Dear Ash,
You’re a year and a half old today! You are such a little boy, I would nearly say- outside of the occasionally gibberish- that you’re only 10% baby now. You’ve grown up so fast!!
We’ve had a very exciting breakthrough this month. We had two appointments booked at the allergy clinic for this week, two FOUR-HOUR long appointments that I was dreading since they were booked a couple of months ago because the allergy clinic is boring and there aren’t a lot of toys there and the thought of making you stay in one place and behaving for that entire time seemed like hell. on. earth, and I was willing to avoid it at all costs. You were supposed to go in for something called a “banana challenge,” where during the first appointment, you eat a banana in front of the doctors and they examine you shortly thereafter to see if there are any symptoms showing (usually you get congested within an hour or so of eating a banana). Then we go in the next day for four hours again and they examine you again.Instead of testing banana at the doctor’s office for the first time in nearly a year, I decided to try it at home first. I expected the worst, because it had only been a few months since your last exposure- and that was just through breastmilk- and you had a pretty severe reaction of congestion and eczema.
I waited. And waited. And nothing happened! You’re CURED! No eczema, no congestion, just pure, unadulterated love for banana. Now you can eat an entire banana within about sixty seconds, and constantly ask for “nana? Nana? Nananananananana?” You eat at least one a day now.
Then I wondered, if you’re not sensitive to banana anymore, what about oats? Oats used to give you pretty severe diarrhea, again, even if only exposed through milk, and so I ate a big bowl of oatmeal one night, and nothing happened to you! So, we tried it directly, and nothing happened. Glory! Even though you don’t eat much of it still, it means that I can enjoy date squares, most of my favorite cereals and apple crisp again. So, THANK YOU! I have missed oats a lot.
The big test was milk products. You have always had a really severe reaction to milk when it was given to you directly (luckily, not through my milk), diarrhea that would last three or four days, regardless of whether it was goat’s or cow’s milk. Even a small amount, and I mean really, really small, would mess with your digestive system. I bought some goat’s milk yogurt and gave you some and nothing happened AGAIN. I haven’t tried cow’s milk (and don’t really want to- goat’s milk is much easier to digest), but I have tried giving you cheese which you crinkle your nose up at and will not eat it.
This is so exciting for us. You can pretty much eat anything out there now, and that’s just wonderful.
One of your favorite things to do is colour with markers. You’ve progressed from chicken scratches to actual scribbles, and when we ask you to draw eyes/nose/arms/belly button/hat on things like snowmen, you try really hard- and almost always at least start in the right spot, even though you don’t know how to draw a hat properly.
You also like me drawing on your face- you go right to the mirror and laugh at yourself. And then spend the next couple of days drawing on your own face. And sometimes mine. Oh, how easily you learn.
You love cars. Cars, cars, cars, cars, trucks, trains, buses, cars. Sometimes I offer to read you a book, and you reject me (something that’s never happened before) and continue to play with your cars instead. Your favorite books are those that have to do with cars. This month you had a love affair with something you called a “school bus.” It was just a bus shade of yellow van, but you called it your “ku-ba” (not sure why you lost the ability to say “bus” considering you pronounce it perfectly when talking about real busses), and you brought that thing everywhere with you and would often be your first request after waking up from naps or in the morning. Ku-ba?? Ku-ba???????
There’s one thing for sure, you make us laugh every day.
Words are falling out of your mouth every second of every day, and you tend to repeat every last word of each sentence that I say. “Ash, do you want to read a book?” “Book?” “Let’s go for a walk.” “Walk.” And sometimes it’ll be a word in the middle of the sentence and won’t make any sense at all: “Ash, can you say goodnight to your bear?” “Your?”
You’re also starting to learn colours. At the end of this month, you know what yellow is. It’s touch and go with the other colours, but at least you know what I’m asking when I ask what colour something is, even if you just take a shot in the dark at what the right answer is. Yellow is pronounced, “wellow” in your world, with your tongue sticking right out of your mouth at the beginning of the word.
You still love spiders, that is until your uncle Jarrod pointed out a real one that was on our living room floor one day this month, and you squealed like a little girl and backed away and kept repeating “no no no? no. no. no.” I think the fear is subsiding a little now, and you still like to find spiders in books. I played a trick on you and told you that the little balls of thread that all over this house are spiders, so at least once a day you’ll find one, call it a spider and put it in my hand.
This was our last FULL month together, just you and I. Next month, at the beginning of April, I go to work full time. I cannot tell you what a whirlwind of emotion that decision was for me. I know you’re going to be just fine without me, especially surrounded by kids and different toys and lots of stimulation, but listen little man, I am going to miss you so much. Every time I really think about it, big fat tears well up in my eyes. I’m so afraid of the special little things that make you YOU will go unnoticed and unappreciated. I’ve loved every minute of the past eighteen months together (except when you were an exhausted and whiney bucket of complaints) and I cannot believe it’s coming to a close.
You make me feel alive. You make me smile more than I ever have in my life. My heart swells with love when I allow myself to sit back and just look at you playing around me. You make life worth living. You make your father and I so proud with your brains and your brawn. I’m surprised there is so much hatred in the world when something as simple as a child can bring so much joy into people’s lives. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of my joy.
Love,
Mama
