Dear Tristan - 20 Months

Dear Tristan,

This month you are starting to get a grasp on how to win friends and influence people and it goes like this, "hi." You say it to everyone you see and you aren't going to be discriminate about it either. You are so certain those words will bend someone to your will that sometimes when I start to raise my voice to your brother you intervene, leaning in towards me, softly saying "Hi." over and over again. Certainly that will make everyone happy again! Some nights when we put you to bed, I hear you in your crib, saying, "hi" in between fits of screaming. "This screamings not working for me right now... maybe a little bit of cuteness will do the trick".

Little man, you are getting chatty. You constantly amaze us with your ability to remember even the vaguest words. By the time you are two, I expect you'll be speaking in entire paragraphs. Today, when I came home from work, you grabbed my necklace and said, "prettt-tteee" and proceded to put it into your mouth. And no, we're not sick of hearing, " I want dat!" over and over again.

You are still on hunger strike. You've no problem eating a granola bar or anything else with sugar in it, but sneak a vegtable into your mouth and you act like you've been burned, spitting it out and making a ICK noise while you look at us with utter shock and disapproval. How could we betray you so?! I keep putting fruits and veggies on the plate anyway because I know that one day you will shock us all and develop a love for vegetables. In the meantime, each night after dinner I scrape your plate wishing there was some way I could send those scraps to the children around the world that would think the taste of a Mandrin Orange to be a little piece of heaven. Always remember your good fortune.

You've learned to tattle. Now it's hard to tell if your brother really is beating on your or not, because sometimes he'll just brush past you and you'll crouch down and starting crying, "MA-MA!MA-MA!" over and over again like he just kicked you in the head. Or more likely than that, you'll come running, crying and yelling, "MINE! I WANT DAT! MINE!" pointing to the toy that your brother has taken from you. Because you both have this disease that your Dad calls, "You have that I want it". Apparently it's a phenomana that never goes away either. If you're twenty and reading this and don't believe me, pick up some random piece of plastic or some other oddity. Something that looks interesting but should probably be in the trash. Have a conversation with someone while you fiddle with this plastic. Gaze at it with interest while you talk. I bet within the first 30 seconds they say, "What is that?" and in the next five minutes they ask to see it. You have that, I want it.

As much as you and your brother fight though, the two of you LOVE each other. You can't wait to pick him up at preschool and in the mornings if he sleeps in, you stand at the bottom of the stairs, yelling, "CAA_NNAA!" You run around in circles when he first comes downstairs in the morning. You love to wake brother up in the morning also, climbing into his bed and raining kisses all over his face while you whisper over and over, "hi". This morning when you woke him up this way, you laid you head down on his stomach as sort of a hug. He was half asleep and said, "Thank you for the kisses, Tristan. I love you too" And he actually meant it.

I love you,

Mama