Dear Elliott,
Today you turn fourteen months old. You are the life of the party. You HAVE to be the center of attention at all times or OMG THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY. When you get upset you fall down, bang your head on the floor and scream. You’re just like your mama! You put on such a show and act like it’s the end of the world when you don’t get your way and then stop all of a sudden and start laughing. I think that means we are in some SERIOUS TROUBLE, DUDE.

You have a few more teeth coming in on both the top and bottom of your mouth and this has made you alot more cranky. The only thing that makes you calm down is when we give you a soaking wet facecloth that you can suck on. Or a freezie.

We try not to give you too many sweets but you have had a chocolate craving mama lately, and I like to share. You get all riled up after just a tiny hit of chocolate. Are you going to be a chocoholic like your parents? SAY IT AIN’T SO! I already have to hide my stash from your dad.

You are not saying much lately, but you know what things are. Dog, cat, light, foot, eye, nose and baby are all things you understand and can point to. You also know where your belly button is and whenever anyone asks you where yours is, instead of pointing to it, you like to lift your shirt up and show that thing off. Work it, baby!

You do alot of BLAH BLAH BLAHing but not really any words yet. When you want to say something to us, you will point and say “T”. That’s right, the letter T. Everything is T. The dog is T. The window is T. My eyebrows are T. Wassup with that?

You really enjoy walking and want to do it all the time. Especially when we are at the grocery store and I don’t let you. That’s when you REALLY want to do it and when I don’t allow it, EVERYONE KNOWS. You are a fiesty little bugger. We recently went on a walk through the park (forest? woods?) and you walked the whole time. It had to be at least 30 minutes. And then when we got in the car to drive home, you passed right out. For about 5 minutes and then you were all LET’S SO THAT AGAIN! Umm.. no. It’s bed time!

You have a new love for chicken, pancakes, green beans, french toast, hard boiled eggs, and pasta with meatballs. You will eat just about ANYTHING. Awesome. Please continue that!

I know I say it alot, but I can’t believe how fast time has gone. I love you so much and can’t wait to see what next month brings.

Love, Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn thirteen months old. You are learning more and more every day. You are becoming much more vocal. Your new favourite things to say are MEMEMEMEMEMEME, which means you are unhappy – and GOODGOODGOODGOODGOODGOOD, which means you are happy. I can’t wait until I can have actual conversations with you, it’s going to be so exciting. I just hope you aren’t paying attention when I let out the occasional SHIT or FUCK, and then go blabbing to your teacher about how mommy doesn’t give a ____. I hope you don’t have a potty mouth like your parents.

You now have two teeth on the bottom of your mouth that are finally in. Man, those teeth seem to have been the most painful for you because you cried like crazy ALL THE TIME and the only thing that made you calm down was sucking on a wet facecloth. Speaking of your teeth, have I mentioned how much you love your toothpaste? Every night when we brush your teeth, you get really excited to see us squirt some toothpaste on to your toothbrush and then when we try to actually brush your teeth you suck the toothpase right off of the brush. I must admit that your toothpaste smells like candy and it probably tastes delicious. I should try some. Maybe I will slather it on a piece of toast. Yes!

As far as your eating habits go, everything is pretty much the same. You still hate carrots and you still love your yogurt. We have also introduced red grapes, roasted potatoes and canned peas and you loved all of those. You have a love/hate relationship with broccoli and sometimes we have to sneakily make you eat it by hiding a piece in a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Ha! Tricked you!

This month was your dad’s 27th birthday and we celebrated by going out to eat at The Keg. You loved my garlic mashed potatoes and the warm bread that they give each table for free. We tried to feed you our vegetables as well but you were not having any of that nonsense. So guess what we did? HAHA! Tricked you again! You did enjoy the delicious piece of cake we had at the end of dinner, that piece of cake that went directly to my giant behind. Damn it!

Your dad and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary this month by going away for the weekend. As much as we love being around you, we needed some alone time! Bow chicka wow wowwwww. It was so hard to leave you on Friday night, even though I know you were in good hands. Grandma Ruth came to spend the weekend with you and that allowed us time away. I wrote her 3 pages worth of junk pertaining to the care of you, my precious baby, and the 5 animals. She probably didn’t even read it, but it made me feel good to write it all out. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a control freak.

You are walking all over the place now, albeit a bit on the drunk side. But you’re WALKING! It’s the cutest thing ever – seeing you toddle your way around the house. Sometimes I will put on your shoes just so I can take you outside and watch you walk down the street. CUTENESS OVERLOAD! You hardly ever crawl now, I guess things just seem more exciting when you’re walking.

I am so happy when I look at you meeting all of these awesome milestones. I am so proud to be your mommy.

Love, Mama

I can’t believe I forgot to post Elliott’s First Year video! Oopsies. I’m only a few weeks late.

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn 12 months old. ONE WHOLE YEAR! Seriously? Where has the time gone? I know it’s totally cliche, but time really does fly when you’re having fun and we have been having so much fun with you!

The best part of my day is when I get you out of your crib in the morning. You are all happy and smiley and squealy and CUTE. You just OOZE cuteness and I can’t help but to eat it all up. You’re the best baby EVERZZZZZZ.

This month you started walking, but not real walking – more like random steps here and there, whenever you feel like it. We have tried to get you to walk on numerous occassions and you are just not having it. Sometimes you will stand up suddely and walk towards a toy or something. You’ll take one or two steps and then realize you can get there faster if you crawl, so you drop down to your knees and start moving! The most steps you have taken is 5 and we thought for sure you were going to start walking from then on but NOPE. You haven’t done it since. You just really have no desire to do it. That’s exactly how you were with rolling over and crawling. You just started doing it one day and that was that. You do things in your own time. Good for you.

Another thing you have started doing this month is climbing up the stairs. You used to only go up about 5 or so and then come back down, but now you will go all the way up to the top and go into whatever room has the door open upstairs. We now have to sit at the bottom of the living room stairs at all times or you will crawl up there. You are mighty fast, too. It’s hard to catch you sometimes! You get very angry if we prevent you from crawling up the stairs but you get over it quickly when we shove some random toy in your face. Ha! Fooled you!

You also hate it when we close the baby gate – the one that seperates the living room from the dining room/kitchen. If that gate is left open you will go in there and get into SO MUCH TROUBLE. Like that time I walked in on you with a mouth full of cat food. Yeah. That was pleasant.

A friend of your dad’s invited us to go for a ride on his boat this month and I was really worried that you would freak out but you loved it! You really liked watching the waves at the back of the boat. You also loved his big fluffy puppy that kept stealing your food. You stayed up way past your bedtime that night and you weren’t cranky at all. Thanks for that!

Another thing we did this month was take you to the beach. It was your first time in the water and you DID. NOT. LIKE IT. Whenever we would dip your legs in you would scream and start crying. I’m thinking I may start some swimming classes with you so that you can get used to the water. Plus, you can meet some other babies! You LOVED the sand at the beach. You just kept poking it and staring. I know – it’s awesome. I’m surprised you didn’t eat it.

You are getting 4 new teeth and they have been making you really cranky. You whine ALL THE TIME now. Especially if you’re hungry or thirsty and we don’t give you what you want fast enough.

You are getting much better with eating and have begun to try new things. Here are some things you have tried (and loved) recently: cauliflower puree, goldfish crackers, multi grain cheerios, pasta, CAKE!, green beans, baby cheddar puffs, shreddies and you LOVE your Baby Mum Mum cookies. The only thing you have tried and NOT liked this month was ground beef.

Tomorrow is your birthday party. Lots of people plan to come and celebrate your special day. I still can’t believe that you are a year old. This year has passed by so quickly and as much as I will always miss you as an infant, I’m really looking forward to seeing you grow into a big boy with your own personality. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love you so much!

Love, Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn eleven months old. You are just one month away from being one year old. One YEAR. Not 1 month, or 5 months or 9 months – ONE WHOLE YEAR. You are such a happy baby. You love to see your mommy or daddy’s face when you first wake up in the morning. You have the biggest grin on your face and you squeal over and over again until we finally pick you up. You hold on to one of our arms for dear life and giggle repeatedly. Gosh, I love your giggle. It’s like music to my ears.

Just last week you started walking. Not REAL walking, but walking nonetheless. You walk along while pushing your little toy walker. You will keep going and going until something gets in your way and stops the walker from moving. You will sit down, look at it funny, and then try to move the walker into a different position so you can get to walking again. Luckily your dad got your first time walking on video, so I can watch it over and over again and marvel at how awesome you are.

One of your favourite things to do is destroy things. Yeah, it’s true. If I’m stupid enough to leave something out on a table that you are able to reach, you will grab it, pull it down and smash it around. Awesome. Thanks so much for that. You really like to crawl over to the little table by the front door, open the drawer and pull everything out. Pens, keys, gum – everything. On the floor – at least once a day. Why those items are still in there is beyond me, but I’m pretty sure my laziness has something to do with it.

This month was your first time going in a pool. Granted, it was just a little tiny inflatable pool in our backyard, and the water was cold, and it was about to rain – but you went in. You cried a few times but eventually got used to it and started splashing around as if you were in the bath tub (have I mentioned how much you love bath time?). This only lasted a mere 5 minutes, but IT STILL COUNTS. We have plans to go to the beach in a few weeks and I can’t wait to get you out into the water there.

You’re still getting used to drinking from your sippy cup. You like to throw it around and make a big mess more than drink from it, but that’s progress. I think. You’re still a good eater, but I’d appreciate it if you ate more veggies. Please and thanks. I don’t want to have a baby that’s addicted to sugar like his parents are. K?

We had a fun little field trip this month where we went down to the Waterfront Festival. You danced and crawled around in big open field, visited with some super cute animals at the petting zoo (that you really couldn’t have cared less about, honestly) and even met DORA THE EXPLORER! I know Dora is a girl and I know she has a girly show, but you love it. You could watch Dora all day long. I took a picture of you two together (and daddy!) and I plan on showing it to your future wife. What? Come on, it’s a cute picture!

You started climbing up the stairs this month, too. Will you STOP GROWING UP ALREADY? You can make it up about 5 or 6 stairs and then you start to cry. I’m not sure if it’s the horrible “Buddy Stench” that is embedded in the fibers of the carpet, or if you feel like you are stuck and can’t get down (even though you can), but you do not stop crying unless someone goes over and brings you back downstairs. Well, except for those times when we taunt you with the remote control or a cellphone – then you will come down all by yourself. Hah! We win.

I’m sure next month is going to be amazing, but this month was pretty fantastic too. I am enjoying seeing you grow and become independent, but I am missing your snuggles and baby coos. It’s times like these when I am so happy I have written you these letters, so that I, myself, can relive what has been one of the most amazing journeys of my life.

Love,
Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn 10 months old. I am amazed at how fast the time seems to be going now. Weren’t you just born yesterday?

Your dad went a bit crazy with the hair trimmer at the beginning of this month and you ended up bald. I don’t think he will ever live that one down. He just wanted to “fix” the strange hairline you had going on at the front of your head, but I guess he failed to remember that you are just a baby and would probably just wiggle like crazy to get away from that loud buzzing noise. It’s okay. You look cute when you’re bald! I’ll just remember to “misplace” the trimmer the next time he thinks about giving you a haircut.

You love to eat with us now. Whatever we are eating – you want some. You sit in your highchair and we feed you little pieces of what we are having for dinner. You have yet to spit anything out, except of course – the dreaded CARROTS. Damn, do you ever hate those poor, delicious carrots. Oh well, more for me! I think your favourite foods are still applesauce, bananas and vanilla yogurt. You’re going to have such a sweet tooth like your parents. We’re trying to get you to eat more vegetables, but you don’t like them very much. I guess this is my payback for being a real brat when I was a kid.

Missy is still your best friend and she follows you around the house and gets in your way when you are trying to crawl around. Sometimes this amuses you and you will giggle and rub your head on her, but there are days when you are just NOT IN THE MOOD and will headbutt her and start crying when she runs in front of you. Poor Missy. Don’t you know that she just wants to love you?

I’m very happy to say that your sleeping is still fantastic. You sleep 13 hours a night and have a 3 hour nap during the day. Sometimes you will get another 1-2 hour nap if we’ve been out and about all day and you become Mr. Crankypants. I’m thrilled with the amount you sleep, so please – DON’T STOP! Sleep is your friend. Lots and lots of sleep.

You had a little baby cold this month for the first time and we had to give you some baby Motrin to make you feel better. It took about a week and then you were back to your old self except you had little red bumps all over your face. Back to the doctor you went, where we learned that you had eczema, which is basically like baby acne. EW! We bought you some special cream and you were free of the eczema in about 2 weeks.

There’s only 2 months until you’re one year old. I have just started to plan your big birthday bash where you can get really messy eating some cake. CAKE! You can finally have CAKE! Your life will not be the same after that, trust me.

Love,
Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn 9 months old. I bet you are just loving all the freedom you have found lately. You are constantly crawling all over the place. You don’t want to be held anymore – you are on the move and anyone who gets in your way is pure evil! You will throw a fit if you are picked up while in the middle of crawling from one side of the room to the other.

Other than crawling, your new favourite thing to do is stand up. You can easily pull yourself up on to anything now. The couch, the TV (bad, bad!), the coatrack at the front door – even people. You have the biggest smile on your face when you pull yourself up onto anything. Unfortunetely for me, who wants to have a beautiful home with decor that includes items on tables, all of our tables are now naked. The table by the front door sometimes will have a pair of sunglasses or a book on it, and you squeal in delight when you notice and pull it to the ground, trying to shove the entire thing into your mouth. The other day I heard a scraping sound and I found you by the front door, rubbing your dad’s sunglasses on the floor. You totally ruined them – and you totally didn’t care.

This month you have started to eat with us at dinner time. I cut up very small pieces of whatever we are eating, put it on the table on your highchair and let you dig in. Most of it ends up on the floor, but it is so cute watching you try to figure out what to do with all that food! So far you have tried bananas, peas, mashed potatoes, tomatoes, pasta, broccoli, and cheese. You love your bananas of course, but you also really liked mashed potatoes and tomatoes. I don’t think you’ve quite figured out how to eat the others’ yet, so we will keep trying.

You are a very nice boy who loves to share! Any time you are eating or playing with something, you will look over at whoever is next to you and hold out what is in your hand. When that person takes it, you get SO excited, squealing and bouncing up and down. I hope this isn’t a phase and is something you will continue because it is SO CUTE.

You got your first cold this month and it was so sad to see you all stuffed up and cranky. It was just a minor head cold, but we took you to the doctor just in case. She told us to give you lots of fluids and some baby medicine and that did the trick. You are much better now! I’m thankful I don’t have to clean dried boogers off of your nose anymore. Or the snot off of my shirt, after you rub your face on my chest. Yeah, thanks for that!

The weather is warming up and daddy and I are planning lots of fun activities for us to do as a family over the next couple of months. I’m very much looking forward to enjoying the summer with the top two guys in my life.

Love,
Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn eight months old. This has been a pretty exciting month for us. Well, more so for you than anyone else but WHATEVS.

You started crawling around the middle of this month. At first you would get yourself onto yours hands and knees and just sway back and forth and make strange gorilla noises. Hey, whatever gets ya going. I won’t judge you! After a few days of that you started to move forward a bit, but then you would fall onto your face and cry. Cry for a second, move on, try it again. Soon enough you started to go.. and you DID NOT STOP. The look on your face, when you realized that you were FINALLY FREE, is a look I won’t ever forget. You were SO EXCITED. You would squeal so loud, I would have to cover my ears. The cats would run down into the basement to hide. You’ve got a pretty loud squeal.

Now you crawl all over the place. Your dad and I have recently purchased some baby gates so that you don’t try to drink out of the animals’ water dishes AGAIN and so that you don’t go tumbling down the basement stairs. This makes you very upset. Especially if me or your dad are on one side of a gate and you on the other. To you, that is NOT okay. And it is NOT okay that we think it’s okay. Sometimes when I have to go into the kitchen to make your food or get a glass of water for myself, I have to put you at the far end of the living room and RUN over to the baby gate, unlock it, go on the other side and lock it closed so you can’t follow me. I have to do this quickly because DAMN YOU ARE FAST. Once you get to the gate and see that it’s closed you get all pissed off and sulk in the corner. Then crawl around and try to find something to destroy that would make mommy just as pissed off as you are. Thanks.

Speaking of which, your favourite thing to do while we are sitting in the living room is grab all the DVDs off of the TV stand and chew on the cases. Oddly enough, I don’t mind the chewing. It’s the giant mess you leave behind that drives me nuts. I must clean up the DVDs at least once a day. I’ve given up putting them back neatly. You know, before you were born I used to have my movies in alphabetical order. THANKS FOR RUINING THAT FOR ME! I’m less OCD because of you. I’ve learned to let things slide. I guess I should thank you for that, but I won’t because I CAN’T FIND A BEAUTIFUL MIND because my movies are no longer in the correct order!

The weather has been getting nicer and I have taken you on a few trips to the park so that you can go on the swings. You love them. You swing back and forth with a huge smile on your face while I push you. Sometimes you let out one of your crazy high-pitched squeals. Other babies look at you funny but I think they’re just jealous that they aren’t having as much fun as you are. I can’t wait until it gets even warmer and we can do lots of fun outdoor family things like picnics and going to the beach.

Towards the end of the month you started saying MAMA and – yeah, it’s about time! I was starting to think about taking you back to the hospital and asking for a new baby who knows the importance of this MAMA creature. Luckily, you spit out my ‘name’ all the time now. You say it more than you say DADA which, I must admit, makes me happy all over.

Just today, you decided you wanted to hold your bottle all by yourself. Hey, go right ahead, kid! I’d like to have my hands free as often as possible! You haven’t yet mastered the art of holding the bottle up high enough so that the milk actually goes into your mouth, but you’re trying. Once the bottle is half full, you start to lose focus and I have to re-adjust the bottle for you. And then you are fine again. I don’t think it will be long until you can hold that baby without any assistance. And that will make everyone happy.

Love,
Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn seven months old. SEVEN! I think it’s about time you start paying rent, don’t you?

So many great things have happened in the last month. Your top teeth are still slowly coming in, but now you have four of them poking through your gumline. Of course all you want to do is bite me AS HARD AS POSSIBLE, because that just seems like the most fun thing in the entire world, but no. Not happening, sorry. I like my fingers without blood gushing out of them. You’ll have to settle for your toys and teethers and hey – even Daddy’s fingers are okay. I don’t mind one bit! Just don’t try to bite the cats, they bite back. Those nasty little buggers. I know that the dogs wouldn’t mind though. They just love you. All they want to do is LICK LICK LICK and SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF, which makes you squeal in delight for some reason. You’re crazy! Don’t you know they lick their own butts (and sometimes each others’) with those tongues?!

Every day you get a jar full of baby food. So far, we have learned that you absolutely LOVE sweet potatoes, peaches, bananas and prunes. My good friend Erica says if we give you too much banana, you are going to be consipated and then HOLY SHIT THE WORLD WILL END. If you like bananas, you are gonna get bananas, my friend. Everyone can use a little constipation once in awhile, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING?! *high five* Prunes did some very awful things to your diaper and I will never forget the mornings that I’d go into your room to get you out of your crib and see a giant brown stain on your matress. The prunes are so potent that they LEAKED THROUGH YOUR DIAPER and THROUGH YOUR CLOTHES and took a nice long nap on your crisp white crib sheets. It was pretty disturbing. So far you don’t have any foods that you do not likes except carrots. You despise carrots. You and carrots will never be friends. Any time we would try to feed them to you, you would contort your body as best you could to try to get out of your chair and AWAY FROM THE CARROTS. You hate them so much that you were willing to risk falling flat on your face to get away from them. Oh and they also turned your shit neon orange. Just so you know.

You have been babbling a whole lot more, which has been awesome. You’ll look at us and just say all this random jibberish and you have to be a parent to really understand just HOW CUTE it is to hear someone saying “iiiiiih ehhhh ouuuuuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii” to you over and over and over again. You still say DADA and up until yesterday, when you said MAMA for the FIRST TIME EVER (be still, my heart), it was the only thing you said other than the jibberish. I don’t think you know who DADA and MAMA are, since you have also said DADA to the cats, the dogs, me, your grandpa and a few of your toys. I have a feeling that this month is going to be pretty huge for your vocabulary.

I just have to point out that you and one of our cats, Missy, are best friends. She follows you everywhere and loves to lie beside you and rub her entire body all over your legs, arms, head and anything else she can get access to. You pet her and hug her and she purrs in delight. She doesn’t even care when you pull her fur (which is a big no no, DIDN’T I TEACH YOU ANYTHING?). She just bites your fingers and you both giggle and then go paint each others finger nails and talk about boys. Oh wait, that’s ME and Missy. Anyway, you have a very loving relationship and I just know that she thinks you are the best human being in the world and you think she is the bestest kitty that ever lived. Max and Dewey, our other cats, can’t be bothered with you. Don’t worry, they can’t be bothered with anyone but themselves. They are just antisocial. And possibly homosexual. With each other.

I think the best thing that happened this past month (besides the MAMA thing) is that you learned to sit on your own, unsupported. We still put a pillow behind you in case you topple over, which has happend many times and ended with a THUD and scream, but you are doing very well. You sit up and play with your toys ALL BY YOURSELF. Which is not only the cutest thing I have ever seen, but a huge relief because I can get some stuff done around the house while you play. I don’t think you have a favourite toy, but the ones you play with most often are your mirror (you like to chew on it), Mr.Elmo who whos tummy plays the theme song from Sesame Street, Mr. Elephant, your walker, your school bus that has little people inside (who’s heads you just love to chew on, and a little rubber toy elephant that your dad and I have lovingly nicknamed Stanley. He’s cute. You also like to bounce around in your little jumperoo, which your Aunt Amanda so kindly loaned to us. I don’t think you want to give it back. Maybe we will hide it in the basement and say we were robbed and all they took was the jumperoo. Hey, it’s possible!

You can stand up if you are leaning on something or we are holding your hands. We can tell you walk to walk SO BAD and it’s just so adorable. You show no interest in crawling. Skip that boring crap, let’s move right from sitting to standing. Then walking! Oh my. You love leaning on the couch. Your dad or I will sit on the floor behind you, for when your legs eventually give out and you fall backward, and you just lean on the couch and smack the hell out of the cushion. I can see how that would be exhilarating.

Elliott, you are the most amazing person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I can’t wait to see what the future hold for you and for us as a family. I love you!

Love,
Mama

Dear Elliott,
Today you turn six months old. SIX MONTHS! Where has the time gone? Everyone tells us how adorable they think you are. You are so very alert and active now. I just want to squeeze you all the time. You’re so smiley and happy and giggly. I wish I was more like you. Life would be so much better!

You started to get another tooth come in towards the end of this month. It’s on your top gums this time. I think this one is hurting you alot more than the two that came up on your bottom gums because you are much more cranky lately. I don’t blame you. I bet that hurts! I anticipate the tooth will be all the way through come seven months.

You started solid foods this month. Well, that’s if you consider mushy rice cereal to be “solid food”. You don’t seem to mind it, but you LOVE to make a huge mess with it. No matter how hard I try to keep you clean while feeding you the stuff, you always end up with it all over your face. And usually my shirt. Pretty soon we are going to start introducing other foods to your diet like fruits and vegetables. I hope you’re not one of those kids who ends up hating vegetables. They are delicious and I am NOT JUST SAYING THAT.

Another accomplishment you have acheived this month is sitting up on your own. You can’t do it for long, only a few minutes at best, and you always need someone or something around to hold on to, just in case. You’ll get it soon. I don’t think it will be very long until you are able to sit by yourself, unassisted, and play with your toys. And I will squeal and how adorable you look.

It hasn’t snowed too much here this winter so I haven’t been able to get all the pictures of you in the snow that I so desperately want. But you know what, snow sucks. And I’m secretly happy it hasn’t stopped by for a visit. I bet you will love snow and make me take you out to play in it ALL. THE. TIME. Maybe then I will start to love it.

I hope you continue to be as happy and friendly as you are right now. You’ve made my life so much better and I learn something new from you every day. Thanks for that.

Love, Mama