Dear Mia, Month 11

Let's dispense with the animal nickname I never use.

Mia Bean,

You push open the kitchen safety gate and dart your eyes back and forth as you step into the living room. Spotting the top of my head, you let a squeal escape. You take a careful step, then a quick one, picking up speed as you toddle your way to find me crouched behind the ottoman in my usual hiding spot. You get there – Squeal! – but I have moved around the corner! Squawk! You round the corner and a giggle shakes you as you dive into my arms.

It took you more than two months from those first unsure steps but you are certainly a walker now – almost a runner. You motor your way around and seem to move particularly fast in a crowd, such as at the mall play place or a busy park. We say, “Look at that Mimster go.”

I went back and read my last scattered letter before starting this one and a line caught my eye: “I can see ahead to having two little girls, instead of one little girl and a baby.”

Last night I commiserated over wine with two of your girl friends’ mamas. Our babies had turned into tiny kids, we lamented. Incredible how fast that happened: Last time I sat to type you a letter, I could see ahead to you as a little girl, and now I see that little girl before me – coming at me on two feet shouting Mama! Muhn! (mine, I think) when Sasha won’t surrender a toy.

I’m writing this letter quite late in the month, Mimi - so late that I am already planning for the next letter. Please don’t get offended. It is not because you are the second child – it is because I am a second-time Mama. You keep me busy. And I don’t worry about timing so much. My love for you is full and unselfconscious. I am not nervous about loving you – I just do it, easily and completely. I don’t analyze what we’re doing wrong (maybe everything, probably quite a few things), I just do what feels right for us and say to hell with the rest.

If you screech at me for an entire afternoon, I get mad. I tell you, “Amelia Miriam, stop this right now.” When you don’t, I send text messages to your grandparents advertising you for rent: Baby for rent. Smart, cute, cheap for the afternoon (also loud). Inquire asap. When they come to take you, you invariably transform into an incredibly mellow, smiley kid. Apparently there are some days we just get sick of each other.

I had these feelings with your big sister but I hid them deep inside of me, ashamed that I would ever have a negative feeling toward my baby. You and I don’t mince words with one another.

And you can take it. You are strong-willed, lovable and incredibly smart, figuring out toys recommended for children far beyond your developmental stage. Okay, you mostly just put these toys intended for 3-year-olds into your mouth, but still you refuse baby toys. Even when you can’t really do something, you believe you can, and often times the strength of your belief makes it so. You’ll spend long minutes bouncing carefully on the trampoline until you’re clearing a centimeter of air under those wobbly feet. You can push the vacuum – the toy one and pull the real one (which is fairly difficult for me to pull).

You can say a few things, although you mostly don’t. I caught you saying “bear” the other day as we read a story about a bear (you now pay attention to books for 90 second stretches). You sometimes say baby, referring to a doll. And two days ago you waved to Daddy as he walked out the door and said, “Bye bye, Da.”

At the park, you use pieces of mulch as a telephone. You think swinging is the best thing ever – for two minutes. Then you must escape its confines to explore on your own. After your bath the other night Daddy asked me if you had been rolling in the sand at the park. Uh, no. But something pretty close to that.

You dive head first into whatever is off limits. At the pool, your sister pretends she is a fish in the one inch of water on the ledge while you literally dive in. I think you could swim if I would let you.

You make me so happy and you drive me nuts – I love it.

Till next month, my little climber, my do-er, my daredevil.

Love forever,

Your Mama