Our 20 Month Old

Dear Clare,

Yesterday marked the 20th month of your time on this planet. I know I keep saying this, but really, I think it might be my favorite month yet!

Some of the reasons why I've so loved being your Mum this month are kind of pragmatic. I mean, you learned to sleep in your toddler bed, put yourself to sleep without crying, and figured out how to let Dad and I sleep in on Saturdays - all this month! That's all pretty good stuff. To top it all off, you weaned yourself off your evening bottle of milk. How much easier you could make things for us, I just don't know. You've been learning a lot of new words and other skills that help us understand each other better too. I think you're enjoying that as much as we are. In fact, there have been very few meltdowns lately. Now, let's be clear.. I'm not implying that you don't liberally use "No!" and "Mine!" .. or that you're never in trouble and never angry with us. That would just be misleading. But, as you grow, so does our relationship and it's kind of fantastic.

But I think this past month has been so great simply because it's just been a lot of fun: a lot of our time together was spent outside and playing; we've been to the cottage and camping; and you're really into singing and dancing right now, so we do a lot of both. I think it's time we start expanding our song repertoire maybe though. For now, we've been singing "Brush Your Teeth" in the morning and at night, ABC's, Roley Poley, Hokey Pokey, If You're Happy, and Row Row Row pretty much all the time. Uncle Kevin did introduce us to that fantastic song about how your face looks like a pickled onion that we so enjoy. We'll keep it going. Since you've been getting to sleep so well, I haven't even been singing you any lullabies lately.

Every day that I look at you now, I can see that you are more of a girl and less of a baby. I'm really proud of how you're trying to be brave and confident - tackling new situations that you find scary. I see that you try to get better at that all the time. I'm also really proud of how you're learning to take care of people. You're very careful to be gentle and kind with the cats and Naomi and friendly with the kids at daycare. I also see that you're imitating Dad and I a lot more. This I find very very scary. I'll try my best not to swear when I'm angry or leave my clothes lying about. I want to be a good example for you.

Congrats on 20 fantastic months Clare!

Love,

Mumma