either--you love to walk too much. While you don't yet run, you do have this adorable fast walk where you really throw your shoulders into it. It cracks us up every time.

We continue to drag you to new places and do new things. Recently we took you to Coney Island, a place I've read about extensively but never visited. We crammed  a whole lot of new stuff in that day. You rode on an enclosed Ferris Wheel and a merry-go-round, and saw the ocean.

You loved the ferris wheel and the merry-go-round, but you were undecided about the ocean. You looked at the water and then looked at me with an expression that said, "Mom, that water is MOVING." You found the waves to be scary, and instead contented yourself with eating some, um, nutritious Coney Island Sand.

You've become much more cuddly this month. Since you first started cruising you've been all about going places and doing things. But it seems that the ability to walk has assured you of your mobility and you are happy to cuddle with us on the couch sometimes, especially when you can have patting access to the dog.

You love the dog. You've been much more vocal lately and you've put together the concepts of dog and woof and Bubba (which is our nickname for Hammer the Best Dog Ever). So now whenever you see him, you say, "Bubba!" which is nothing short of head-poppingly cute. But you call other dogs Bubba too, and you also say "Bubba" whenever you hear a dog barking, so we still have a little work to do to straighten that all out. Your Daddy frets about that.

You say lots of words now, and you answer questions. You can point (most of the time) to your eye, ear, nose and belly button when asked. You can tell me what a dog, a cat, and a tiger say. You know the tub-spout cover is in the shape of a duck and greet it each bath time with shrieks of "DUCK! DUCK!" Sometimes you even know a duck says "quack," and a train says, "whoo-hoo." But the most startling thing is that a week or so ago we realized that you will indicate your preferences if we ask you direct questions. If I ask you if you want to go to the playground you nod with your whole body and walk to the front door. If I ask you if you are tired and want to go to bed, you nod again, walk over to the stairs and climb up to the gate and start waving goodbye to Daddy and Bubba. It's amazing, and I have to fight the impulse to tell you that you are smart constantly (apparently, we aren't supposed to tell you that anymore say the psychologists). But you are. You are fucking brilliant.

You've become much more expressive, learning both an awesome surprised face (pictured above) and an angry face. The angry face was quite funny because you started making it before you were actually angry, just to practice. Now you are quite the pro with the mad face. You look a bit like Shirley Temple when you do, which is quite funny.

Your Daddy and I still feel so blessed to have you. We've decided recently that you will be our only child, as both of us are getting older and poorer. If we had more time, we might try to get you a brother or sister, but I'm not really up to having a newborn and a toddler in my 40's and since we'd have to use your Godmother Sarah's uterus to make that baby, it too would over 40 before we'd be ready. So you'll have to just make do with your two older brothers as guardian angels and your Godsister for siblings. It's not so bad; your Daddy and I are both only children (although I have some half-siblings, we didn't grow up together, so I'm defacto an only child) and we liked it. Besides, with any luck, we'll be home with you all the time. A fact you love now, but will hate when you're a teenager. Heh.

I love you, little girl. You've brought me more joy than I believed was possible. Thank you for lighting up my life.

Comments

[R]

1.

Lovely, Cecily! It must be amazing watching Tori's transformations. These pictures are wonderful. And being an only child definitely has its perks :)

[Angie]

2.

Thanks for keeping us updated. Your love for her gushes out of the page. Made me *tear* up. :)

[Tara]

3.

She's getting more and more gorgeous! :) Can't believe it's been 15 months...

[revdrmom]

4.

You can reassure Charlie that calling all dogs "Bubba" is a perfectly normal part of language acquisition. Technically doing that is called "overextension"--using a particular word to refer to a broader class of referents (not that you care about the technical definition :) Anyway, she'll get it all sorted out! I love that stage when they're learning to use language and can be so creative with it.

Tori is soooo cute. Thanks for sharing her with us!

[anon]

5.

Adorable little daughter and SMART too! Could not even wait for the link to read what the 'experts' say on telling your kids they are smart with some regularity.

Because in my heart I would rather be told I was smart constantly than never encouraged or complimented on as a child as I was. Keep on telling Tori how wonderful and special she is dammit!

[AmyinMotown]

6.

Seriously, HOW do you get anything accomplished with that kissable schmooshable face around ALL THE TIME?? She is darling. This age with Maggie was one of my favorites so far and it's great to see how you're enjoying it too. They're just so totally delighted by themselves.

So, we're not supposed to tell them they are smart? Crap. I tell Maggie she is smart and gorgeous and sweet and funny at least a million times a day. I agree with anon above--I'd rather overcompliment than overcriticize, which is my particular wound from my childhood.

[diane]

7.

I am totally jealous of that hair. How does she sit still for you to do it????
Regan's fussy face is my favorite face and (we call it her huff) if you ask her, "Let me see your huff Regan" she totally gets all into it.
If you want to hear yet another fun animal sound you should teach Tori what a coyote says. That always cracks me up. My slow talker Regan (at 21 months) says only slightly more than Tori, and your're right. They are totally fucking brilliant at this age.

[Kim]

8.

Beautiful Tori ~ but where is the *baby*? My gosh, she really grew up this month! A toddler!

*sniff*

Happy 15 months, little big girl!

[ladykuri]

9.

What a doll!!!! And yeah, the language thing will sort itself out. She'll just keep snowballing more and more and more of it together and the next thing you know will be talking your ear off ;)

I can't believe she's so big.......toddlerhood is so fun! It's incredibly hard at times, but it's SO FUN!! They can talk to you, and do things with you but still have that innocence and wonder, and come up with the funniest things to say and do.

[julie o]

10.

That is just breathtakingly gorgeous. She is so lucky that you are keeping this for her- in a weird way I imagine my own mom having these thoughts about me (makes her annoyingness in adulthood much easier going down).

[KimK]

11.

Wow, she is so beautiful and so grown up! How does it happen so fast? I don't know if you remember me but we are finally adopting. We are expecting our daugher in Dec. I love to read your updates and see how much fun parenting can be. KimK

[liz]

12.

Holy guacamole, that is a smart kiddo.

Don't worry about the animal generalizations, that's perfectly developmentally appropriate.

[Essie]

13.

Wow, what a big girl, and so beautiful!

[Rachel]

14.

This was such a nice post.

[Shazamama]

15.

Great letter. I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to read something like that now written by my mom when I was a babe.

I actually found that NY mag article about praising your kids fascinating and wouldn't discount it without reading it first. It's worthy of argument, for sure. But I think some of it makes sense. I still tell my daughter she's smart, but I keep in mind that it might just be more important to her in long run that she knows I value the efforts she makes more than her natural abilities.

[Mandy]

16.

She is so freakin' cute! Happy 15 months, Tori. And I was an only child--and liked it--too. My son will be an only child as well. Onlies unite!

[z]

17.

she's adorable and looks so much like her daddy. HAPPY 15TH, sweet Tori!

[It's Me... Maven]

18.

Absolutely precious post!

[It's Me... Maven]

19.

Absolutely precious post!

[Melissa in TN]

20.

I really like the picture of Tori, Charlie and Hammer. That one is priceless! You've got a beautiful family.

[sheilah]

21.

I tell Evan that he is smart all the time (and he is; his teacher said he is probably the smartest kid in his pre-K class). Screw the damn experts! Tori IS smart.

(Love the picture with Charlie, SMART Tori & Hammer. Hammer's expression is priceless!!)

[Rebekah]

22.

Ummm, could she look any more like her Daddy? =)