My dear son,
When you were born, we went to the fortune teller to pick out a Chinese name for you. He looked at your ba zi thoughtfully and said, “This one will be active.” I groaned a little and said, “Another active one?” He looked at me knowingly and replied, “Not just active, but very very very active.”
True enough, you have turned out to be a very active baby, and an impish, tenacious one at that.
At the grand ‘ol age of 11 months, you decided that you wanted to walk. By then, you were already pulling yourself up to standing position and cruising quite effortlessly. And then one evening, you were poised to take a step. My heart nearly stopped. But you didn’t. Instead, you continued trying and trying and a week later, when I came back from work, you took your first wobbly steps towards me.
Since then, you have not looked back. You walk everywhere. You hate it when your big brother is running around and you aren’t. There is a reason why babies at this age are called toddlers, because they look so damn cute toddling around. You, my darling boy, look like an adorably drunk penguin. You always walk with that little smirk hanging on your lips, as if to say, hey check out me walking.
With your brother, we went through a long period of practising with him. Those were the days when we had creaky achy backs because he wanted to walk and he couldn’t and so we had to bend over to hold his hand or arm. We let him use the walking wagon quite a fair bit and it took him a while before he finally had the confidence to walk unaided. On hindsight, he does have a cautious streak in him.
You, on the other hand, went from cruising to walking just like that. No help, no extra cheer from us. You just walked. And you are so bloody good at it. So much so that you hate it when we stop you from walking and carry you (when you are dying to walk).
And that’s so telling of your personality. You just grab life by the horns and move, with scarcely any regard for your safety. You just do it, with no hesitation, no fear, no thought. And now that you are mobile, you are almost always mobile. It’s rare to see you still, except during bedtime when you are happily flipping the pages of your board books. And thankfully, you do love your books.
Right now, you are in love with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You can sit and listen attentively as I read, and then poke your fingers in the little holes. That’s when you are still. For the next nanosecond. And then you are grabbing the book to do this on your own. No help please, thank you very much.
Other things that make you happy are bubbles during bath time. When I carry you into the bedroom and say BUBBLES, a delighted grin spreads over your face and you go AHH. We really need to film it down, it’s quite entertaining.
The person that you adore most right now is mama. And it’s so nice to be so loved by you. Every evening, when we arrive home from school, we’d call for you and you’d clamber over to the door in a heady mix of glee and excitement. Then you’d demand to be carried and you’d nestle your (smelly sweaty) head into mine.
Oh how I love that baby noggin!
I just have this feeling that you are going to be challenging us quite a fair bit. Your brother has an awareness of boundaries but it looks like you have no care for them at all. I am not sure how this is going to pan out but I am pretty certain that it involves us chasing you down and losing weight in the process.
So you, in a nutshell, after twelve months. A most joyful, curious, determined, affectionate little fellow. It’s going to be so fun watching you grow.
We love you, little bubba, right to the moon and back.
Love,
Mama
Yannisms 