November 19, 2008

Dear Sarah,

Eighteen months. Whew. You have had lots of visitors this past month. You spent a week with your Auntie Mary and Auntie Susie. They cooked wonderful food for your us, played with you and watched The Care Bears over and over and over. In fact when they went home, the song was stuck in their heads for so long that they really thought that they were going crazy. You also got to spend two marvelous weeks with your Grammy who came to play Little People with you and chase you around the living room. You redefined "vacation" for her with your midnight wakings but your joy in seeing her and spending so much uninterrupted time together made it more than worth it.

The number of things that you can do are innumerable. The words you can say are too many to list and the things that you understand are staggering. I fear that next month I will have to report that you can say, "That damn dog!" and "Those babies CAN'T be hungry again, can they?" You follow directions impeccably, you like to pick up trash (including dirty diapers - occupational hazard) and put it in the bin, you feed your dolls from a bottle and you can almost do all of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. Well, you have the Head and Shoulders parts down. We're still working on Knees and Toes. You know how to call Beirut on Daddy's cell phone and you can open and close the DVD player and remove and replace discs. You are an exceptionally good stacker of objects: bottles, dixie cups, blocks, diapers. You also love cream. Like hand cream, butt cream, body cream. Anything that comes in a tube that you can open up, squeeze out and place upon your person. We have had to hide all of the creams from you so that you don't decide that the couch is looking a little dried out in this cold weather and that it needs to be covered in cream.

Your vocabulary has expanded this month to include a number of expressions for impending or already occurred disaster. These include: Oh No. Uh Oh. Oh Dear. They denote different things. Oh No refers to an event that has happened that is unfortunate. Uh Oh refers to an unfortunate event that you have caused. Oh Dear refers to something that has happened that is impacting your ability to either incur further destruction or get up off of the ground.

The most dear thing that you do, and have been doing for the last six weeks or so, is your reaction to the song, This Little Light of Mine. When we play the song on the ipod or more recently on the Raffi DVD, you ever so carefully sit down on the kitchen tile and then s - l - o - w - l - y lie back so that your head is on the ground. Then you just stay there listening to the song, at some point rolling onto your tummy and kicking your legs up. It never ceases to bring a smile to my face (or hysterical laughter that I hide from you lest you think I am mocking you and you stop doing it).

Your favorite activities include playing CHASE with Sophie or really anyone who will take so much as a step in your direction. As soon as someone or some-dog takes so much as a pace toward you, you run off around the dining room table screeching. When your friend Lawrence came over to play with you the other day you desperately wanted to play CHASE with him. Evidently, Lawrence loves to play CHASE too. But, you see, the thing is, Lawrence also wanted to be chased. And CHASE is a hard game to play when there are two chasers and no chasees. You guys abandoned that and had a long conversations about the intricacies of the Fisher Price garage.

You are definitely exhibiting the signs of what's to come. You are more defiant and you are almost deviant but not quite because we are still a little bit smarter than you are. One thing that you do is you cram the cardboard pieces from your Sesame Street foods book into your mouth and slowly walk away looking for a corner or a hovel in which you can consume your delicious cardboard piece. Thankfully, for us, the pieces are big enough that they stick out in your mouth and make your cheeks look enough like a chipmunk that we will ourselves off of the couch to chase you down and pry them out of your mouth. You also put a lot of things in the potty. We figure that out when toys come back wet. Then, in an act of total genius and responsible parenting, we . . . close the door to the bathroom. Your parents? They're really sleep deprived but they're definitely not losing their edge.

You have made so many things with your brothers easier for us. Even though we don't share all of our DNA, we share something much more important - our hearts. And in our hearts you are just perfect. And your perfection gives us a clearer perspective on many things. Although I am at this point exclusively breastfeeding your brothers, we don't have hang-ups about formula because, hey, you were a formula baby and you're just perfect. Your Grammy tells us that you howled in your carseat as a little person. Your brothers? Not so much with liking the carseat. Lots of screeching. But, they're just like you and you're just perfect so it is all going to be okay. We have so many questions about them. Will they suck their thumb like you? Will their feet turn in when they walk like you? Will they love music like you? We'll just have to wait and see about all of those things, but if they're anything like you, they'll be perfect too.

Your brothers are now almost six weeks old and they have been around long enough that you have picked up on many of the ways that we care for them. If you hear one of them howling you start a frantic search for a pacifier. You then try to stuff it into their mouth with great fervor and a quick glance at the nearest adult with an expression that undeniably reads, " Come on people. Stuff a plug in that thing. If he doesn't take it the first time, just really jam it in there." In fact when we visited a friend's new baby a couple of weeks ago and her baby was cross you found her a pacifier and handed it to her. You will also feed the babies bottles and you are militant about swaddling your bear and duck. We haven't tried you on the real thing yet because after your swaddle Bear and Duck you run to the rug and shake the blanket so that they fall out on the ground. Then you cackle.

The path ahead looks a little bumpy from this vantage point. As you get smarter and we get more tired, I fear that our capacities will converge. At this point, we're a little bit ahead of you but not for long. So, Sarah Bear, play easy with us. Give us a fighting chance to keep up with you and I promise that we'll do the best job we can doing the job that we love best.

Love,
Mama