Beckett, my little monkey, you are 17 months old now! And guess what? You’re not a baby anymore. Last weekend we all made a trip to the shoe store, and walked out with two new pairs of shoes for you since you had grown out of the sandals you’ve been wearing all summer. A few days later, I saw those new shoes sitting on the ledge of the swinging door in the kitchen, and suddenly got teary eyed. These are not shoes for a baby. These are shoes for a little boy, designed to provide traction, and designed for running and jumping and playing in the yard. When I saw you in them for the first time, I was so impressed by how you could run up and down the driveway and handle yourself in those little boy shoes. You even managed to hide from me by sneaking your way down the side of the garage, and sent me walking all the way around the yard looking for you before you peeked your face around the corner, and said, “Mommy!”, hurling yourself forward with your new clodhoppers.
You have become quite a talker in the last few months. You try to imitate things we say, and even when you can’t you babble on in your Beckettese, without a care in the world if we understand you or not. Some mornings when I get up before you do, I sit in my office and listen to you have conversations with the stuffed leopard and dog that sleep in your bed with you. You ask them questions, and then wait for them to answer. You laugh, and carry on a conversation like you’re talking to your best friends as if something amazing has just happened in the crib. You wake up happy. And when I come into your room and pull the chain on the fan to turn on the light, you exclaim, “Ta Da!” Magic.
Now that you are starting to talk and putting sentences together, sometimes you freak us out by shouting out a crystal clear request for what you want. We’ll be listening to you speak Beckettese, and then suddenly you’ll belt out, “Daddy, hot dog!” like a drill sargent. Or more likely, “Mommy, MELMO!”, which means get your ass in here and find the TiVo remote, and get some Elmo in front of me STAT! If only you loved me the way you love Melmo. All it takes is hearing the first bar of Melmo’s theme song, and you drop everything and run towards the light. See that glowing picture of you up there USING A MOUSE? Well, that’s you click click clicking with Melmo on the Sesame Sesame Street website. Melmo hides. You click. Melmo jumps out and says “Peekaboo!”. Mommy and Daddy are chopped liver.
Yes, Beckett, we let you watch television and play with computers. And when you’re having breakfast before your father and I have even had our first half a cup of coffee, we turn the beautiful 20 inch iMac monitor towards your highchair and let you watch the My Crazy Family ™ DVD that I made for you. You repeat after me in the narration, naming off all of the members of your clan. “Mommy”, “Daddy”, “Nernie”, “Bubba” (that’s puppy in Beckettese), “Ella” for Bella, “Nanny”, “Daddy” again for Cathy, “Nama” for grandma, and “Papa”. You’re still working on Blake and Devon, and sometimes you just say, “BALL!” or “NO!” when you can’t find the right words.
You’re also becoming frighteningly accurate when we ask for you to point out objects in books and magazines. We’ll say, “Point to the elephant. Point to the cow. Point to the banana.” and then I’ll test you to see if you really know what I’m saying, and throw in something like “Where’s Jon Stewart?”, and you’ll get up, go into the bathroom, and drag back the latest edition of Wired magazine with Jon Stewart on the cover. We’re realizing very quickly that you actually speak English and that we needs to start spelling things out loud before somebody asks you where Daddy is, and you say, “taking a dump”.
Beckett, you are by far the funniest person I know. And I know lots of funny people! But you do things that make me laugh so hard it hurts. Like a couple of weeks ago when you stepped onto the bathroom scale, and looked down at the number display, shook your head, and said “No!” or when you walk out of your bedroom with swimming diapers on your feet like absorbent makeshift shoes. Or when you back up your Cozy Coupe in the driveway, and launch yourself down the hill, screaming and turning the wheel furiously until you crash into something or run off into the grass. You have a wonderful sense of humor, and act like everyday of your life is the best day ever.
Sometimes it breaks my heart thinking that one day you’ll experience breakups and work stress and waiting in line at the DMV. I always want you to be happy like you are at 17 months old. I still come in at night and stare at you while you’re sleeping. I want to remember every minute with you.
I love you, Sparky.