Month 16
Dear Desi,
Happy 16 months yesterday! I actually started on your letter yesterday, going through all your pictures in the past two months and realized how your much your personality has emerged in this time, and how different you are from your sister. You're so mellow, and sweet, you love to hug and kiss, and you have this super delighted naughty smile that will let you get away with anything. Anything at all. Everyday, when you smile like that at your Daddy, he says, "I'm doomed." And then gives you whatever you want.
You're not really talking yet. Instead you prefer to sign for anything and everything you want. You can sign for many of your favorite toys, like "baby" for your Doll, "monkey" for your toy Boots the Monkey, and "train" for your.. well, your toy train. You sign for "water," and "food," you sign "sleep" when you're sleepy, and "change" when your diaper is wet. You sign "up up" when you want to stay in my room. You sign "ligo" when it's time to take a shower. You even invented a sign for "pray" in which you copy the sign of the cross. You do this after our nightly bedtime video. And you've gotten really good at doing the sign of the cross when Ate leads our bedtime prayers.
This isn't to say you don't talk at all. Of course you do. My favorite words of yours are when you say "Bawoo!" when you play the balloons game on my iPhone. Which, by the way you are now an expert at using. Once you successfully sent text messages to Mommy's Quiz Night Bar. Good Job. And my other favorite word you regularly use is "Bao?" Which means "borrow?" and you say this while signing "Please." With those big, innocent, pleading eyes, it's difficult not to scramble to do your bidding. It's the sweet and undemanding way you ask for things that makes you so hard to resist. Which is also the reason you're the iPhone expert. Because half the time you say "Bao?" you want to "Bao" Mommy's iPhone.
In general though, you're a pretty quiet baby. While your Ate is chattering a mile a minute, you tend to just sit there, quietly watching and listening what's happening around, with that characteristic "worried" frown of yours which graces all our family portraits. But sometimes, when you're in a particularly good mood, you like to hum. Sometimes while playing, or while we're riding the car, you're just quietly humming to yourself. Before I thought they were just random notes, until I noticed that you hum actual songs! One evening, at the dinner table, Daddy and I stopped talking in the middle of a conversation because we realized you were humming "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." And when you noticed we were staring at you and listening, you suddenly stopped, smiled, and hid your face on your Yaya's shoulder. It's so adorable that you're shy about your singing.
It's also only recently that you learned to "watch" TV. Before, even if there are baby shows on, you just ignore the TV and go about your normal way. But now you actually pay attention, and can sit in one place and watch quietly for up to 10 minutes. And that makes it really difficult to resist the temptation to let you watch Playhouse Disney all day. Or rather, use you as an excuse to watch Playhouse Disney all day. But everyday, I make a conscious effort to turn off the TV and play with you at least one hour every day. We do a lot of singing and reading, but the thing you love most is when we tumble and flip around. You even say "Wa! Doo!" when you want me to flip you over, because I count to 5 before each time I flip you. I guess that's how I can teach you to count. If it means tumbling and flipping you around.
You have a lot of photographs this past two months because I rediscovered photography with your Dad's DSLR. And you and your sister are my favorite subjects. Even if you're also the most difficult people to take pictures of.
You are so beautiful. And I love you very very much.
Love, Mommy