Dear Tristan - 13 Months

Dear Tristan,
You've officially been one year old for a month now and I feel our baby days slipping away. Your physical appearance is already turning from baby to toddler. Maybe it’s the shoes that have become a necessity as the weather has started to cool making excursions outside feasible. There’s just something seeing you in shoes that makes you seem older. Maybe it’s the silky blonde baby hair that’s starting to fill in, although there is no need for a haircut yet.

It could be the toning of your body as your grow upward and more active, trading baby fat for muscle in your diligent daily workout which consists of running laps around the kitchen, your brother or the living room. You are enjoying the extra millimeter of height that allows you to climb up onto the sofa, so that you and your brother can run back and forth across, like dogs in a kennel, cackling as you crash into the back and arms of the sofa. When you fall from the sofa, you cry, but not because you have fallen, but because you are OFF of the sofa. Can't we see how FUN it is on the sofa. BROTHER is on the sofa!

It’s possible that you seem less of a baby, because you are starting to express yourself, becoming enraged when your brother takes away your favorite toy or when you are denied entry into the fridge. For the first time, you are standing up to your older sibling and risking the inevitable shove or pinch as you try to rescue the toy from your brother.

Perhaps it’s the foundation of vocabulary, that’s beginning to blossom. Sounds that started as dadada and mamama, have now moved to Da-dee and Mama. The repetition of noenoe, said like a Frenchman, the sounds pushed through your nose, after we’ve pulled you out of the pantry, or your next favorite illegal play area, the bathroom. The wave of your hand as you say, “buh-buh” (byebye)because you understand that sometimes sounds go with motions.

It could be the developing preference for a sippy cup instead of a bottle. Or how you’ve noticed that whatever your brother has in his cup is much less watered down than yours and that when you are able to grab his cup, it’s better to sneak off into the play room so you are out of sight and can fully enjoy the sweetness of your victory. Often I look into the playroom when you've gone missing for 30 seconds and see you walking around in circles, your head tilted back, chugging all of the juice you can, your constant motion being the only thing that keeps you from flipping over backwards.

I’m trying to savor the little bits of baby time we have because before we know it, you’ll be begging for the car keys and it will be us that will waving “buh-buh”. No matter how far you go or how fast you grow the one thing that I know for sure is you’ll always be baby to me.
Love,
Mamama