India: Month 17

Dear India,

One of our friends was over the other evening just before dinner, and we were sitting on the floor talking as you climbed on me and over and lifted your arms for me to pick you up and then squirmed out of my arms and ran and got a book and brought it back and then crawled over one of my legs and wriggled under my knee and and and...

The friend said, "My God. She's busier than Jordan was, isn't she?"

You are busier than Jordan was, something I could not have imagined possible. You climb, you run, you lift up your arms for a hug and then turn to try to leap down. You are often moments from landing on your head out of my arms, off the couch, off a wall...

You constantly demand attention, either in the form of reading to you, hugging you, or making sure you don't injure yourself.

This is one of my favorite of your habits: if your dad or Nana or I are sitting on the floor, you'll approach, then turn around, walk backwards, and slowly back into a lap. You have such confidence that we are just waiting, arms outstretched, ready to serve as chairs.

And we are.

When you are really comfortable, you put both hands behind your head.

You have some words - notably: up, milk, more, agua, hot, doggy (pronounced doddy), shoes (doos!), buh-bye, night-night - but not enough to express very much of what you WANT, and it enrages you. In fact, you dive into rage with alacrity, and when you scream you mean business.

Sometimes we have the joy of both you and your brother melting down on the floor at the same time, and it is then, as I turn to the blender and make myself a kale-Merlot-cappuccino smoothie, that I really question how the Mormons raise all those children with no coffee and no liquor.

I'm kidding, of course. Kale would make it weird.

You are so very bold and opinionated, and while this means you can push me to my last drop of patience and sometimes keeping up with you and preventing you from falling on your head squeezes all the energy out of me, I love this about you. It is important to me to raise you to be a strong, confident woman, who walks her own path and believes in her abilities.

We read a lot of Mother Goose before bed, and there's one page where a mother mouse is kissing her baby mouse, and just lately, when we get to that page, you point to them and turn your little face up for kisses. I look down at your sweetness, at the confidence of being adored and the trust in your slightly upturned blue eyes - eyes that mirror mine - and I marvel at all the luck and grace that got me to this point.

Every day, you and your brother are the cutest things I've ever seen. It's so weird, but the thought and emotion of it strike me and I behave like it's an epiphany. Every single day.

You're both even more adorable when you're sound asleep.

I love you love you love you.

Mama