To Vivian, 17 months old

 

Dear Vivian,

You are seriously the cutest, most adorable little girl in the entire world. Even Stella thinks so. The other day, you were trying to brush Stella's teeth but she was lying on the couch watching "Totoro" in our San Diego house and didn't really want to lean forward so you could put the toothbrush in her mouth. In her defense, she had just hurt herself doing something and I set her up on the couch with pillows, etc. so it was a little hard for her to move. I said to you, "Vivian, you can't brush Stella's teeth right now" and you just looked at Stella with your big blue eyes and said in your saddest voice, "Why????" Even injured Stella had to give in to you after that. She frequently comments on how cute you are, one time even declaring, "She's so cute I want to eat her." And that is no small praise given that you are becoming quite a lot of competition. But you two still get along so incredibly well and whenever your big sister is not around you walk around looking for her going "Lala? Lala?"

 

You are completely cell phone obsessed and your favorite thing to do is to go through the pictures on my phone. You've learned how to make a video play and to scroll through the pictures. When you get to one of Stella, you are particularly happy and sometimes even give her a kiss or pat the picture and say "Nice".

You are a great sharer and take enormous pleasure in feeding other people. In fact, just tonight at dinner you looked over and saw your monkey on the other side of the kitchen. You went 'Mon-ay. Mon-ay." and then tried to get yourself down from the banquette to go get it. When I realized that you were going to do this, I went to go get it for you and brought it over. In general we try to restrict monkey for times of sleep but I thought it was better to get it for you than have you risk your life trying to get down from your seat. As soon as you had monkey in your hand, you started to pretend feed him some of your dinner and you had the biggest smile on your face. You just wanted to share your delicious food with your precious little friend.

Speaking of delicious dinner, I am so happy that you are eating again. You were really sick for about a week and you basically went on a hunger strike. It was quite stressful for me and very sad for all of us. I held you a lot. I eventually broke down and brought you to Dr. Kligler and he thought there was a possibility you had pneumonia. We never gave you antibiotics, though, because you were already on the upswing by the time we got the prescription. Thankfully, you got better in time for us to go to San Diego to see Dad who is working on a show there. He was away for about three weeks and you missed him a lot. You often looked for him around the house and would point to my computer and say, "Dada. Dada" clearly wanting to skype with him. You were always very happy when he called us on the computer and you are delighted to be here with him now. You were pretty good on the plane and even adjusted to the time difference without too much fuss. We had a few days of 4am wake ups but you're pretty much on schedule now. You also adjusted to the carseat pretty quickly which was impressive. You are all-around pretty easy going and adaptable.

You still adore Grandpa Paul and get so excited to see a picture of him or to hear his voice on the phone.

You love blueberries. And most other foods that allow you to use your pincer grasp. On the other hand you do NOT love anything mushy or mashed up.

You have a really interesting fearlessness because you are not the sturdiest girl around but you will attempt to jump off of almost anything and it makes you laugh hysterically when you scare me with your stunts. We have started taking a class at Chelsea Piers because you were getting too active to be expected to just sit and watch Stella's class. It is really fun but once we go into the back room where there is a ball pit, you will pretty much not do anything else. You just want to get onto the tumbling track and jump into the pit. You have no fear. After Stella's class ends, we all go into the toddler gym where you also love to hang out in the ballpit with your equally-happy-to-be-there-with-you sister.

You love the playground. Especially the swings. And the slide. Whenever you do something that is fun (ie: go down the slide), the second you get to the bottom, you say "more" and go to do it again.

You are also taking a music class with Grandma Helaine and you love it so much. In fact, the last two times when the teacher said, "It's time to say goodbye", you have burst into tears. I saw it myself because Grandma could not take you last week so I got to. You were so sad when the class was over.

Your vocabulary is exploding with new words all the time. For awhile you were saying "appudi" a lot and we could not figure out what it was. It seemed like some variation on "apple" but since you say "apple" clearly, it was very confusing. Finally last week, you were looking at a candle and pointing and saying "appudi. appudi" and I realized you were saying "Happy Birthday". Grandma Helaine was very happy to have this mystery solved. It was also good timing because it was right before we celebrated your 17 month and Stella's 5 1/2 birthday. Any occasion for a celebration and a cupcake is good by me and dad so we went to Sprinkles and got candles. You were very happy until we ruined your cupcake by putting a candle in it.

Eventually, everything was rectified and you ate your cupcake happily.

As you licked the icing, you kept looking up and saying "Thanks."

You were also very happy to share it with Monkey.

Whenever anyone gives you anything you want, you say "Thanks" which I'm pretty sure qualifies you as the most polite, well-mannered 17 month old ever.

You have lots of cute expressions and gestures. For example, when you are looking for someone you can find, you will put your hand out with your palm up like "what's going on? I don't understand?"
When we ask you where your eyes are, you blink slowly a bunch of times.
When you are sad about something, you squint your eyes.
When you are really sad and cry, your whole little being just become so sad. Sometimes this happens when I put you down for even one second. Often this happens if I have to leave you. And I want you to know that I feel the exact same way!

You LOVE to read. You especially love books that have little flaps for you to open like "where's spot? Is he in the closet?" (open closet flap) "No, the rabbit is in the closet." You definitely have favorite books and ones you don't like so much. We know this because if we try to read a book you don't want, you will shout "No!" and slam it closed. On the other hand you will say "Dog" or "Mais" or "Baby" to chose one of the books that you like a lot. Speaking of "Mais", you really love Maisy books these days although only the ones that have flaps for you to open. And one about Maisy working on a farm.

You love to draw. You love bandaids. You think all my freckles are booboos. You give lots of great kisses and hugs. Whenever I come home after not seeing you for awhile, you look up at me and say "Hi Mama" and my heart just melts.

 

You are very playful and love to be chased. One afternoon in San Diego, I was trying to think of a game that would be fun for a 1 year old, a 5 year old and a 39 year old when I thought of hide and seek. Stella and I explained to you how to play by hiding in really easy, obvious spots and getting gradually trickier. Eventually we started really playing with you and me on a team and Stella on her own. We hid behind Stella's bed and waited quietly for her to find us. The rest of the time we were in San Diego, you would often disappear to that very hiding spot and wait for someone to discover you at which point you would shout "Boo".

I love having a little toddler around and am already sad that you are no longer a baby. On the other hand, it is so much fun to watch your personality emerge and to get to know you in a bigger way.

 

You've made us into so much more of a family than we were before you got here. You are my precious little angel and I am so happy to get to be your mom.

I love you so much.
Love,
Mama