Dear Miss Allegra, you are 16 months old! You change
so very quickly and move even quicker. I can barely capture you on film
anymore - you're a blur of motion and energy and sound. I love these
days. Let's remember them, shall we?
You are talking your own language lately. Some of it I
understand. You make lots of animal noises (baa, bzzz, meow, neigh,
woof) You say nononono when I'm trying to feed you something you don't
like. You say dun-stah aka downstairs (which was maybe your first word
after mama and dada), more, ball, zzzzip, meh (milk), buh-bye, hep
(help).
You sneak up to my computer with one finger outstretched,
because you know you're not allowed to touch...but you want to, desperately.
You love to test limits. You love people, hugging and snuggling;
you love being involved in what's going on. You climb up behind me when
I'm sitting at the table working, stand up on the chair and turn my face around
to look at you. I don't get a whole lot done at home any more, but I'm
totally okay with it.
You love it when people say "bless you" when
you sneeze, so after it happens you usually fake sneeze several more times to
get more 'bless you's'. Your fake sneezes aren't very convincing, but we
go along with it.
You are totally obsessed with outside noises like sirens and
airplanes and snow blowers. You stop and point to the window, and then we
run to see if we can catch the culprit - a car driving by, a helicopter
overhead, a bird on the bird feeder.
You love music. You stop whatever you're doing and
start bopping up and down when you hear it, and if a song ends too quickly, you
frantically make your "more" sign. more more MORE, you say!
We sing head and shoulders, knees and toes and you try your best to find
your shoulders. You do this dance with your left hand pumping in the air with
one finger held up, like a yuppie disco gangster. It is absolutely
adorable. I do it too, and when we do it in the car, people think we're
hilarious. Hey, it's cool. We ARE hilarious.
You're napping right now...just one nap a day most days.
Your daddy is running on our treadmill, training for his second marathon!
You'll be so proud when you realize how strong and amazing you have to be
to run that far, and that your daddy's already done it once. I'm going to
sign the contract this weekend for my first real job as a neurologist.
When you realize how hard that is, you'll be proud of me, too. You
are made of some strong, smart stuff, little girl. You've got a great
life ahead of you, full of whatever dreams you want to follow. We're
already proud of you, and there's nothing you can do or not do to change that.
Just so you know.
That's who and where we all are on this Saturday morning in
February. We are together and rich and warm. We are very blessed
