Several of my “blogger friends” who have children write letters to their kids describing their development and personality at the moment, so I thought I’d steal the idea. Here goes…
Dear Ethan,
Today you are 1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old. You are a wonderful little boy. You are so handsome, and you know it! You are a very smart, funny, loving and easy going child. You are very curious about the world around you and you love to see, learn and do new things. You love small objects, especially the stones that cover our courtyard and garden beds. You like to hold them in your hand and then drop them, enjoying the sound the make as they hit the ground. You’re fascinated by cause and effect type “experiments”.
You are very good at walking, running, climbing and you’ve recently started trying to jump. You bend your knees and spring upwards. Occasionally one foot leaves the ground and you take a step forwards. You think this is very funny and you’re most proud of your efforts. You love walking up and down our stairs. You always walk them properly lately, hanging onto the banister or someone’s hand for support. You are capable of walking up or down smaller steps without any support at all.
You’ve recently started chatting a whole lot more. You love to babble in your own language, telling us stories of things you see and what has happened to you. You also babble to Ben, books, toys and your self. Your vocabulary is growing every day. You do not say as many words as your little brother, but your comprehension is excellent. Lately you’ve been using the following words:
Mum, mummy, mumma, Ben, Benny, Benjamin, nana, grandma, Aunty Linda, kitty, missa (our cat), car, again, ball, backpack
You point and use a lot of your self-invented sign language to communicate. You point at your empty plate if you’d like more food, or at a specific part of your plate that’s empty. For example, if you’ve eaten all your rice and you want more you point at the spot where the rice used to be. If you’re not sitting at the table and you want to eat, you open your mouth and point inside! You also point in the direction you’d like to go, or you grab mummy/mumma by the hand and drag us where you want to go, often the fridge or pantry.
You are an excellent eater. Most of the time you clean your plate. You are quite neat at eating, and LOVE to feed your self. You often get cross at us if we try to help you. You shake your head and whinge, letting us know you’re capable of doing it your self. You prefer to eat with a fork and/or spoon, rather than your fingers as you don’t like to get your hands messy. You don't have too many specific favourite foods, but you really like tinned peaches and pears, chicken flavoured crackers, weetbix and chocolate milk.
You are a very clean child, and really really don’t like being dirty. You hate it when you get something on your hand, and you hold out your hand for us to clean it. You’re also a little hesitant about playing in the sandpit as you don't like the way the sand sticks to your skin. You don’t like it when you fall down in the dirt, as you get your hands dirty there too. We’ve been trying to teach you it’s ok to get your hands dirty, and how to wipe your hands together to dust them off, but so far without success.
Ethan, you also LOVE to clean around the house. You enjoy pinching a damp cloth from the sink and wiping it on random parts of the wall or floor. If you spill your drink, you run to the oven where we hang the tea-towels and grab one to clean up your mess. Often you will then sit down and intentionally spill your milk/water so you can clean it up! Interestingly, you HATE having your face wiped, you’d rather have a dirty face than let us clean it.
You also like to help around the house. You enjoy being given simple tasks to help in the kitchen or to clean up your toys. Your favourite chore is to help take out the garbage. You usually try to carry the recycling bin all by your self. Most of the time you can manage very well!
You love to count things. You say “un, nn, nn, nn, nn” (one, two, three, four, five) while pointing to each different object. You though it was very funny today at lunch time when mummy was counting to five using her fingers. You copied me and were very proud of your self.
You love to play with balls, cars and blocks. You enjoy putting all these things down your slide, as well as going down your self. Initially you were quite nervous about the slide, but now you go down all by your self again and again. You FAVOURITE toy is your Elmo plane that Uncle Graham sent you from USA. You ride it every day, and get cross at Ben if you see him on it. Unlike most other toys, we only have one Elmo plane, and you consider it to be yours! Thankfully Ben doesn’t mind most of the time. Your favourites game is when Mummy chases you then catches you and picks you up, and peek-a-boo.
You also love telephones lately. You hold them up to your ear and pretend to have conversations. You also press all the buttons and have been known to call emergency services, grandma, mummy and many wrong numbers! Your favourite TV show is Dora the explorer, you especially love her backpack, and the backpack song. You also like the Wiggles, but only watch it as much as you do because Ben likes them so much. You like more “adult” music too, and dance along to songs you like.
You are a great sleeper. You sleep 12 hours overnight, approx 7pm to 7am without waking unless you are sick. You love your dummy (pacifier), which you only get for sleep, and other special needs situations, like when you’re upset or hurt. You and your brother have about 10-15 dummies, but you have one particular favourite which you always smile and giggle at when you see it. You are good at giving your dummy back to mummy when you get up. You nap for about 2 hours after lunch. You LOVE your cot, and can only sleep in your cot, or in your car seat if you’re super tired. You will not allow us to rock you to sleep and you wont fall asleep anywhere else. You always take your blankie to bed with you. This blankie is a quilt that your nana made for you, and you love it. You also take a teddy or two to bed with you. You have a very stable and established bedtime routine that gives you lots of sleep cues. You have one bottle a day, right before bed, then you clean your teeth and go to bed. You fall asleep without crying at least 95% of the time. You or your brother wake us in the morning by talking and laughing in your cots. You sleep in the same room as Ben, and you can see him from your cot. Your cot is next to a cabinet, which you think is wonderful as you can open the door and close it again. You often spend the first 10-15 mins playing with this cabinet before you fall asleep. You do not need as much sleep as Ben, and often shake your head when we ask if you’re ready for bed. Unfortunately for you, Ben is usually ready, so you have to go too. If you’re not too tired, you lie awake in your bed and talk and laugh to your self for up to an hour before you fall asleep. You’re quite happy in this time, so we don’t worry about you. We often laugh at your laughter and noises that come through the baby monitor! Before you fall asleep and when you wake up you usually make a humming type noise. It is a self settling noise you use to help get to sleep. The other day when mumma went to get you up from your nap she had to wake you as you’d been sleeping too long. You weren’t too happy about that. You shook your head and put it back down on the bed. You tried to ignore mumma as you didn’t want to get up yet!!!
You were born the bigger twin, and you still are. We haven’t weighed you in a couple of months, but you look taller and feel heavier in the last 1-2weeks. We think you’ve had a growth spurt. You’re still fairly skinny, and we have trouble buying pants that are tight enough around your waist. This summer you’ve been wearing size 0-1 shorts from the baby section and size 2 shirts from the baby section or size 1 shirts from the little boys section. You and your brother wear the same clothes. You also wear “toddler” (10-15kg) sized nappies during the day. If it’s going to be a cold night we put you in a larger nappy for the night, but on hot nights you wear the same sized nappy at night too. You have light brown or dark blonde hair, that continues to get lighter all the time. You’ve had about 3-4 haircuts, and your head has a full head of hair. You have beautiful dark brown eyes, just like your Mumma.
What else can I saw my Ethan. You are a lovely little child. I am so happy to have you in my life. You bring a smile to my face every single day. You are so smart, curious and happy all the time. You are very easy going and a complete joy to have around. We love you so much.
Love Mummy and Mumma
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