18 months

To my handsome little man,

Happy 18th month! How did you grow up so fast? I miss the tiny little baby that you were, when you would lie on my chest to sleep for two hours without squirming and all you could do was look up at me with those little baby eyes. What happened to the baby eyes? Now you look at me with a glint of mischief before thinking of new ways to destroy my possessions as well as my sanity.

In the past six months, you’ve started walking, forming words and climbing on every ledge you can find. I love that you are trying to express yourself using actual words instead of a secret code of various high-pitched shrieks. You know key words like no, eat, blanket, poop, hug, sleep, and even difficult ones like youtube, please, are you sure, are you for real, awesome.

Before you were born, we dreamed of having a ruddy, mischievous kid to turn the house upside down and you were exactly what we pictured. Smart, cheeky, funny, affectionate, generous and kind. You play with toys differently from other kids because you get bored so fast and next thing I know, you’re stacking lego blocks on your head or building a fortress using your stuffed toys. You learn stuff real fast just by watching us do it once. Every time you do something naughty, you’ll go “hey, no no” like momma does it, then proceed to do it anyway, and with much gusto.

Although what really surprised us was how sweet and generous you are. You love going around giving out hugs, even to the kid that shoved you away and snatched your toy. You hug and kiss your little sister all day and you even let her hold your precious blanket, even if your idea of sharing means she gets to hold it for 5 seconds max.

Best of all, you’re tremendous fun to be with. You’re always giggling and thinking of ways to make us laugh. Even when you have no idea what we’re laughing at, you still guffaw away like you’re in on the joke. That is hilarious.

You know how sometimes you get a present and it’s ok, not spectacular, but sometimes you get a gift and it’s out of this world, blow your mind to bits kind of awesome. It’s like that for us. The second one I mean. Twice. We feel like of all the kids in the world, we got the 2 best kids ever. We couldn’t be more proud of you. When you grow up and if you ever feel like you’re not good enough, know that there’s nothing you could do to make us love you more than we already do. And we’re ALWAYS, ALWAYS proud of you.

Love,

Mommy (and by extension, daddy as well)

ps. Don’t grow up too soon ok. One day you’re going to be too big to sit on my lap and snuggle and that will be an awfully sad day for me.