Dear Lucy,
You are eighteen months old. You are cautious and joyful, curious and soulful, slow to adopt new things but eager to try what the adults around you are trying. We took you to a pizza restaurant last month and you ate the entire fennel appetizer. You love to color; you prefer ink pens to markers and markers to crayons. You like to run down the street saying 'run run run run run', and sometimes you let me hold your hand. You are tenderhearted: if you fall when you are running while holding your babies you say 'baby!', 'baby!', wondering if your baby is hurt.
You like to put on your own gloves and hat and you try hard with the pants and shoes; the other day you were resisting getting dressed in the morning and two minutes later you showed up buck naked and triumphant in the doorway, having wiggled out of your shirt and diaper.
You are three parts delightful and one part totally exasperating.
Yesterday morning you had me cowering in bed, hiding from your neverending demand for milk.
You said: milk! milk! milk!
I said: no milk.
You took me by the hand and said mama walk. I said, you can walk by yourself. I said, look, there is your baby.
I said, mama is stuck in bed.
You blew your nose in my hand and laughed, as if you were saying, we have ways of getting you unstuck.
Thanks for having ways.
I love you.
Love,
Your Mama
