Category Archives: Letters to My First Born

Letters to My First Born: 18 Months

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Dear J.R.,

On the day that you turned 18 months, October 15th, you and I flew back to New Jersey to visit family.  Daddy and I decided about two weeks prior, that it would be a great idea for you and me to go back before your 2nd birthday since after that, the airlines have you pay for another seat and you can’t sit in Mommy’s lap.  Well, that was one of the reasons somewhat.  I’ve heard since we made this decision that sometimes you can find multiple seating at lower prices which is great to know for the future.  The main reason for the visit was because Mommy missed seeing some family members and her and Daddy wanted people to see you since no one had seen you since you were 2 months old. 
The plan was to surprise mostly everyone.  Aunt Cydnei and a few others were the only people who knew we were coming.  She was the one who picked us up from the airport.  We stayed withe her the first week and then we went to your paternal grandparent’s house the second week.  You were ok around Aunt Cydnei.  You didn’t let her hold you, but you smiled when she played peek-a-boo with you while you were in my arms.  She and I had already discussed giving you a chance to warm up to her and others because you were shy and most likely wouldn’t remember anyone. 
We tried to go to your maternal grandmother’s house first, but she was in the shower!  So,we went to your maternal great-grandmother’s house instead.  Your great-grandma screamed whe she opened the door.  Hurray we surprised her! Not so great that she actually managed to scare you, though.  From that moment on (for the entire day anyway), you cried when you saw a new face come to her house and J.R., there were a lot of unfamiliar faces.  Thankfully, everyone understood, but I had to explain more laid back approaches to communicate and interact with you because everyone was a little bit too invasive as far as your personal space was concerned.  I knew they missed you, but I also knew they would have loved to know how they could get you to be more comfortable with them sooner since we would probably only seem people for up to a week at a time.  Mommy was pretty exhausted by the end of day number one of our visit.  I’m sure you were as well with all of the crying that you did.  All in all, the visit turned out well.  You did get used to some people but not to the point where you would let any of them hold you.  I understood.  Believe me! Let’s just say you got your shyness pretty honest. 
Here are some other fun things you started doing this month: 
-said yellow, go, shark, let’s see, daddy (along with the way you would normally say it: da-da) and sounds like aw and uh oh.   
-you do sign language for eating when you want to show mommy you are hungry
-still saying Mom and Ma :)
-when you see things on the floor that you know Mommy wouldn’t want you to put in your mouth, you give them to me.
-this month you also are enjoying saying the animal sounds after Mommy reads them to you in a book you love. 

-you climbed 3 flight of stairs all by yourself (with Mommy trailing directly behind of course)!

I love you so much and I hope you enjoyed reading about what was going on in the 18th month of your life! Until next month!
XoXo,
Mom

Letters to My First Born: 17 Months

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Dear J.R.,

Mommy is actually writing this letter to you while you are sleeping in the business center of our apartment complex in Arizona.  You turned 17 months on September 15th.  This is actually my first letter to you.  I thought about writing to you once I found out I was pregnant, but then I decided not to.  I wanted to know more about you before I started writing and at that time, Mommy will be honest here, I got pretty lazy about writing by hand in a journal.  When you have your wife and she gets pregnant, you will see how tough pregancy can be.  Your hormones are all over the place and sometimes you just can’t muster up the energy to do some things. 

So now that I’ve started to write to you, I’ve decided to write you a letter each month so that you can see what you were doing and all that you learned.  First, I want to recap your first year so we are all caught up:

You were born on April 15th at 10:08pm.  You weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces and you were 19 inches.  The funny thing about this info is, your uncle, Mommy’s brother, was born August 15th at the same exact time with the same measurements.  Guess who everyone says you look like the most? That’s right! You guessed it!  Uncle Kenny.  Some main milestone highlights are as follows:

-At only a few weeks old, you were noticeably checking out your hands.  A few people in our family thought this was a big deal.  They said that most babies don’t do this until they are at least a few months old.  I honestly just took it as the time you were ready to notice them. :)

- You got your first tooth at about 4 months old.  It as Labor Day of 2012 to be exact.

-You rolled over for the first time at 4 months old.  Mommy spent so much time with you on the floor.  The doctors like to call this ‘tummy time.’

- At 6 months you started to crawl.

-At 6 months, Mommy and Daddy fed you your first solid food.  It was avocado.  Your face explained exactly how much you liked it….perhaps not at all to be honest.  Before this day, you were exclusively fed at the breast.  We continued to give you solids to try after this.  Mommy would puree different food in the blender.  You were still very into nursing mostly, too. 

-A few days before you turned 9 months, you were standing in the living room and when Daddy opened the front door as he came home from a day’s work, right before the both of us, you took your first steps! 

- At 11 months, you were no longer crawling as much and you were walking pretty much all the time…we have you on video running around the house, too. :)

So what’s going on with you now?  At 17 months, you are opening doors pretty well.  You say a few words pretty well like “thank you,” “caca,” “shark,” “leer (to read in Spanish),” “ta (for pelota which is ball in Spanish)” and more that I can’t think of at the moment.  You shake your head no when you know you are doing something that is wrong after Mommy gives you the look.  You are helping Mommy put things away and put laundry in the washing machine or dryer.  This month you started giving Mommy and Daddy real kisses…you know.. the ones where you pucker up.  You learned this from watching Mommy and Daddy kiss each other when Daddy comes home from work.  You always put Mommy and Daddy’s faces together to kiss and then you pucker up to kiss each of us, too. 

-You love when Mommy reads books to you in English and Spanish and sometimes you even try to read them and turn the pages on your own.

-You are still able to fall asleep while nursing when Mommy sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to you in Spanish like she did while you were still in her belly.

-You are able to help Mommy take off your clothes.  I’ve noticed you try to even put them on when they are laying around a room, too. 

-I’ve noticed you are able to understand when someone on T.V. is saying words that you know like “thank you,” and you try to sound out the words on television shows that teach older kids how to read like Super Why and Martha Speaks that air on PBS. 

I’ll leave you with one last thing that is going to make me tear up as I type it for sure: at around 5 months you started saying “Ma” and you would call for me saying it when you would want me to pick you up so I knew you knew “Ma” was me.  The funny thing is, from about 5 months until recently, you haven’t really had a name for me, or at least you never said it.  You do know who Daddy is though and you refer to him as “DaDa” pretty frequently.  The other day I noticed you started calling me “Ma” all over again when you wanted me.  I know some moms say I’ll get tired of hearing this, but honestly J.R., it has been music to my ears!  I love you so much.  I’ll continue to write to you every month so you’ll be able to look back on this and know what happened when you were little while it was happening.  Until next month!

XoXo, 

(Love, Ma)