Dear Zayde,
This month I learned that for a few weeks every year, you and Bubbie live in a house. This time, your house had a pool, in which I learned that Bubbie can swim and doesn't mind when I throw smooth rocks into the shallow end. Two weeks ago, I learned that even though I can't visit you in person for a while, I can still see you and talk to you using Mommy's computer. I learned that I can give you a hug and show you how I dance and sing. I can also show you how I rearrange furniture. During our conversations, I've learned how to make you and Bubbie disappear just by closing the laptop. I was hoping that I had freed you from your flat-screened prison, but alas, Mommy just dialed you up again. One of these days I'll figure out how to break you two out of there. I really am a whiz with digital devices: I learned how to open the photo album on Mommy's iPhone, scroll through the photos until I find a video, and press the play button. I can close apps, make phone calls to everyone on her speed dial list, play music, and even start and stop a Sesame Street video with her Netflix app. I'll bet you couldn't do that when you were 18 months old.
I learned how to carry a bowl of cereal or fruit all the way from the kitchen to the table in the living room without spilling. The trick is to use two hands and to concentrate. On an unrelated note, I learned that our vacuum has a detachable hose that is remarkably efficient at sucking up cereal that somehow migrated across the rug and under the couch.
This month, I learned how to make Mommy blush. In addition to the many other words I can say
words I can say, such as tushie, airplane, and Zelda, I can say clock. That's not what makes Mommy blush. I think it's how I tend to pronounce clock in front of friends and strangers. I usually omit the "L" sound, which doesn't seem like such a big deal, but for some reason, it causes Mommy to get pink in the cheeks. Maybe she's embarrassed about the constant passing of time. I've heard that women in their 30s are like that.
I now understand the point of "walking" toys, such as my push-around butterfly, my mini-vacuum, and the plastic domed apparatus from Bubbie that goes "Pop! Pop!" when I roll it across your living room. Speaking of loud noises, this month I learned about music shows. Mommy took me to a live concert for little kids. My friends Eric and Gabe met us there, along with their parents. Our proximity to the large and resonating electric guitar and booming drum set was off-putting at first, but within a few minutes, I got into the groove and pulled out all my best moves - the tushie wiggle, the bended-knee dip, the hands in the air, and even the closed fist clapping. Our Mommy and Me teacher was the singer in the band. I didn't realize who she was at first because she was wore a series of costumes wigs. She sang "Disney" songs, which apparently will mean something to me in a few years when I visit a nearby planet known as DisneyWorld. I hope we ride an airplane to get there. This month I learned that the buzzing noises I hear high above our house are in fact airplanes, a fact I like to share with everyone whenever we hear the aforementioned buzzing. I always point upward to indicate that the airplane is above us in case someone thinks I am confusing the sound with a car or motorcycle, both of which make very different noises and both of which I enjoy identifying.
A few weeks ago, I learned that - on top of all the other previously identified substances - I am allergic to fish. I'll refrain from further comment because I'm kind of over the self-pity thing now that I know I can eat Oreos and that Mommy will let me stick my entire arm into a mostly empty peanut butter jar just to feel the glory of squishy deliciousness. We all have our crosses to bear; mine happens to be edible.
Best to focus on the good things, like the day I learned that Mommy is great at keeping secrets, and my Aunt Janet is capable of showing up at our front door out of the blue, and Grandma can be truly and wonderfully flabbergasted. Apparently Mommy and Aunt Janet were planning her surprise visit for months. They didn't tell me because I tend to blab, and I don't blame them. You should have seen the look on Grandma's face when her sister walked in the door. It was a magical moment. Everyone cried. (Except for me, that is. I only cry for things like being senselessly removed from the pool just because I'm shivering or being denied a third cookie or having my diaper changed or having my hair washed or being woken up from a nap I didn't want to take in the first place.) We spent the weekend doing super fun activities like touring the Young at Art Museum, which is a lot like the Please Touch Museum we visited in Philadelphia. That's where I learned how to bang on African drums, crawl through a carpeted tsunami, and dig for dinosaur bones. We spent Mother's Day at the beach, where I learned that Aunt Janet is really good at lifting me into the air. She's also a pro at making sand castles and doesn't mind at all when I flatten them. I hope we get to play with Aunt Janet again very soon.
This month at the playground I learned how to walk up the steps and slide down the slide all by myself. I still need some help with the seesaw and the swings, but I am confident I'll master those skills as soon as I grow a few more inches. At home, I learned to stack blocks (and tofu squares). It's still more fun to knock down other people's creations than to build my own, but stacking is cool, too. I'm working on lifting a stack of blocks onto another stack. I figure that adding three blocks at a time instead of one will save time so we can get to the knocking down part faster, but - as much as I loathe to admit this - I am lacking severely in the fine and gross motor skills departments. I still fall down when I run too fast (or when I'm walking on uneven ground or down a hill), and my crayon sketches never turn out the way I'd planned. The other day I tried to draw a cat, but in the end it just looked like a bunch of random scribbles. Unless I improve considerably, I think we can rule out "next great artist," "professional block stacker," and "downhill racer" from my list of future careers. Do people get paid to shove large quantities of strawberries into their mouths? I'm asking because I'm really good at that. Mommy says I'm whining at a third grade level already, so maybe that could be another back up plan for me. You know, if the app developer thing doesn't work out.
See you on Skype,
Zelda
