Dear Isobel:
Yup, it happened. Life, baby #2, the flu, eating and sleeping all served to push the date far from my mind and I completely missed your 21st month’s birthday. I haven’t put a little line on the wall to show how much you’ve grown since March, I haven’t weighed you to see why my back aches so much and I haven’t once said happy birthday.
Hopefully the semi-daily cupcakes I’ve been bribing you with will have a cumulative effect, so that you don’t attribute this slip of memory to my not loving you. Cuz that is so far from the truth.
I’ve just been ignoring you, alot.
And that will end soon, I promise. Because pretty soon, I think you’re going to start ignoring me – in a more grandiose spectrum than the one involving not having your diaper changed. I see that you’re nearing the peak of the twos. (Um, a few months to a year early, but when have you ever done anything on time besides be born?) Not getting your way now means you plunk your booty on the floor and protest loudly and confidently.
And I walk away every time, leaving you to your anger so that it doesn’t awaken mine. I even smile a little at your assuredness of your right to the scissors, paints, daddy’s beer, keyboard, my makeup (though I suppose, one of us should be wearing it), my dirty underwear, and more inane things that just do not belong in your clutches.
In the last month, your want to communicate is just staggering. From “I gotta go outside” to “Mommy poops” and “My baby,” it all serves to make me proud since you’re doing what I’ve been asking you to do since you were born – just tell me what you want. Yes, I picked up on what different cries and strains and faces or body language meant, but life would’ve been so much more simple if you’da just said, “Mom, I’ve got some goddamn gas from the three cups of coffee you had today and then piped into me via your humongous boobs” at birth.
Seriously.
And a few of months ago, you could say all of the basic words: snack, juice, nigh night, poop, hug. And then some. So I found it drove me completely up the effing wall when you’d just explode into a pile of toddler screams and snot because there was something going on. But you wouldn’t tell me what. And on those really fun-filled days, it seemed like you were just being a jerk about it.
Like I was supposed to play some guessing game to find out what was wrong, or something. Oh wait, I was. It’s in my job description and the duty will likely last into your adulthood.
This is the point that I kick myself in the shins and think, “and I’m going to do this with a second one, too?”
But then, I think of all of the times I was sitting in a chair beside you, reading while you watched Dora or Blue or Elmo, and you crawled on my lap, took my cheeks in your hands and kissed me. Sometimes, it was even without tongue. And then you laid your head on my shoulder and wrapped your arms around my neck and patted my back, saying, “Otay, mama, Otay.”
And then I realize that I may have forgotten your 21-month birthday, in part cuz of baby #2, but baby #2 will be screwed over cuz you have broken my heart with love and pride so many times, there just might not be anything for her or him to break, themself.
I love you, monkey-princess,
Mama
PS – With all this new language and some lack of proper pronounciation, would you mind tuning down your version of ‘hippo’ when we’re walking around the ‘hood? Cuz I don’t want the neighbours to think I’ve been teaching you to call them homos.
