19 Months

My Darling Tori Anne,

You are now 19 months old. You are officially old enough that I can now use numbers for your age in these posts instead of typing it all out. You are growing so fast; it almost makes me sad. It feels like time is speeding up and each month of your life is shorter than the last one.

You got to experience another Christmas this month, and I think it meant a bit more to you this year. You know that Santa says "ho ho ho" now, although you only say "ho ho." You enjoyed your Christmas presents quite a bit, and thought unwrapping them was a blast, but now it's hard to explain why you can't rip ALL the paper in the world. Sigh.

You also got to experience that unique Philadelphia tradition called the Mummer's Parade this month. I hope that I can keep introducing you to one new thing every month. That would be awesome. But I imagine it will get harder as you have more and more preferences, eh? Right now you are happy to do whatever we do, as long as you are not required to do the following: 1. Be in the stroller for too long. 2. Hold Mommy or Daddy's hand when you are walking anywhere. 3. Leave trash on the ground.

You are talking more and more, and the words you say are more distinct. No longer do a dog and a train say the same thing; a train says "choo choo" and a dog says "woof woof." You are also using words we grownups don't, a few of them often enough that Daddy and I spend a lot of time trying to decide what you mean. It's almost become a hobby for us. Perhaps you are just speaking French and we're too stupid to realize it. That's entirely possible.

You are becoming quite adept at some new things. You are great with a fork and a spoon now, which makes us very happy and has allowed us to expand your menu considerably. You love pasta, and at Christmas dinner you discovered the magic that is my sweet potato recipe. Everyone loves those, and you did too.

It's become more and more clear that you are a musical child. We cannot keep you off the piano bench, yet you continue to treat the piano gently and with the respect a musical instrument deserves. I don't know how you know to do that, unless it's genetic. You are clearly tonally gifted, and both sing and play in tune and in key without effort. We hesitate to use words like "musical genius" around you and instead say things like "spooky" and "holy shit" quite often.

You are still nursing, and I'm still loving it. I don't know when we'll stop.

I love you, baby girl. You are my favorite person in the world. But you are an amazingly energetic kid, and we are old, so we've decided to let you spend time with some professionals. You are now doing morning care three days a week, and this is allowing Mommy to take her cool new toy (a laptop!) to the city and sit in the park on an unusually warm day in January while typing up this post (after she got a pedicure). It's restoring Mommy to sanity, and on Wednesday your Daddy is going to take a day too. This doesn't mean we don't love you. It just means that we need to be Cecily and Charlie as well as Mommy and Daddy; this lets Cecily and Charlie be the best Mommy and Daddy they can be.

For Christmas your Godmother gave your parents a video camera. This has already become your favorite thing. You love being filmed, and then you want to watch the movie immediately. The only funny thing is that one time you saw a movie on there that showed you with your Godsister and now you are convinced that she lives in there so every time I pull out the video camera you yell "ARAH!" and try to grab it (you call both you Godmother and her daughter, your Godsister, by the same name). This is adorable and hilarious. But dangerous.

Anyway, I can't stop making movies and posting them here and today is no different. Luckily, for the folks that are reading this one, this movie is just a tiny bit longer than a minute so maybe they will all watch it (plus, it includes a flash of Mommy's boob!). I'm so happy to have the camera so I can try to capture every single moment of how marvelous you are, and then torture the entire internet and make them see it too. Because you are marvelous, and I love you so much that I could just explode sometimes.

Love, Mommy

PS: Feedburner update: re-subscribe. That's all I can suggest. Sorry!

Comments

[Angela Vitale]

I LOVE it! She's talking so much!!

Adara is going to be 17 months on the 9th. I'm in SHOCK.

She actually looks at you while nursing instead of trying to twist it off while turning to stare every where else...or at least that's what Adara does lol

[Sarah]

*SOB*

:-)

Damn, she's awesome.

Guess who got their period over the weekend?!?!? No, not ME. Please just shoot me now.

[kbreints]

Awe-- she is so smart! to know all of those animal sounds already!

[kate]

So very, very sweet (both the post and the video). I loved seeing Tori "handling" Hammer. So cute!

[ladykuri]

Too cute!!!! I love the look on the random passerby's face when she goes waltzing by with Hammer...too priceless.

Time sure does fly doesn't it? Save all those pictures and videos though, here in a couple years you'll need the reminder of why you don't want to strangle her ;)

[Stacey]

Damn! I KNEW she was nursing standing up! Hahaha!

[Michele]

How adorable! I love your "Dear Tori" posts. I wish I had done something similar with Ethan. There is so much I already forget about his first two years. BTW-when you decide to donate some of your boobs for breast augmentation, can I have some? Thanks!

[Elena]

Really cute!

How did you cut her bangs? Did she let you? My 2 year old just won't sit still for a cutting and so she always looks like a mess!

[Christina (in mo)]

I had to laugh right out loud... she was done doing animal sounds so she popped the nipple in the mouth. Conversation over!

My beans used to do the same thing. ha ha

[Melissa in TN]

She is so cute and has the most beautiful eyes! I love the elephant.

[bh]

She sure is growing and so smart! That picture of her in the pink jacket with the dogs in the background is PRECIOUS!!! So she loved the sweet potato casserole? Would you share it with me too? We LOVE sweet potato casseroles!

[jenn]

As always, this is a beautiful post.

I love the picture of Tori with the dogs in the background. Beautiful.

[Becky J]

Oh soooo cute !
And WOW what a range of sounds.
Good for you on the nursing front, I nursed my children waayyy beyond babyhood and loved it.

[Whitney]

SO CUTE!! (Tori, not your boob :)

[Chickenpig]

I laughed when you said Tori was speaking French. One of ours is speaking Chinese, I swear to God...When I can't understand him he is saying stuff like "Long do dao ho chow..." etc etc.

At Thanksgiving last year when the boys were one they LOVED the sweet potatoes...this year, they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole *sigh*. Kids are never boring, that's for sure.

Tori is a sweet, bright, and very special little girl. I'm glad that you're writing these posts to her so that she'll know how special she really is...and so that we get to share her too :)

[Tyanne]

Tori is so smart. I loved the elephant sound. And walking Hammer.

[Laura]

love the Tori posts ... Best part is video love her walking hammer!
Happy 19 months tori!
HUgs Peach

[Andrea in IN]

First - yay Feedburner is working again!

Secondly - Tori is SO flippin cute making all of those animal noises! My dd just turned 1, and she can only quack LOL for every animal LOL

[Cathy]

You sound so happy!

You and Tori might enjoy doing kindermusic together. It's a low-key age-appropriate introduction to music making with other people. I think she's old enough for the first class. The classes go up through kindergarten or first grade, gradually introducing singing with others, dancing to music and playing simple instruments. We enjoyed doing this with our children.

[angela marie]

Lovely, lovely video! I just adore the time in a toddler's life when they start this verbal communication stuff -- like they are exasperated in their little heads that WE ARE NOT GETTING IT. :)

And my link works the way it is...but would you like me to change it? And is that safe? ;)

[DebbieS]

Wait...I've got it...Toriadorable! Get it?? All geeky opera pons aside, wow! That kid is as sharp as a tack! I loved her "elephant" almost as much as the "stealth nursing"! Btw in the first [still] picture she finally looks exactly like you! She's back to looking exactly like Charlie in the second one.

[Tater's Mom]

The duck sound was my favorite!! Elephant was close runner-up.

Great post and video!

[Brenda]

Yay for you still nursing! I'm given so much crap about this all of the time! I'm tired of putting people off when they ask, "When are you going to stop???" Nunya business! As long as my daughter's interested (within reason, of course - I won't continue until kindergarten), I'll nurse. She loves her boob juice! And momma doesn't care that she can ask for boob by name...I love the bond we share because of it. :)

[Sara]

So cute! I love those animal noises. (I nursed my girl until she was 2.5 and may have gone longer, but we were both done. Now she pretends to nurse and I love that we have that shared memory.)
P.S. The feed came back just fine for me; I didn't have to do anything...

[Endobaby]

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

When Tori was walking the dog I nearly exclaimed out LOUD! at WORK! lol

* Damn - still no sound! *