18 Months

Dear Miss Skye,

You turned one-and-a-half years old a few days ago.  We commemorated the occasion in the traditional fashion of dragging you to a car dealership for four hours, during which time you made your cheesy cracker-laden mark on no fewer than five showroom vehicles and four windows — but, I’m proud to say, shed very few tears.  Unlike, say, your mother, who weeped when she turned in the keys to her convertible in exchange for a small SUV.  An SUV!  Which I once vowed I would never get.  Of course, I had said the same about a perm and everyone who’s seen my senior picture knows how that vow held up.  Unfortunately.

In other words, Happy 18 Months!

You are such a hoot to hang out with these days, Miss Skye, spontaneously swaying in your chair and singing in your own sweet language (loosely based on a mixture of Baby Babble, English and what I’m convinced is an African click language), and reaching out for me to dance with you any time you hear music.  Or somebody says the word “music.”  Or we walk by a person you suspect was a music major.  Yeah, we’re pretty much dancing all the time.   That is, when you’re not lining up your babies — Elmo, Curious George, Birdie, Baby Lulu and Dolly — on a blanket and patting their backs to help them go to sleep.  This?  Is a BIG production.  Huge.  Every doll has to be covered with a blanket, which must be laid at a particular angle only known in your head.  If I dare to lay the dish towel, er… I mean, baby blanket… in the wrong direction, you let me know just how displeased you are with my incompetence. And, I bet, with the fact that I make you use dish towels as baby bedding.  So low-brow.

Just yesterday, you started putting your finger to your lips and softly shushing me when I was in danger of waking the babies with my big mouth.  And you were right!  I was being thoughtless with my jibber-jabbering.  We both know how cranky Baby Lulu can be when she’s awakened from a nap.

You are a shameless Mama’s Girl, frequently hurting your poor father’s feelings when you insist that I hold you whenever possible.  And by “insist,” I mean demand at the top of your lungs.  No idea where you get THAT sassy attitude from.  *Ahem*  I have also perfected the fine art of putting on makeup with one hand, while holding a 28-lb. toddler with the other.  And by “perfected,” I mean often wearing mascara on only one eye and lipstick on my nose.  But it’s all worth it when you throw your arms around my neck, smiling, and give me a big ol’ smooch on my lipstick-free mouth.

Also:  You and your diva sunglasses that you so proudly wear everywhere?  Make my day.

Love you even more than my SUV’s new car smell and amazing cargo space*,

Mom

*Yes, lord help me, I LOVE MY NEW BIG-ASS VEHICLE**

**Dear Concerned Environmentalists:  I only drive about four miles a year — true story — and my SUV gets almost the same gas mileage as my old convertible, so please refrain from calling me a gas-guzzling a-hole, if possible.  I might be an a-hole, sure, but not that much of a gas-guzzling one.  Thanks!  Kisses!