Dear Julianna
Oops – missed a few months. So much for turning over a new leaf..

Oh my sweet, I grow ever more intoxicated with you. You, my little Banana, are simply divine. I’m mad about you, completely head over heels. I can’t get enough of your sweetness and light, the way you study things with such intensity, the way your laughter gurgles out of you, the way you get so mad when you don’t get your way. Everything about you is marvelous. I remember so loving this stage with your sister, and I love it just as much with you.

You are learning a mile a minute these days, new words, new skills, new interests every day. I couldn’t keep track even if I tried. You understand everything now, my smart cookie, absolutely everything. You are observing and testing and learning every second of the day – I can see on your face that you are processing things at breakneck speed, filing away all this new data for future reference, continually updating and expanding your understanding of your world. It is fascinating stuff, my sweet, fascinating stuff.

Your vocabulary is continuously expanding these days. Every hour seems bring a new word or two. You call for your sister from your first waking breath in the morning to your last breath before bed at night. It sounds something like “Blealah” and you say it with your tongue stuck between your lips. Need I say it? Yes – you’re adorable. You know that cats say “yow” and horses say “nea” and sheep say “baba”. You’ve even learned that Santa says “howowow”. Tonight you called your Daddy, “Aaam” for the first time, although you’ve not yet attempted my name! Most of the time though, we’re still Mom-mee and Dad-dee (the days of Mama and Dada seem to be gone already – a fact which makes me feel a twinge of nostalgia for the baby-self you are quickly leaving behind).

You are a squishy, giggly, silly little bug. You’ve got a great sense of humor, and already show signs of being a world class trickster. You know when you’re doing something silly or unexpected, and you get the most devilish glint in your eye, as you peek over to make sure that someone is watching you. You like an audience, Julie my girl. When we’re out and about you’ll smile and flirt and make goo goo eyes at people, even approaching strangers and touching them or taking to them to get their attention, then play all coy and shy once the focus is directed your way. You know that you’re cute, and you know exactly how to work it. You have this irresistible little grin that squishes up your entire face – I’m not exaggerating when I say that I could just about die from the cuteness. Seriously.

You are a happy, sunny, smiley girl the vast majority of the time – except when I take out my camera. I have been, despite my finest efforts, unable to capture a photograph of your happy face. When you’re happy, you’re in motion – and toddler motion is just not conducive to good photography. Thus, in my photographs you look like a rather melancholy and serious girl. One day soon I’ll catch you unaware, and snap before you can move away. I’m sure of it.

You only started walking a few months ago, and now you run. You like to go so fast that your feet can’t always keep up and down you go on your bottom, or your hands or your tummy. Lickety split you’re up again – not about to let a fall get in the way of getting where you were going. You’ve become quite the climber in recent weeks as well – and have figured out how to get yourself many high places that I rather wish you wouldn’t explore. There is much we grownups could learn from a determined toddler like yourself.

You continue to be an outdoor girl. We went camping up on the Mogollon Rim in September, and you were in heaven – a whole weekend in the open air with no walls around you. You spend your days exploring the forest around our campsite and exclaiming over the birds and chipmunks and squirrels. At home, you want outside from the first moment we come out of the bedroom in the morning. You were so happy when it finally got cool enough that we can leave the backdoor open for you to come and go with freedom, and you seem to love what passes for winter in Arizona. I think you’d live outside if you could.

All of a sudden, you’re quite occupied with big girl stuff, like pushing babies in strollers, wearing them in your sling and pulling up your shirt to give them Na-Na’s (Julie-speak for nursing). You love to sit at our little pink Ikea craft table and colour with your sister, play Little People with her or sit up with her at the kitchen counter and eat your lunch like a big girl. Don’t get me wrong though, you still make plenty of time to do baby stuff like sticking forks in electric sockets (yes, you did that this week),

You adore babies. All babies. You are absolutely fascinated with them. Toy babies are great, and you spend much time playing with the ones we have here at the house, but real babies just take the cake. You constantly want to look at them, to touch them, and to hold them. You get very angry and upset if you’re not allowed to sit holding the baby, and you don’t like to have help. I can tell that you see yourself as something totally different from the baby you are holding, even if said baby is only six months younger than you. I’d be willing to hazard a guess that in your head you imagine yourself to be the age/size of your big sister – I don’t think you have any concept of the fact that you’re not that far beyond those baby days yourself.

Aside from babies and your adored big sister, your next favoritest things are balloons. You’ve got eagle eyes out for them and spot them everywhere we go, long before the rest of us are able to see them. You’ve learned that if you keep a close watch out the car window you’re likely to spot one or two during the ride, and in a pinch, have decided that anything round a vaguely glow-y will suffice - round lampshades, old fashioned Christmas light (row upon row of brightly coloured baa-ooons. Heaven on earth for you).

You also love music. You, my sistah, have rhythm in your soul. I took Bella to see the movie ‘Happy Feet’ a few weeks ago – and you earned yourself a new nickname. When you are happy, or excited, or want to dance you stomp your little feet rapidly and wobble your little body around, looking for the world like the little dancin’ penguin in the movie. Now we can say “Happy Feet!” and you immediately break into your little routine. At the risk of having you roll your eyes at my repetitiveness – you simply cannot imagine how utterly cute this is. Also, since I’m all about showing you off, it makes for a good party trick.

We attended the local holiday light parade this past weekend with your friends Leigh-Leigh and Kaia – and you started rocking automatically to every tune from every float that passed in front of us. When it was quiet, you were still, but as soon as you could hear the faintest notes of music approaching, your body started to move. I don’t even think you were aware of it. The music is just inside you. You were bopping so steady at some points that you almost bopped yourself right off my lap a time or two.

Speaking of the parade, I think I’ll share a story that might one day make you laugh:

We were, as always, in a rush to get out the door. Running far behind, getting cranky with the dilly-dallying Isabella, feeling more frazzled than festive. I picked out your outfit, took off your soggy cloth diaper and got you dressed. Fast forward almost four hours – we’d arrived over an hour early for the parade, sat through the entire event with you on my lap, fought the crazy traffic home and I sat around chatting with Leigh while you, Kaia and Bella ran around and played. After a while you came over, and I decided to check and see if your diaper needed to be changed. I felt your little bottom and realized in an instant that that little bottom was, in fact, totally bare. Yup. Your Mama forgot to put on a diaper, and instead snapped you right into your denim overalls with nothing covering your chunky little heiny. If only they had been Calvin Klein’s, you’d have been able to deliver Brooke Shield’s famous line with absolute sincerity (that is, if you were speaking in sentences). I cannot believe that you didn’t pee that entire time (or worse). I’m quite grateful for that fact; the parade might not have been quite as enjoyable if I had to sit through it covered in baby urine!

You had your first haircut last month. I was loath to take scissors to your fine, light-brown-almost-blonde-in-some-lights baby hair – but when Mani informed me that your mullet was beginning to be so extreme as to look intentional, I knew the time had come. Truth be told, you look even cuter with your hair bobbed right across the back, and you’d have to look closely to see what a wack job your mama made of the trim.

In other appearance related news – you’ve got the most adorable (yes, yes, I know – I need a few new adjectives to use when describing you) set of gap teeth I think I’ve ever seen, and two crooked bottom teeth that give you the most impish grin. Your eyes are a deep, melted-chocolate brown, and your lips continue to be the most perfect full lips that have ever existed on any baby, anywhere and any point in history. Folks say you look just like your daddy, but the only person I can see when I look at you, sweet Jules, is you. To me, you just look like you – and a wonderful, perfect, marvelous you at that.

I finally took you to the doctor last month, since we were taking Bella in for her arm anyway. I cannot remember exactly what your measurements were (oh – such a poor, under-documented second child) but you were quite average for height and weight, but rather above average in head circumference. I could have told them that – you have a big ole noggin – the better to fit your obviously highly intelligent brain, I say!

You’re still not so big on sleep, or at least prolonged stretches of sleep. You’re not much of a napper. You went six days last week without a nap at all – this, in case you are wondering, is not okay. At night you go down between 7 and 8, and very, very, very occasionally sleep for two hours, maybe three hours straight once a month. Mostly though you wake every hour, or 45 minutes, or 30 minutes. Sometimes it seems that you wake up five or ten minutes after I leave the room for several hours at a time. I’m not gonna lie to you, my sweet, this is rough on your haggard old Mama.

But still, despite a few instances where I hit a wall, we push through, I surrender, you melt into me – and we just keep trucking. I hope that one day, perhaps, maybe, possibly you might sleep. I contemplate what I could do to help you along, but as of yet, have not come up with a solution that does not involve denying you the thing you want the most (me). I need to take care of me, and you, and us. Tall order – I hope when you’re grown you’ll think I did an okay job of it. At least, know that I tried.

Your devotion to the breast is unfailing. I hear your wee voice calling “na-na, na-na” all day and all night long. You are still rather ambivalent about food - sometimes you eat more than others, but overall – it is the nummies in your tummy that you crave. You’ve just started to lift my shirt when you feel I’m not reacting quickly enough to your requests, and will tell me which one you want to start out on, and when you want to switch (‘uddah, uddah’ you repeat until I oblige you by switching sides and offering the other breast. You even wake up from a deep sleep mumbling the word ‘uddah, uddah’ bringing me to consciousness so I can pull you close and nurse you back to dreamland. Uddah seems a rather apt word, as I suppose my breasts are serving a rather udder like function at the moment.

I’m so happy that I can offer you this – sustenance, nutrition, love, comfort, sleep aid, bonding, beverage, Band-Aid, chill-time, calming, closeness, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, connection – all in one convenient package. It pleases me greatly to see you thriving and growing and becoming both so attached and so independent at the same time. I love that I am your safe haven in the world, and that in our nursing relationship we have formed a bond unlike any you will have for the remainder of your life. I have never been able to offer myself so completely to another human before – and although I’m still working on surrender (I’ll always be working on surrender)– I hope you know that my milk is my gift to you on so many more levels than it might seem. I don’t know how long you will nurse, but I hope that you maintain some cellular memory of this time in our lives – where we could create an entire universe just for us – simply by nursing.

You are still very much a mama’s girl. You love your daddy, you two share a special bond – and you like him just fine during daylight hours. At night though, you want your Mama, and nobody else. Beyond bedtime though, you seem to be (knock wood) moving beyond your stranger danger face, and being open to more and more people. You are quite brave, little seems to faze you, except you are afraid of the vacuum (some might say that this is because it is a sound you hear so infrequently. They might be right) and the hair dryer. You are also quite prone to dramatic tantrums when we tell you you can’t do/have/get something you want. We’re sorry that we laugh at you, but we can’t help it. You sure have a lot of pent up emotions for one so small.

It is late, Julie my dear, and I must go to bed. There is so much more I could write about who you are at this point in your life. I could fill volumes writing about you. But alas, the clock as just struck midnight, and I’m tired my darling. I know I will hear your call all too soon, so I will leave this letter now.

Wherever you go in life, whatever you do, whoever you become – you will always be a part of me, and I will always be a part of you.

Julianna-Banana,
I love you.

Your Mama

PS: Did I tell you that you’re cute? And adorable? And entirely marvelous. Well you are; all that and then some.