the toddler life

A LETTER TO COOP

AUGUST 17, 2015

You're unruly. Just like your hair...

And at the same time, you're methodical, inquisitive, and thoughtful. 

You have this innate ability to melt my heart with a giddy laugh one minute and drive me absolutely and completely crazy thirty seconds later. You're in a fun stage where you want to play with anything that's not a toy. This makes pulling things out of the kitchen drawers your favourite game.

And yes, I really do mean drawers and not just the cupboards. You're officially tall enough to stand on your tippee toes and blindly search through the tallest drawers in the kitchen and steal things from the island. 

The knees on your shorts are always dirty, although you're now walking more often than you crawl. Your shirt is usually wet from playing with Weezy's water dish, but you never seem to mind.

You've hit the sign language sweet spot. You even did your first sign for "please" without first being asked. "Please", by the way, consists of you placing your hands under your chin and cocking your head to the side. A little unconventional but way too adorable. 

Now that we have our hands a little more full with the arrival of your baby sister, we've been asking you to do more things to help. You are the best at picking up the baby blankets and bringing them to Jilly. It's pretty amazing how well you're listening to instructions lately. 

When you're around other babies, you're wonderful. You could watch your cousins and friends play for hours. When you're alone in the play room and mama's trying to get some work done, you're not impressed. 

Your tolerance for the grocery store is about 6 or 7 items. Your tolerance for the mall is one lap of one floor and precisely 1 purchase at a cash register. And this does not include, for example, 1 purchase of a coffee from Starbucks followed by 1 purchase of an item from a store. Mom needs to pick one.

This is the toddler life. 

We're right in the middle of it and some days it's tough. But deep down, I know this is the good stuff. So feel free to pull out all of the tupperware and tear the pages out of my old books. We love you anyway.