Here's what you said last Saturday night at dinner: "That's steak! It's name is MEAT!" These are the sorts of things you say all the time now, that make us laugh out loud.
I've already forgotten so many things about you this year, my girl, because you have changed so astonishingly much and so fast. How you used to say certain words. When you said “mow” for “milk.” When truck and duck and drink and god knows what else all sounded alike and I had no idea at all what you were wildly gesticulating about.
You talk like crazy now. You know so many words, and you string together more complex sentences day by day. You're a constant narrator: “Helene runnin’! Mama, pick you up! I wan’ go outside! Apple! Wan’ bite it!” You don't miss a thing. You spy airplanes over the playground, tiny birds in the trees, a sliver of moon in the daytime sky, a piece of playground equipment with a step in the shape of a triangle (“triangle!”). A triangle I would never have seen. You told us one night that the bathroom tiles were hexagons. They are, and I knew that, and I picked that tile out, but I can’t believe you know that. You picked up a sliced almond the other day and said “oval” as you ate it. You were obsessed with pumpkins this autumn, and we made a game out of finding them on everyone's stoops around the neighborhood, with you exclaiming "PUNKIN!" excitedly over each one, every time. You know things are funny. You say the wrong things on purpose, and grin at us, impish, because you know we will laugh. A few months ago, you just said “Outside! Outside! Outside!” when you wanted to go out the front door and into the world. Now, you say “I want to go outside. I want to open the front door. I want to go to the playground.”
I wish I had more video of you. I try to take some, but you move so fast, from one thing to another, from one idea to another. You do a full-frontal assault on the camera, running to snatch it from my hand, hollering “HELENE! Want to see HELENE!” because you know these little magical shiny boxes contain magical electronic pictures of you that you can see over and over and over.
What a world you live in. Where we can play things over and over and over and over and OVER and OVER AGAIN on demand. Like the Sesame Street theme song. You sometimes just want the song, the one from Season 35, with the bouncing blocks and Big Bird, ad infinitum. You've figured out how to use YouTube on the iPhone and iPad, and off you go, watching the same short videos dozens of times. You demand to see photos of the things in your universe: Grandma, Grandpa, Helene, Rufus. You're obsessed with the moon and astronauts after we saw a boy in an astronaut costume on Halloween, and explained Neil Armstrong on the moon to you.
You love to run. You sprint to me every day when I come home, your tiny feet pattering so fast on the hardwood floors. You bolt for the playground gate if it's open, and you can open some gates yourself. You are often not satisfied with the containment of the playground, and seek out the wider, the further, the world. You are a jumping fool, hopping like a rabbit down the metal steps at the playground, across the living room floor, on our bed. You are so agile at going up and down the stairs now, despite your short legs. You grab onto the metal bar over the slides and swing back and forth from it, “whee!” You say "I want to whee!" when you want to slide down a slide, off the bed, across the slick granite kitchen countertop. We see in your eyes that you want to do everything the older kids do. We swing you, toss you over our heads, higher, faster. You love it, every second: "Again! Again!" until we are dizzy, our arms and backs tired. But you are not tired. Never.
You aren't much for sitting, although you have become more cuddly. You ask for kisses when I leave, sometimes once, sometimes two or three times. I come back each time you ask. Watching Sesame Street allows us to snuggle next to you for a little bit, tucking you under an arm. You will also sit in our laps for books, though not always for a long stretch. We have suddenly moved beyond the short board books, and into more words, more pages, more plots. Olivia, Corduroy, Green Eggs and Ham. You can practically recite some of them, finishing every sentence in “Corduroy." Your memory shocks us, your understanding amazes us. Things that we have said perhaps once or twice, are embedded in that little cranium, and out they come later. We’ve been spelling words for a few months now, and I am sure you will decode that soon. You get out your alphabet blocks and ask us to make words with you.
We think you are a genius, of course. You can count to ten. You have a hilarious rendition of the Alphabet Song. You sometimes sing yourself to sleep with the ABC's at night, after I have done my seven hundred rounds of that song, along with “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” and the Sesame Street theme song.
The pink sneakers that were much too big in the spring now fit you. One beloved pair of purple Mary Janes only fit for a month - I think you had a growth spurt in August. I get so weepy over your small outgrown shoes, the ones that you could first put on yourself. The polka-dot, soft-soled Mary Janes were my very favorites, and I still keep them with your other shoes, not ready to put them away in a box. Your favorites are your purple Crocs. You wore them all summer, and made the transition to socks and sneakers and cooler weather literally kicking and screaming.
You stall at bedtime, brushing your teeth too long, asking for more stories, more songs. We have to tuck in your Little People every night, placing them gently in their washcloth blankets on your nightstand. I finally tell you it’s night-night time, that I love you. Often, I swear you are silent and asleep by the time I make it downstairs. You have two speeds – on and off. If you stay awake, you will go and go and go until you are so tired that you stumble and stagger. But you won’t lie down, won’t sleep until we make you, until we tell you it is time to turn off.
You're a morning person, ready to go at 6 am. I never need an alarm clock. Even at that early, dim hour, I live for holding your warm, small body against mine, feeling those soft, innocent hands twine around my neck.
You are so certain of what you want (and more so about what you don't want) even when it changes minute by minute. You want to do so many things yourself: get dressed, peel an orange, whisk the scrambled eggs. “SELF!” you will say, grabbing that thing you want to do so badly. You have no patience, just like me.
It's so much fun to take you places now. I plan, I think, I plot about what will be exciting. Over this year, we've seen snow, fed chickens, crawled over giant pumpkins, petted sheep, marveled at elephants, walked in the woods, gnawed giant turkey legs, splashed in the ocean, ridden a train, gone trick-or-treating. I'm always worried that you will be scared, and I make a contingency plan just in case. But you surprise me with your game face, your fascination, your delight. You aren't scared at all; you love it, and you clap, you applaud. We had the most glorious summer, and a glorious fall this year, full of you talking, and playing in long golden evening light.
You are astonishingly precious to me. Every fine reddish and golden hair on your head, curling and tangling as they do into tendrils, every one I adore. I press my cheek to yours. I can’t stand it when there are scrapes and scratches on your perfect skin. I cannot believe, still, how much I love you. It startles me, the intensity, the fierceness of this love.
Thank you for this year, my little girl. I am in awe.
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