You’re 1 ¼ years old today. That means that I’ve been back to work for more than a month, which doesn’t seem right. Those weeks have gone by in a terrible blur of hurried mornings, short evenings and a plague of night-wakings. I miss seeing you all day long. I miss you in the back seat: sleeping, talking or just listening to your mother’s weird musical selections played at punishing volume. I miss seeing you grow and change; every day your Grandma tells me something new about you, like you started saying ‘beefy’ or you clap on command. Your cousin will be born any day now, and when he is we’re going to have to keep a huge secret. You’ll still be the cutest, smartest, most wonderful baby in the known universe, but to protect the family’s feelings, we’ll have to lie. Just a little white lie.

One thing I’ve never looked forward to is toilet training. I always secretly believed that you’d be hopelessly recalcitrant about your diapers, holding onto your dependence the way you hold onto my nipple at the end of a feeding. Much to my surprise, you began to talk about your own elimination this month. You can and will say ‘poopy’ or ‘stinky’ or ‘foof’ when you are or have done those things. I never knew that your growing sense of self-awareness would make me so happy, especially when I was raised to pretend that such things were below the level of conversation.

You’re a horse of a different colour, though, and I’m starting to see fewer hang-ups in you than in either of your parents. You’re so natural and bright and curious, and your other Gramma says that you’re the most with-it baby she’s seen in a long time. I love to listen to you identify everything in your environment, usually before any of the adults have had a chance to absorb it all. You’re constantly observing and joyfully naming things I wouldn’t have noticed without you.

My only wish for you this month is that you continue to grow strong and bright while I’m off at work all week. You’re doing so well with your grandma. I see it in your eyes every day. And I’ve started to live just for the moment of homecoming, when your little curly head pokes out and your face transforms itself into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen. I live for the moments when you toddle toward me, hellbent for leather, and refuse to be distracted by anything that is not a long cuddle with your mother. I love you, stinky.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 3/08/2005 08:20:00 p.m.