Letters to Liam - Month Nine

Dear Liam,



We've just concluded the Month of the Snuffy Face. It's a particularly fine combination of scrunched face and heavy breathing through your nose. Lulu taught it to you and you can't get within twenty yards of a camera without putting it on. Then we all laugh so much that you'll probably still be doing it in your graduation photos.



Halloween was fun, for us anyway. Your bear costume was built to ensure that if you were ever shipwrecked while looking for the Northwest Passage, you would be able to generate enough body heat to keep all your companions from freezing to death. You were a miniature Easy Bake oven. While I was giddily toting you around work, showing you off to all my coworkers, your lower half was beginning to liquify, and your nose broke out in actual sweat beads. So for most of the day, I just made you wear the hat.

We had no trick-or-treaters, as usual. You debuted your costume in the grocery store after work, and we stripped it off you as soon as we got home. No one wants to clean up a puddle of what was formerly your baby boy until you roasted him at 250 for a couple of hours.



As your mother, I feel compelled to point out that you eat tofu, and you love it. And because I'm your mother and you don't know any better, I'm also feeding you broccoli and Brewer's Yeast and powdered kelp. Mwahahahhhahaha!




You started Day Care this month, and I miss you so much! You, however, are so busy that I don't think you notice my absence for some time. You spend your days with two older women. Both are blond toddlers who dote on you and live to squeeze you. You get to play outside a lot, while I am stuck inside working on databases. Once we get to the weekend, I have trouble planning anything to do other than staying home and playing with you for two solid days.



I had to buy a storage bench to keep you from sticking every shoe and boot in the house in your mouth. You are currently fascinated with the remote control, rubber duckies, the toilet, and any available cats. You're surfing all the furniture, and you've begun freestanding for a few seconds before you plop down. You will totally be walking by Christmas. How on earth are we going to keep you from taking down the Christmas tree? Oy.



We've begun what I'm afraid will be a lifelong habit of being made to take pictures of you with dead game. Ugh. Your father is ecstatic. I find it morbid, but I'm smart enough to realize how little a chance I stand of being able to avoid it. See the glazed, beatific look on his face? That will last for days. So, I deal with it as best can. And insist that you need your hat with the fuzzy blue ears while you're out in the cold.

I might as well point out that you're already in love with everything your dad does. Yesterday, you insisted that I hold you up at the door so you could watch him cut and stack firewood for TWO WHOLE HOURS. Thrilling.




You've slept through a few nights, tantalizing me with thoughts of regular sleep that lasts more than three or four hours at a stretch. Then you'll get me up twice a night again. I'm pretty much living in loungewear, which is as close as I am going to come to a good rest, apparently.

The next time I write to you, it will be almost Christmas. Life will never, ever be the same. Think your Dad is pretty cool? Just wait until you see what Santa can do!


Love,

Mama