Dear Great-Grandma Faye,
My goodness, it seems like ages and ages since I have written to you. Where does the time go?? I am seven-and-a-half months old now. Have I caught up with you yet? Mommy is still older than me. I am hoping maybe I will catch her one of these days, but so far no luck.
I am kind of tired these days. There is so much to do and no time for sleeping. Sometimes after Mommy or Daddy gives me a bottle and puts me in my crib, I am tempted to fall asleep, and then I remember that I should really be practicing climbing out of the crib. I can’t do that yet but I am working hard on it. You can see that I need to use every available minute for practicing.
I am getting faster at getting around. Sometimes I can make it into, say, the bathroom to play with the diaper pail before Mommy catches me. That doesn’t happen very often, but more than it used to. I can crawl all around everywhere I want to. I can even get from the downstairs to the upstairs all by myself. It is a long climb, but I can do it–as long as I don’t get too distracted on the way up! So my next big project is figuring how to get around on my feet. Crawling is useful, but I am thinking it is not the most efficient way of getting around. I don’t see Mommy and Daddy doing much of it, and they probably know what’s what, so I should try to follow their example, don’t you think?
So here’s what I do now: I grab hold of something that’s higher than me, and I push with my legs and pull with my arms and then I am standing up. It is a really neat trick. I think I told Great-Grandpa about that a little bit the last time I wrote. But then what happens next is even better. I move one foot, and then I move the other foot, and I move my hands too, and then I keep moving my feet, and all of a sudden I am somewhere else! I always have to keep holding on to something, of course. Balancing is still really tricky and I fall a lot. But I am also getting a good bit better at getting down by myself. It used to be the only way I could get down was to fall down or have somebody help me down, but now I know that if I bend my knees enough and try to get one hand back on the floor, I can sit down again and it won’t hurt. So I am making a lot of progress, I think.
Something really funny happened this week. There was another baby here for a few days. A lady brought him in the mornings and took him away again in the afternoons. Sometimes she came in the middle of the day and went away again. The other baby slept a lot, but sometimes my Mommy would hold him and I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that. Why would my Mommy hold another baby instead of me? Once or twice while she was holding him I made her pick me up too. I know she still loves me, and the other baby is really interesting to look at (although Mommy won’t let me play with him very much), but it is still a little worrisome. I wonder if he will keep coming back.
Oh, I must tell you about the things I have been putting in my mouth lately. I have discovered that some things taste good and they are nice to swallow. I sit in my high chair, and Mommy puts them in front of me, and I pick them up and look at them and then I put them in my mouth. Then what happens is I sort of mush them around in there until they are small enough to swallow and then I swallow them! Isn’t that neat? It took me a while to get the hang of it. At first it felt really funny in the back of my throat and I had to spit it back out, but now I am starting to understand that I need to mush it up really well and then it won’t feel funny. So I am enjoying that!
Also, I have realized that it is not so bad when Mommy feeds me herself, especially if she gives me a spoon and bowl to play with. If she does that, then it is almost like I am doing it myself. At least I can pretend I am. And the stuff she has been feeding me recently tastes pretty good. It is orange. I don’t know what it is called, she didn’t tell me.
Let me see, what else has been going on recently? I am getting better and better at picking things up. Today I picked up something very small, with a hole in the center, and put it in my mouth and ate it. It was something Mommy gave me, so it was probably okay to eat, don’t you think? Sometimes I try to eat things and Mommy tells me not to, so I am starting to realize that there are some things that are good to eat and some things that are not. But I have no idea which is which right now. They all taste funny to me. So I just go ahead and try them all and if Mommy says no, I make sure she means it, and then I guess usually whatever I am trying to eat disappears and it doesn’t matter anyway.
Oh! Something I have been doing sometimes is exploring the patio outside. Mommy follows me and keeps me safe. There is lots of neat stuff out there. One thing I see sometimes is a little black creature. Short and skinny, with lumps and legs. They crawl around outside like me and I follow them and try to catch them. Even though I am mostly faster than them, they are really hard to catch! I think I have one, and then suddenly it is over there and I am not. So I have some work to do if I am going to catch one of them and try to eat it. Do you think they would be good to eat? Is this worth it?
I ride my rocking horse almost every day, and also I have been doing a new thing. Do you remember I told you about a jumper, once upon a time? That was a really long time ago, I think. I never figured out how it was supposed to work so I got tired of it pretty quickly. Well, recently I have figured out what you are supposed to do to get it to work. You need to kick your legs in just the right way and you go flying up into the air and then come down and kick again, and up and down and up and down you go. It is actually pretty fun once you get the hang of it. So Mommy puts me in there and then puts some music on, and I jump up and down and try to keep time with the music, although that’s pretty hard to do. I have a nice time and sometimes Mommy jumps with me. Not in the jumper, you understand. She can jump all by herself. It doesn’t look like as much fun, though, except for the fact that she can go all over the room and I have to stay in one spot.
Oh! Mommy just told me that you have a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!! My goodness, everybody is having birthdays except for me. I wish I could have one. I hope you enjoy yours and maybe you could save some birthday for me? If you don’t want all of it? Is a birthday something you can share? I admit I am a little fuzzy about what exactly it is.
I love you, Great-Grandma! Have Great-Grandpa give you a kiss and a hug from me. And do have a happy birthday, and tell me what it’s all about.
Love,
Isaac