Letter to Lucia: 28 Months

Dear Little One,

You’ve been lucky enough to spend your twenty-eight-month birthday at Grandma and Pop-Pop’s house, where you are clearly the happiest baby on earth: unending attention, unending toys to play with, a houseful of wonders to amuse you. Whether Daddy and I are here is of little matter to you; you are fully occupied with your grandparents and all the new fun things to do. It’s been cold and rainy the past few days, but somehow, here, it makes no difference. Staying home all day just feels different when we’re not cooped up in a small apartment. (Of course, I’m taking liberties in saying this, since I’ve been at the library all day each day—perhaps Grandma would beg to differ about feeling stir-crazy.)

You’re starting to enjoy the fun of hiding, though you haven’t quite gotten the idea of it down. “Mama, I’m hiding!” you say, running behind my chair. Then I go through a dramatic litany of where you might be—“Is Lucia at the grocery store? At the playground?”—before you lean around the chair and beam at me. When we’re all sitting around the table here, you hide behind each of our chairs—“Pop-Pop, I’m hiding! Gra, I’m hiding! Dada, I’m hiding!”—and it doesn’t get old.

You’re excited by the idea of “matching” right now, and it’s amusing for you when you and I wear similar colors (last week we were both wearing black leggings and striped socks, which you loved). You also enjoy when you and Greta wear matching clothes. “I match Greta,” you announce when you’re wearing identical pjs. I’m sure you won’t feel this way forever, but for now it’s very cute.

This month you’ve been most engaged with letters: naming letters, making letter sounds, watching your video The Letter Factory, singing the ABCs. You can identify and name about half the alphabet so far, and you know the sounds for about ten letters. You mix up the words “letter” and “number” and usually say “That’s number K!”, but we’re working on it.

Probably the cutest thing you’re saying right now is “It’s okay.” When something is amiss, or if you’ve been disturbed by something and then reassured, you’ll go around with a serious, comforting look on your face and tell us seriously, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Favorite things right now: stuffed animals (always), beads (always), seeds collected from the playground, pots and pans, your play kitchen, your doll (you mimic so many things I do with Greta—burping, bouncing, swaddling), Olivia on TV.

Favorite books: The Salamander Room, Read to Tiger, Blueberries for Sal, Imogene’s Antlers, Patrick Goes to Bed, Olivia Goes to Venice, Moon Rabbit.