19 Months

Dear Zachary,

Another month has come and gone and I find myself sitting here wondering if time will ever slow back down.  It seems like everything is on fast forward these days and I don’t know how to push the stop button.  You are growing up so quickly.

Over the last few weeks you have become very opinionated.  Your favorite word is “NO!” and you love to scream it out whenever we ask you any kind of question.  I’m really starting to miss the days when your answer to everything was “yes.” 

You are also showing even more signs of your daddy’s stubbornness.  You went almost a whole day at day care refusing to eat just to show that you did have the power.  When I got there to pick you up, you were still sitting at the table with your untouched snack.  As soon as I told you to eat it, you gobbled it right down.  Then we came home and fixed dinner and you ate like you had never seen food before.  This whole concept of using food for power confuses me because Mama never misses a meal.  Well, except for that one night that I just totally forgot to eat dinner.

You are still learning new words every day.  I’m not sure whether you know what all of them mean, but you can repeat most words that you hear.  Three of your most commonly used words–drink, down, and done–often sound very similar and you get frustrated when I can’t figure out which one you are saying.  I hate it when I can’t understand you because I really love that we can now communicate with language.

Your love for music has expanded this month into singing and dancing.  Every time you hear a song with a good beat you bust out into a dance and shake your booty.  It is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  You’ve been trying to sing along to your music for a while, but now you can actually say some of the words in the songs.  Last night you surprised Daddy and I by singing along to the ABC’s on your Leap Frog toy.  You couldn’t quite enunciate all of the letter names but you had the basic sounds correct.

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy and I took you on vacation to Hawaii.  We had a great time while we were there and you were an absolute angel.  We stayed with your Aunt and Uncle and Granny and Papa were there too.  I really enjoyed watching you with them.  Even though we don’t see them often you somehow still remember them and know that they are yours.  My favorite part of the trip was watching you play on the beach.  You would run up to the water with a giggle and let the waves wash over your feet.  As soon as the water hit, your laughter would turn into a cry because the water was very cold.  Then you would go back to laughing again.  I wish I would have been brave enough to take my camera near the water and video it but somehow I think it will be burned in my memory forever.

Returning from Hawaii was quite an adjustment for all of us.  Besides the four hour time difference, our leisurely days had to return to our normal structured routine.  For you that meant returning to day care.  The first couple of days back you were pretty clingy when I dropped you off.  Your friend H. must have missed you because she spent most of that first day back holding your hand.  She may have been protecting you from the new kids a little bit too.

Yesterday was a difficult day for you and I both.  I got a call from day care saying that you had been bitten by a little boy (who was there for his first day).  Your day care provider was pretty upset about the whole situation and apologized profusely.  You were bitten about four times on your face from what we can tell.  While your face does look pretty bad with all of those bite marks, the part that hurts me the most is that it was the first time that you had to experience someone intentionally hurting you.  You have rarely experienced pain in your life and never pain that was inflicted upon you by another person.  It breaks my heart when I think about it.  You, however, have been very tough and are going on like nothing even happened.

Some days I look at you and see a little boy standing before me and other days I see a grown man.  I imagine what you will be like as an adult and know that that time will come all too quickly.  I just wish I could slow it down because I never want to give up these days with you.

Love always,
Mama