1 Year 4 Months

Dear North,

I'm a little late getting your letter out this month because we've been running on empty getting ready for vacation and then burning on fumes since we've been back. You were a little trooper all through vacation though (other than those early 5:30 AM mornings) and everyone commented on how well behaved you were. Being back at home, I think you miss the hustle and bustle of all the people around.

You must have learned quite a few tricks from all the other kids during vacation because you are playing games with us now that we have not taught you. For example, you love a new game where you sit on the couch holding the remote control and offer it to either your dad or me with your puppy noise that means everything. It's the same noise that means, "can I have that", "what is that", "pick me up", "can we go outside" etc. But in this case, the puppy noise means , "here, have the remote control." So I try to accept it from you, but you pull it back with both hands and snuggle it into your body while giggling madly. Rinse. Repeat. You could play this game for hours delighted with keeping the remote control out of our greedy paws.

One point of difficulty is getting you to eat new foods. Oh who am I kidding, sometimes you won't even eat the things that were your favorite only yesterday. I hope by the time you are reading this, it will make you laugh because by then, you will have conquered your hatred of all things vegetable and we can giggle over this hopefully short lived phase.

I've always promised myself that I won't give up on offering you new foods and vegetables, but living up to that promise is quite tiresome, not to mention wasteful. I've even tried pureeing vegetables and hiding them in pasta sauces. You caught on quickly to that game though and now shake off the noodles before putting them in your mouth. I worry you're going to be one of those kids that only eats chicken nuggets and bread and I feel guilty that I ever judged the parents of those kids in the first place. Now I can see that those children wore the parents down day by day, throwing green bean after green bean off their tray and onto the floor. The struggle has become less about the quality of food you let grace the inside of your mouth and more about the success of getting you to swallow, well, anything. Bill Cosby's rationalization of giving his children chocolate cake for breakfast comes to mind.

I'm sad to see your Midas Tire Guy arms slowly morph from baby fat into the slender arms of a little boy. Maybe this is the silver lining to your high carb diet though? Thankfully, you still have one or two pudgy little rings that we tickle with kisses while we still can. You are freshly tanned from the beach except for those baby rolls. It almost looks like you put rubber bands up your arms before laying out in the sun. This will be the one time in your life when untanned rolls of fat are considered desirable, so enjoy it son.

It's difficult being back at work after spending nine days in a row with you. I find myself staring at my screen saver and wishing I could kiss your plump cheeks and smell your fuzzy head all day long. Even when your hair is encrusted with your dinner and your cheeks are covered in dried drool you smell like the most expensive perfume to me.