Baby Mac - 21 Months

Dear Baby Mac,

I know I should probably stop referring to you as a baby, but until your little sister makes her appearance in July, you are the baby of the family.  Actually, you'll probably always be a baby to me - that's just part of being the mom, I think.  I'm also just not ready to admit that you're much more like a kid these days than a baby.  You are a walking, talking force to be reckoned with.  Boy, oh boy, do you have OPINIONS.  Toddler independence is rearing it's head in our house and it seems like nearly everything is a battle.  The control freak in me is having a hard time letting go, but I'm trying to let you do things on your own, from brushing your own teeth to watering the plants to feeding yourself pudding.  Everything ends up a mess, but how else will you learn?  (See, this is me letting go.)

Right now you are in a phase where you LOVE to help.  Whatever it is that I'm doing, you want to help.  I think it's sweet and sometimes I get free labor out of it, so I let you help as much as you can.  Some of your favorite things to help with are washing the windows, mopping, vacuuming, laundry, feeding the dogs, watering the plants, bringing in the paper/mail, loading the dishwasher and making dinner.  Obviously not all of these tasks are doable for a 1.75 year old, but it doesn't stop you from trying.  Your absolute favorite thing right now is to vacuum.  Actually, it's for me to vacuum and you stand in the kitchen (away from the vacuum cleaner) and giggle with excitement.  At least 4 times a day you go over to the closet, point to the vacuum and say "Mama varoomvrm."  Our house has never been so clean.  I finally got you your own little baby Dyson so you can vacuum too.  But you still insist on using the big one from time to time. The highlight of your week is when the cleaning lady comes and you can follow her around helping her vacuum, mop and dust.

Over the last month, not only have you gotten more independent, but also more talkative.  I can't get over the language explosion that happened this past month.  You put 3-5 words together now, can repeat anything we say (which is dangerous), remember everything and ask for items by name.  It's so much easier to figure out what you want, now that you can talk and ask for things.  You constantly babble and talk to yourself in the car and while you're playing.  You have the cutest names for things, some of which I've written below so I don't ever forget how adorable they are.  You must be up to a couple hundred words by now.  I couldn't even write them all down if I wanted to.  I don't know how you know so much!  The only thing we still can't get you to say is "thank you."  You still use sign language to sign it instead.

You can identify all your colors and most animals (with noises).  You can count (sometimes) and can identify some letters.  Purple and orange are your favorite colors and you love the number 2.  Anytime I ask you how many there are or how many you want, it's always two.  You are figuring out possession and make sure to identify who the item belongs to (mama sock, dada hat, Sage bone).  You call yourself by your proper name (not "Mac"), despite us hardly ever calling you that.  I don't know how you know that's your name, but you do.  It's adorable and we probably need to be better about referring to you by both names.  You brain is just amazing in that you make the most incredible connections to things.  If we see a tractor you automatically say: tractor, Papa, maaaaaaaa, hay, golf cart, Go Cardinals, Cooper, birds.  This is because you saw a tractor at Papa's house, which was hauling hay to the goats, that say maaaaaaa, and Papa has a golf cart that you ride to the garden to see the cardinal and say Go Cardinals, and Papa's dog is Cooper and he chases birds.  It's amazing that one thing sparks a string of memories and thoughts.

Physically, you're also pretty amazing.  You love to throw the ball for Sage, shoot baskets and hit the golf ball with the club - all of which you are really good at.  You love to run fast, while saying "fass fass fass" and laughing.  You are a jumping/hopping machine.  Anytime you see a frog or bunny in a book or on TV, you have to hop around the room.  You are also a phenomenally bad/wonderful dancer.  Your dancing skills are more of a hop/flail combination that makes you look like you're having a seizure, but is so stinking cute I can't even handle it.  Your dad plays Pandora's James Brown channel in the playroom for you every night and you go nuts.  You jump around like crazy, arms everywhere until you fall down or you jump as high as you can and land on your butt.  Then you get up and do it again.  It's fantastic.  

Your dad is by far your favorite person right now.  You just can't seem to get enough of him.  You insist on him holding you, putting you to bed, helping you with things.  It's cute, but I hope it's just a phase because I miss being your favorite person.  It seems to flip-flop pretty regularly, so I'm holding out for a shift.  But your dad is pretty awesome and you guys do so many fun things together.  He takes you for 4-wheeler rides, out to mow the lawn or shovel snow, to the fly-shop to hang out with the dudes and for rides in the truck.  He's definitely your hero.  He's also really starting to rub off on you in other ways.  I mentioned before that you two love to play Big Buck Hunter on your iPad.  Well, now anytime you see a deer or a duck, you say "shoot shoot shoot."  This drives me nuts, but cracks us up.  My mom sent you a little stuffed deer and the Bambi II DVD, with an assurance that nobody gets shot in the movie and you wouldn't be traumatized for life.  However, as soon as you opened it and saw the deer you took it straight to daddy and said "shoot shoot shoot."  So much for that.  

You started swim lessons this month, with Grandma Bonnie.  You have a bit of a rough transition from the nanny to Grandma that early on Monday morning, but you always recover pretty quickly and you love the water.  Grandma says you have no fear and your favorite thing to do is jump off the edge into the water and go all the way under.  What a little daredevil you are!  At home we practice kicking, splashing and blowing bubbles in the bathtub.  I've been really cold at night lately, so I've been getting in the bath with you and we have the best time splashing and squirting each other, painting and blowing bubbles.  You love the water! 

You are very much a boy, in that you love trains, tractors, balls and dirt.  You love being outside, picking up sticks, jumping in puddles and raking the leaves.You also love your pets and all dogs and animals you see. Although, one weird thing that I've noticed is that you have somewhat recently developed a hatred of monkeys.  I have no idea where this stems from, but every time we mention monkey or you see a photo of a monkey you get this tragic look on your face and say "no no no."  We even had to turn Daniel Tiger off the other day because there was a stuffed monkey on the show and you were not having it.  None of us can figure out if you had some traumatic monkey experience or what happened.  It's weird.

One my favorite things about you is how sweet and loving you are.  You give the most amazing two-armed bear hugs and sloppy open-mouth kisses.  You now sometimes stop in the middle of playing or running around and come over just to give me a hug or kiss.  It's the greatest thing ever.  You are so loving to your stuffed animals too.  You have a giant dog, horse and giraffe in the basement and they are the recipients of so much love and affection.  You also sleep with at least 5 animals (babies) now: puppy, kitty, brown dog, giraffe and tiger.  There's also a little deer, cat and bear in your crib.  You take excellent care of your babies and love them so much.  Last night you weren't ready for bed when I put you in your crib, so I told you to sing a song to your babies.  You spent almost an hour singing to them until you fell asleep.  I listened to you on the monitor and cried because you are the greatest thing ever.  I just know you're going to be the best big brother this little girl could ask for.  

One of my least favorite things that you do is what we're calling a "water dump."  And no, I don't mean a poop in the bathtub (which you also do sometimes, but we're not going to go there).  You love love love playing in the sink, filling up cups of water, pouring them into other cups, washing the dishes, using the brush and soap.  But, when we tell you it's almost time to stop, you take a giant cup of water and dump it all over the floor.  On purpose.  Just to watch us get angry.  EVERY TIME.  It's always so fast and happens before I can stop it, even if I'm standing RIGHT THERE.  Then you give us that look...you know the one...the "screw you, I'll end this on my own terms" look.  Which results in you getting banned from the sink for the rest of the day and an inevitable meltdown.  This drives me bonkers!  And yet, we do it every day.  

Like I said before, you like to do things on your terms and are showing some serious independence these days.  And although I'm not emotionally ready for you to grow up so fast, it does make me incredibly proud that you're so assertive and confident and ornery.  You have the greatest personality and I couldn't be happier that you are mine.  Somedays I can't believe that you're almost two, although you are wise beyond your years (months) and you must think you're closer to 5.  You change so quickly that who knows what you'll be doing three months from now when you actually turn two...riding a bike, programming a computer?  Whatever it is will be amazing and I will be the proudest mama in the world, right there next to you.  

Love,

Your mama

Some of my favorite words:

• heabie (heavy)
• noonoos (noodles/macaroni)
• shit (shoot)
• Bonnie Kel (Grandma Bonnie or Granny Kel)
• bwirdie (bird)
• varoomvrm (vacuum cleaner)
• Ti Ti (tiger or Daniel Tiger)
• Shagey (Sage)
• Maui (Mally)
• feeesh (fish)
• geen (green)
• ribbit (frog)
• coo coo (cookie)
• hullo (hello)
• nack (snack)
• arepan up up (airplane)
• chair (sit)
• cacee hot (coffee)
• piss (please)