Dear Charlotte,

You turned eleven months old on Father’s Day.  Obviously, this letter is a little later than usual; I blame this on the fact that you are ELEVEN MONTHS OLD, which means you travel everywhere at roughly the speed of light.  Only faster.

Also, you are entirely powered by shrieks of delight and ecstatic giggles, which makes me think that everyone should go out and get themselves an eleven-month-old pronto.  Those happy baby laughs of yours are the best sound in the world.

Scenes from your Daddy’s first Father’s Day!

As long as we’re on the topic of sounds, Chickadee, can we talk a little about silence?  As it turns out, SILENCE is my sworn enemy.  Because every time it is silent in this house, you are up to no good.  For months, all I wanted was ten straight minutes of peace and quiet.  These days, as soon as ten straight SECONDS of peace and quiet lapse, it means that the kitchen cabinets are being emptied or the dog’s tail is being tugged or the fireplace grate is being licked.

You are turning into a regular mischief-maker, my love.  Most of the time, you are sweet and charming, and people are always commenting on how adorable your smile is, but it’s all a deceptive ploy.  Underneath all those shy snuggles and magnetic grins is a pistol of a mischief-maker, a child who wants nothing more than to wreak havoc.  THIS, this is your father’s fault.  I engaged in my fair share of tomfoolery, don’t get me wrong, but one time your father set off a firework in his bedroom.

A firework.  IN HIS BEDROOM.

I just can’t compare with that sort of nefarious monkey business.  So when you know that you are not allowed to, say, touch the outlets?  But you completely ignore my warnings and touch them anyway?  And just try to worm your way out of trouble by giving me a coy smile and a kiss?  It’s 100% your father’s fault.  You get your addiction to applesauce from me and you get your ability to manipulate the hell out of me from your father.

Eleven months perfect.

This month has been filled with twice as much manipulation as last month, which I think is because you have spent the last couple months turning into a tiny little rocket.  For the past five weeks or so, you’ve been taking your first steps – a step between the table and the couch, two steps between the wall and the cabinet, three steps between my legs and the dresser, and so on.  You still rely on cruising and crawling for most of your mobility, but every now and then you just let go and propel your body forward with your legs, which absolutely astounds me.

I mean, you spent six months as a completely immobile lump of digestive processes and then BAM! a few months later, you can walk.  When it comes to infant development, nature apparently runs a feast or famine operation.  And for the first few weeks of you just taking random, intermittent steps, I refused to call it walking on the grounds that you moved more like an alcoholic zombie than a toddler.

But then, on Father’s Day, on the day you turned eleven months old, I saw you stand up on your own – without using anything to pull yourself up – and take seven steps away from me and then sit down.  In the space of a heartbeat, you walked across a couple feet of our living room.

Even though I wanted to be a little sad when it happened, even though I wanted to mourn that your babyhood is almost over, it was all I could do to keep my heart from exploding with pride.  So as your father and I watch you toddle about, this is what I am thinking instead: oh, little sunshine, how we love you so.

We love you more than bears love honey, (and everybody knows that’s an awful lot),
Momma and Daddy

*** The winner of this week’s book giveaway (Bloom: A Little Book About Finding Love by the uber-talented Maria Van Lieshout) is Jill.  Congratulations, Jill!