Month 22
ourtland Whaley,
The tides have turned!
It is official. You are now far easier to put to bed than your Big Sister. I can’t believe that I’m even writing those words for fear that you personally will bite me in the butt (I wouldn’t put it past you), but it’s true. This month, your rolls reversed. After 21 months of restless nights, bedtime hysterics, and much pillow weeping, you now go to bed with near ease. While your sister negotiates and whines and deliberates back rub after hair play after bedtime story after potty break after drink of water after I AM GOING CRAZY! – you, my ever-affectionate second born, nestle into my arms for a rock and a cuddle before curling up like a stink bug, butt straight in the air, arms tucked beneath your belly, with your blanket draped over your entire person (head included. You and your sister have inherited your father’s propensity for suffocated sleeping conditions. It makes me claustrophobic just thinking about the three of you with blankets and pillows draped over your heads while you slumber.)
*shudder*
You now pretend to read, blissfully pointing at words in your books while declaring, “A-E-A-E-A-E.” You have mastered those two letters, and they substitute for the other 24 whenever you sing your ABCs. It is nothing short of perfection, so I will never correct it, so enamored am I of this phase.
You love cheese with all your heart and soul (thus the C selection for this letter). You would do anything for cheese, even endure days of constipation in the name of massive dairy consumption. In that sense, you are your mother’s girl.
You also can scale your changing table in 10 seconds flat and the other day I discovered you on the brink of attempting a leap from your changing table perch into your crib. Apparently you think your SUPER BABY!
You display similar antics around swimming pools. And you think running away from your parents near crowded, car-filled streets is more hilarious than when Hanna licks your ear.
Related: I am officially going grey.
You continue to be affectionate and huggy and kissy and all that ooey gooey amazing I am going to squeeze you to pieces and it never ever gets old. Never never. Tonight as I rocked you at bedtime, you draped both arms around my neck and then gently patted by back in rhythm with my swaying.
Don’t ever change.
143 Mama
