April 19, 2008

Dear Sarah,

We've made it through another month together and you sure have come a long way. This is that phase of your development when you do new things almost every day and we are just trying to keep up!

This eleventh month of your life also marks what will forever be referred to in the Morgan-Zawilski-Blanchard house as the month of the Black Death Plague. There was more vomit flying around this house this month than you would find in a fraternity house on party night. You were really sick with the flu and a slowly diagnosed urinary tract infection and I had the flu and Sophie was tossing her cookies because she probably ate something dead at day care. Daddy was head cleaner upper and he walked around with a bucket and a mop all day long and tried to keep the germs at bay. You were so sick with your fever that you wanted no one but Mama and one day you just wimpered ALL. DAY. LONG. If we didn't feel like we were going to die, it would have broken my heart. Instead, I just wimpered along with you. Mama was so sick that she couldn't carry you downstairs which was NOT something that you could understand. It was a rough time. But now, we're all coming out of it and it is finally spring in Boston and we missed your lovely smile and happy chirping so SO much when you were sick and now, well, everything is going to be better.

This month you started play school at the bastion of Catholic Jesuit education in Boston - BC High. You are snuggled in at the Eagle's Nest and although you will never matriculate at this all boys establishment you are making the most of it right now. You have three other munchkins in your class and you are beginning to tolerate them. Granted, they did spend the first week or so poking you in every orifice to see what you were made of because you were the "new kid on the block" so I can't really blame you for being a little suspicious. Now you're rough and tumble with the best of them, you take long naps, love seeing Mommy at lunch time at at her free periods and have a special fondness for your teacher Miss Kahn. They take you out with the other gremlins in the carriage - a large contraption that you all get strapped into and then you get walked around outside. This is the highlight of your day.

As for food, you're eating pretty much everything now although you did go on a hunger strike when you were sick. And goodness, aren't you a willful one? When you don't want to eat - you WILL. NOT. EAT. I could get a pair of pliers and they wouldn't open your jaws of steel. We've surrendered at this point and we put a variety of finger ready edibles on your tray and see if any of them make their way into your gullet. You are particularly adept at feeding the dog so most of them end up with her. I can practically see Sophie's thought process as I prepare your meals - "Okay, okay, let's go with the chicken goodness. And the cheese! And the cheesy crackers! Oh no! No apples. Yuck. And those Cheerios are getting a little stale. More rice cereal would be good though!" Your relationship with the dog makes new inroads every day. I have been displaced as "Sophie's favorite person in the world." You love watching her swim and fetch sticks when we are out hiking and while I can't get Sophie to fetch a stick for the life of me, when you are there and squealing she will fetch sticks all day long.

Mobility has been huge this month. You are now crawling "properly" with your bum high in the air. You can climb whole flights of stairs and you can pull up on anything including electric outlets as we found out a few days ago. I think that a lot of this has to do with the whole "survival of the fittest" thing at play school. You need to be able to move to survive in that place so moving you are doing. You have also learned to take things back gently that are taken away from you. For the first few weeks you just had things stripped from you by the other kids. And this past week, for the first time, you took the plastic hot dogs back. Everyone cheered for you and you thought that it was the greatest.

This month you have learned to clap and you wave, although the clapping is much more reliable than the waving. You try to repeat words and while you don't get all of the consonants or the vowels, you do seem to get the number of syllables right. You will also sometimes say "buh buh" and wave to Poor Bear on video when we turn it off. You won't do it for either of us so clearly Pooh ranks high on your list.

Your next update will be at a year. One whole year. Little Bean, you have changed so many lives in this short time you have been on this earth. You probably have no idea, although in the mornings when you're waking up and Daddy and I have you in bed with us and you reach out one hand to touch my cheek and the other hand is placed gently on Daddy's nose, I think you might have a small inkling of your place in our world. At the very least your contented sigh let's us know that you are home.

Love,
Mama