Levedy

21 Months

Dear Bean-

The last time I wrote a newsletter was at your 1 year birthday, and here you are on the other side of 21 months. It’s an important time for you. You’re going to be a big sister in the next month or so. Every day you look less and less like the baby you were and look more and more like the girl you’re becoming. I’m wistful and pleased at the same time.

But let’s talk about the absence of letters from months 13 through 20, because I think that you should know. Your mother had a really rocky road for those months. Life was really hard for her for a while, and this is only the third time I’ve talked about it other than to Father John and to your daddy.

I lost my Nana in May, right before Mother’s Day. She was more than my grandmother, she was my friend and my confidante. It was sad for me to know that I won’t get to see her for a very long time. For those past few months, it became very hard to do much of anything. The clinical term is depression, which is a bit silly because we use the same word to describe the shape someone’s hind end leaves on the couch when they get up. For those months it became very hard for me to do much of anything. Some days just getting out of bed was as hard as climbing a mountain with a bear trap clamped to my ass. And did I mention the morning sickness your brother was kind enough to give me? It was debilitating, and I did only a marginal job of hiding it from people. It just goes to show that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can only fool your husband as far as you can throw him. So your best bet, my little Bean, is to either learn to communicate better with your husband or else marry a very thin midget.

But time passes, and the bear trap loosens, and eventually things got back to normal around here. At least, as normal as this family gets, anyway. As dark and colorless as things got, though, I could always count on you to make me smile and be grateful that life never kicks you in the ass without first giving you a pillow to cushion your fall. Well done, pillow-girl, well done. So how did you do it? You have so much personality and so much moxie, it’s hard not to fall in love with you. It’s impossible to stay in a foul mood when I go into your room in the morning and ask you “Who am I?” only to hear “Miiiiiiiiine” in response.

We moved you into your big girl room and your big girl bed this month. We wanted to get you settled with the new arrangement before your brother arrives because we want you to feel like you’ve been promoted to big-girl status rather than booted out of little-girl status. You love your new room, but getting you to stay in bed continues to feel a lot like trying to herd cats. Most nights you fall asleep in front of your door or in the play cottage we set up in your room. Eventually you’ll figure out that your mattress is more comfortable than molded plastic or carpeting, but until then, it’s cute to see a reverse imprint of the flooring on your cheeks in the morning.

You can’t count yet, but you’re getting close. If I give you only one of your two coveted daily vitamins, you squint your eyes and raise one eyebrow: you look like you know something’s amiss, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You’re being swindled, but you can’t figure out how. You spend most days trying to wheedle me into giving you more than your daily allotment of vitamins. Bargaining and suspicion of cheating: your Mediterranean genes at work.

Your language skills continue to improve. Most objects, though, you identify by their sounds rather than by their names. Cars are vroom vrooms, Ruby is a mao, and fish are bub bubs. Objects that do have names, however, usually only get half of their names past your lips: those yellow and brown fellows with the long necks are raffes, and Grandma’s dog is Buuh, rather than Butch, which is just as well, because that dog’s about as butch as Richard Simmons in a tutu factory.

You love to watch Finding Meemo, and just the other day you had an epiphany: those fish are swimming in WATER. You told me at least thirty times: “It’s bub bubs in wawa! It’s bub bubs in wawa!”

Just this morning you dropped something in front of your father and said “Oh, shit.” He blames me, for some silly reason. I guess I’ll have to watch my language now. Shit.

Bean, I love you so very, very much. No matter how dark things got, I had you as my little ray of sunshine. You’re my pride and joy, and it’s the best confidence booster in the world when you tell me that you love me. You’re the best thing your dad and I have ever done, sweetie. Your brother will be so lucky to have you as a big sister. I may have to remind him of that when you have him in a Half Nelson until he forks over his baklava, but that’s to be expected.

Love,
Mama

Posted by Jen at February 2, 2008 6:06 PM