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Dear Great-Grandma Faye,

Thank you for your letter! I got it yesterday. The squirrel is very friendly-looking. I did not chew his ears off but I looked at him and laughed. I like pictures of animals. Also, thank you for explaining birthdays to me! I think I am starting to understand now. I will have a birthday in December, right? Mommy says it will be cold then. It is definitely not cold now, so it must be a long time away. Have you really had 83 birthdays? I can’t count that high. Actually I can’t really count at all. But 83 sounds like more than I have had.

Do you really think I will be walking soon? Oh, I hope so! That will be so nice. I can get around pretty quickly on my hands and knees but I can see how much faster it must be to get around on my feet like Mommy and Daddy do. I will probably be able to stay ahead of them then, don’t you think?

And I am coming to see you again! In less than two weeks! And I can untie your shoelaces again? That will be fun. Mommy and Daddy don’t let me play with their shoes very much.

I did learn something new this week. Mostly I have just been practicing what I have learned because it takes so much work to be able to do it properly, but here is the new thing I learned: There are these things in some of the rooms. I don’t exactly know how to describe them because they are all a little different. But the thing they have in common is something to grab onto. Sometimes it is a long skinny something, and sometimes it is a little round something. Anyway, if you grab onto that thing, and pull, then the thing it is attached to MOVES. They don’t all move the same way and that is confusing for me. I never know exactly what to expect. Sometimes it moves towards one side, and out–it swings, kind of. Sometimes it swings the other way. And once in a while, it comes straight out! But then you can always look behind it, and there are things in there. That is the really interesting part.

I haven’t gotten a very good look at any of the things behind the swingy things yet. You see, I can’t get them to stay open. So I must keep working on that until I am able to get them to stay open and look behind them. Wish me luck! I am usually getting stopped by somebody when I try!

Another something that I have learned recently is something new to say. So far I have been saying “Mamamama” and “Babababa” and then lots of “oooos” and “aaahs” and “mmmmms.” But now I can say “Dadadada” also. It’s funny, but Daddy gets really excited when I say that one. I don’t understand why. Do you have any idea?

I have been eating more stuff lately, too. Mommy has told me what I am eating, so I am going to list it for you. 

1. Carrots

2. Sweet potatoes

3. Prunes

4. Applesauce

5. Rice cakes

6. Bananas

7. Oatmeal

8. Teething biscuits that Grandma bought me

Mommy has also tried to feed me peas, but I am discouraging that idea. I think I like applesauce best, but I also like rice cakes because I can do those myself without any help. The teething biscuits are pretty good too. Mommy says I am not allowed to have a thing called wheat because some of my relatives are allergic to it, and she doesn’t want me to be allergic to it also. So if she waits till I am older, maybe it will be okay. Anyway, lots of teething biscuits have this wheat in them, apparently, but Grandma found me some that don’t have any, so I may eat them. Isn’t she a nice Grandma?

You remember that other baby I told you about? Well, he keeps showing up, but I think I like him. The only thing that is annoying is that Mommy won’t let me touch his face. I would like to know what it feels like but she always says, “Don’t touch! Be gentle!” and I don’t know what she means. Oh, well. At least he is interesting to look at. But he seems to sleep a lot.

My friend Ethan, now, he doesn’t sleep much. He is a lot like me. He came over on Sunday and we played together and that was kind of cool! He would have something and I would try to take it and then he would take it back and then I’d take it again and I guess you get the picture. We weren’t arguing, we just were interested. Ethan was in the hospital last week. He put something in his mouth that he wasn’t supposed to and then it went down his throat and they had to use a machine that looked through his body to see what was inside, but they didn’t find it. He was telling me all about it on Sunday. It made me want to swallow something so I could go to the hospital too and see my insides, but I can’t find anything to swallow.

I think I told you about my jumper the last time, too. Well, since I wrote that time, I have figured out that I was not doing things in quite the best way. I wasn’t bending my knees! Now, if I bend my knees and PUSH, I go flying up in the air! It is tons of fun! I love jumping in my jumper now. Even if I am tired and hungry, I will still jump in my jumper for a while because it is so much fun to go flying in the air. Also I am going to have very strong legs if I keep using it, and then I will be abe to walk sooner, right?

I am going to go play with the little baby. He is awake now so I’m going to keep him company. Have a good week and I will see you soon!

Love,

Isaac

P.S. One more thing that happened at supper after I wrote this letter. Mommy was trying to give me MORE carrots and I was tired of the carrots and tired of the applesauce and really, just tired in general, so I shook my head back and forth and guess what? She didn’t give me any more. I am getting the knack of this communicating stuff. After I shook my head I lifted my arms up in the air but she didn’t pick me up right away. Instead she washed my face and my hands and that made me kind of mad. Why didn’t she pick me up? It is all so confusing. At least I can communicate with you, Great-Grandma!

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

Dear Great-Grandpa Al,

Since your birthday is this week, I am writing my letter to you this time. Happy Birthday! But you should still let Great-Grandma read the letter, too. I hope you don’t mind sharing.

It must be exciting to have a birthday! I have never had one. Do you suppose I will, someday? What is it like to have a birthday? Will you have a celebration? Maybe I should ask you what your favorite birthday was like. That would be interesting to hear about. I do wonder what will happen if I have a birthday.

Well, I have certainly been working hard this week. I guess I am always working hard, aren’t I? People are always saying, “Look at that happy baby playing,” and I guess I am playing but it is work, too. It’s kind of nice to have my work be play.

Anyway, guess what I have been working on lately. Did you guess crawling? Yup! I am crawling all over the place now. It’s still tricky, but I can do it, and I am getting better all the time. If Mommy leaves me in my room and goes somewhere else, I start to come out of my room to follow her. Actually I usually get distracted in the hallway so I don’t get very far. There is so much that is interesting to look at, touch, and taste!

Another thing that I have been working on is getting up on my feet. I like sitting up, but I have discovered that you can see a lot more and reach a lot more on your feet. So I have been working really hard to get up there. So far, I can get all the way standing up when I am in my crib. It’s harder to find good things to pull up on when I am not in the crib, though. But I keep trying. Some good places are the dishwasher door when Mommy is unloading it, the bottom step in the basement, the big footstool that is in my room (Mommy says that is what it is called, but my goodness, it is as big as I am! How could somebody use it for their feet? I can’t!) and also Mommy and Daddy. Those are all good things to climb on. Some not so good things: the chairs in the kitchen (I bump my head on all the parts that stick out) and the little shelf that I keep my toys on in the kitchen. It is too short. I should really say that it is the shelf I take my toys off of. I don’t actually put them back. They just magically reappear there, usually when I wake up in the morning.

Let’s see, what else has been happening around here? I keep trying to stop taking naps, but Mommy won’t let me. I personally think I sleep way too much and I am trying to fix that, but every time I do I wind up asleep in my crib. I don’t know how it happens. Once in a while I manage to stay awake for a few extra hours, but then I am back in the crib again, sleeping. It’s kind of weird how that works.

Oh, on Saturday, there were all kinds of people and noises here. I was outside a lot that day in my playpen, and there were loud buzzing sounds, and people going back and forth dragging parts of trees. Do you have any guesses about what was going on? I am still not sure what happened. I do know that I woke up from one of my naps because the buzzing was so loud outside my window. But that was okay with me, because I wanted to come out and see what was going on. It sure was interesting!

About the food that Mommy keeps trying to feed me. Great-Grandpa, what kinds of foods do you like? Could you maybe ask Mommy to feed them to me, instead of what she is feeding me? It is weird and not so good. Well, some of it is okay. But today she gave me this green mushy stuff and boy, did it taste terrible! It looked pretty neat, and I had fun smearing it on my face, but I sure didn’t want Mommy putting that stuff in my mouth.

Well, I do hope you have a happy birthday. Tell Great-Grandma that I love her, too, and give her a kiss from me! I suppose I should go to bed now, but I really don’t want to. Maybe I will just practice pulling up in my crib instead.

By the way, the picture I am sending you this time is me exploring the hallway recently. You can see Daddy’s pretty floors! He is such a good Daddy, to build such pretty floors for me to crawl on. I love looking at them. And you know what, I think he used one of the tools he got from you to build them. He uses that thing a lot. I don’t remember what it is called but it is big and makes a loud whirring noise. I would like to use it too, and he says I may, someday, but not just yet.

Love,

Isaac