seventeen months, eighteen months, almost nineteen months

Slimes,

You had a puking thing this week. So it reminded me that I majorly owe you a little cyber-letter. Because I love you. Even when you’re projectile vomiting on me. Even when our washer breaks and I have to go to a laundromat with you because there is just. so. much. vomit.

You’re (sort of) talking now. And for lack of any accurate record-keeping around here, we’re going to go ahead and say that the big moment happened on Thursday 15 November, at just over sixteen months old, when you said “hot”. Which, if memory serves us, was your brother’s first word too. Which is also what prompted Daddy to suggest that maybe we have been serving you both your meals at unacceptable temperatures for far too long. But in my mind, there are only ever two choices when you are absolutely going out of your mind when you’re hungry and sitting in your high chair and you see that something that appears to be a food-like substance is in the vicinity. I’ll go ahead and take the jump-start on your English vocabulary over an epic toddler meltdown any day. Hot: Enjoy it. I know you do.

Simon, you are still (still!) our magnificently happy and joyful and loving little guy. You are a walking sunbeam. A living and breathing upper. A perfect human specimen of squishiness and squealing and toddler teetering-rapid-walking. You blast into rooms and onto furniture and topple toys like a euphoric Godzilla. We all call you Godzilla. Jonah even calls you Godzilla. Sometimes when he’s frustrated he will come find me in whatever room I am hiding in and complain to me that “Godzilla stepped on some of my books.” That’s just what Godzilla does, son.

You love making funny faces and showing your teeth in silly ways and making Jonah laugh across the kitchen table when you guys are eating. You egg each other on and he thinks you’re hilarious. All through Christmas you were cracking yourself and the rest of us up by forming your mouth into an O and saying HO HO HO.

You l o v e brushing your teeth. At random times throughout the day you will follow me into the bathroom, point up at the cup that holds your toothbrush and say over and over again TEEF. TEEF. TEEF. TEEF. It’s kind of awesome because I sort of look at you, look back at the toothbrush, and then say something like “Are you sure?” And then I act like I am giving you the toothbrush begrudgingly and you always get really happy like your powers of persuasion are really advancing.

You give kisses either by hitting your forehead to someone else’s or with a huge open-mouth drooly face that you just permanently affix to another. In both instances, you also make what you think is a kissing noise. Your kisses are the best.

You surprised me one day by “singing” Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star- essentially humming it along with some of your non-English words. We all have to listen real quietly to catch it, and you won’t always do it on demand, but of course I think it means you’re a genius.

You are very dramatic like your brother, who you call “Cho-chah”. When I say you can’t have/do something, you staccato cry loudly, run away from me and dramatically either throw your body down or bump into something. It makes me laugh, so I am not sure you’re netting the results you want.

One day you lifted up a toy airplane and started pretending to fly it around in the sky with the right sound effects. And I thought to myself: wait, that’s a thing that can happen this early? Again: genius.

You are obsessed with hummus. A junkie for it. You make disturbing faces while you eat it- like either a crack addict who is caught mid-smoke or a raccoon simultaneously enjoying a tipped over trash can of rotten food and staring down an approaching human with a very clear silent warning that he would strongly regret taking one more step. Let’s just say you hoard it at the table and give us a look of fear followed by one indicating we are not welcome to enter your personal space.

You know what I love? You will fetch me things I need. I can tell you to go anywhere in the flat and bring me something and you’ll do it. I can tell you to put something away for me in another room and you’ll do it. It makes you happy to have little assignments and it makes me happy to not have to leave my seat. It’s so fun that we mutually benefit from our little exchanges.

I still rely on Melissa to teach you boys things because, well, then I don’t have to. Anyway Melissa is awesome and she taught you signing and it’s really cute Simon because you still do the signs while saying the words. You peer up at me in the kitchen when you want something to eat that you see – like a dog – and frantically brush your hand against your chest in the sign for Please, while saying PEES PEES PEES PEES. You’re your own interpreter.

You also say Pardon. Again from Melissa. And she’s English and it didn’t even occur to me that it’s funny you say Pardon instead of Excuse Me, because we have just lived here that long I guess. So it’s Pardon every time you make an unsociable noise or if someone around you makes an unsociable noise, you look right at them and say Pardon too. That’s some real etiquette when you will even act dignified on behalf of someone else.

You’re still fearless, Simon. If I don’t race up the different levels of the indoor jungle gyms fast enough, you’re hurtling toward the slides to go down head first. Because

You’re a honey badger. A streetfighter. Godzilla. A hummus junkie. A kisser. A lover. A fetcher. A snuggler. A vomiter. A sweet-smelling (after your bath) beam of light.

I love you big, big, big.

Mommy