Yesterday, you turned 14 months old. Before we had you, I never realized how much of a difference one month can make in the life a person your size. I used to think that people who said ages in months were a little snobbish, but I now I realize that so much happens between one year and 18 months.

For instance, you seem to think that once you have demonstrated sufficient mastery of a skill, you no longer have any need to perform said skill again. Say for instance kisses and waving bye-bye. A month ago, you would do both, almost on command. And now: nothing. No kisses. No waves.

It almost feels like you dismiss our requests with a miniature eye-roll and a sigh that seems to say, honestly guys, that was so last month. Get with the times, will you? Since when did an under-two-year-old come with the attitude of a teenager?

(And since this file-and-forget behavior dominates almost all of your actions, why do still play in the potted plant dirt? Trust me, you have it down.)

Your inquisitiveness is growing faster than you can explore. If either your mother or I have any sort of item that you catch sight of, you would like to hold it and have it, please. Only, you don’t say please. No, you reach your tiny hand up, pull on our legs, and whimper until you get what you want. Sometimes, if it is very serious, you will squeal and stomp your little feet on the ground to show your displeasure at being denied such a simple request as give me that.

I can’t wait to see what a full blown tantrum looks like.

You know your way around the house very well and you also know when we head upstairs without you. Yesterday, you were in the kitchen and I walked by to go upstairs with a load of clothes from the dryer. I paused halfway up and could hear the tiny stomping of your footsteps coming around the corner on your way to follow me up.

This insistence on being where we are is charming, but you also tend to get underfoot and in the way. You like to help unload the dishwasher regardless if the dishes are clean or dirty, especially the silverware. We do our best to steer you more toward the spoon and rubber spatulas and away from the forks and paring knives.

You also are a more than willing participant in sorting clothes. While I prefer to sort into whites, colors, and darks, you trend more toward in the basket and out of the basket. I know you’re new at doing laundry, but if I’m really honest about it, you’re a little indecisive. You will take one item out, study it, put it on the floor, pick it back up and decide it should really go in the basket after all.

One of your latest favorite pastimes is walking around with your purse on your shoulder. Or, really, anything that you can drape over your shoulder. You walk around with your arm straight up in the air to keep the strap up and march around the house.

In case you haven’t picked up on the trend, you love to pick things up and carry/drag them around with you. And that’s fine. We like it when you play with your toys and even when you play with things that aren’t your toys. But maybe we could work on putting things back in some semblance of order. I know that you aren’t up late at night, but our house is actually getting to be a fairly dangerous place to walk around in the dark.

The days are getting shorter. The sun is down by the time you go to bed and it’s still dark when we roust you in the morning. We try to get you to sleep early, but there is just so much to do with you, like go on walks and bike rides and explore the yard. The mornings when we are working come far to soon for all our liking; just last week, I could have sworn you mumbled, Five more minutes, as I came into your room to get you dressed.

Speaking of speaking, you are doing very little of that. You still have no real words that you use in any sort of context. And that’s fine. You talk a lot, and when I say talking, I mean use many different sounds and inflections and cadences. You talk to us, you talk to your toys, and you talk to yourself. You are very earnest in your efforts to communicate. I often wonder if we still sound as strange to you as you do to us most of the time. Perhaps you already have your own language all developed and you’re just waiting for us to catch on so we can hold a decent conversation.

I know this is a recurring theme, but you are growing up so fast. Your hair is long enough to put into pigtails. You like to feed yourself with your spoon and you don’t need us to cut up all of your food anymore. (You could probably do with more chewing and less swallowing whole.)

We brush your teeth every night after that bath and this is now one of your favorite parts of the bedtime routine. You help put your clothes on in the morning and take them off at night. Sometimes, it feels like at the rate you’re growing, we’ll be handing you the keys to the car by Christmas.

Just remember Brooklynn, no matter how big and mature you get, you’ll still be our little girl. (And give your mom a kiss once a while. She’d really like that.)

Love,
Dad

She’s grown almost an inch over the last month (by our measurements), and the added height allows her to almost start walking up steps more than crawling. It’s getting to point where something has to be at least four feet off the ground in the house in order to be safe anymore.

She had a fever about a month ago and we made the same assumption then, but still no new teeth, so at this point, I’m not really presuming anything this time around. Still, it would be nice for her to get a molar or two, just we could at least pretend that she chews her food before swallowing it. Watching her shovel pieces of fruit into her mouth as fast as her small fingers can pick them up does not lead one to believe that much actual chewing goes on. Thankfully, there is a lot of fruit in season right now and is mashable with just a quick squash from some gums.

Although, judging from the whole pieces of veggies that make it through her digestive system from time to time, I don’t know how much mashing happens either.

On a typical morning, I go in to her room and get her dressed for the day. I did it almost every day of the school year last year and the first three days this week. I guess she’s pretty used to having me to interact with, at least when the sun is just coming up.

This morning, I was running a little late, so when Brooklynn woke up, Rhiannon was more ready to get her than I was. Through the monitor, I heard her mention to Brooklynn that having Mom get her ready was a change. Rhiannon stopped by our bedroom before heading downstairs with the baby, and Brooklynn started to cry and reach out for me. I took her, said good morning, and tried to hand her back.

She cried and held on to me. This is the typical response that Rhiannon got for most of the summer when I would come home, except that this time, the tables were reversed.

Rhiannon looked at me and asked how it felt to be the more loved parent for the moment.

I replied that it was nice but a little inconvenient, especially seeing as how I was trying to finish getting dressed and having to hold a clinging baby at the same time.

She looked at me and said, “Exactly.” And then she walked away.

Welcome to parenthood.