21 Months

Dear Anna,

The very first thing you did today upon waking up was cuddle up next to me and ask for a story. We read four stories back to back. In between books, you looked like you were going to burst with happiness. Instead, you just snuggled in closer and asked for a hug and a kiss. Best way to start the day, hands down.

Not half an hour later, you asked for yogurt for breakfast. I don't know what happened in the three minutes it took for me to strap you in your seat and serve you breakfast, but you lost it. You screamed and flailed and tried to push away your tray, only to pull it back towards you when I tried to help you get out of your seat. You pushed away your breakfast and just cried and cried. I sat with you while you screamed and then walked over to the bedroom for a minute to change my clothes and give us both some space.

When you finally calmed down enough to have breakfast, you ate your entire bowl of granola and then asked for seconds. Then thirds.

I told a friend the other day that part of what makes parenting such a challenge is that JUST when you think that you have your kid figured out and know exactly the right way to parent him/her, they up and CHANGE.

Change is good, though. We are definitely a family that welcomes change.

One of the biggest changes we've seen recently is your ability to reason. Yesterday, you put some of your bristle blocks (I had to look that up. I was going to call them "press-together blocks") together and, waving it in the air, ran to me yelling "AIRPLANE!" I asked you what sound an airplane makes (partly because I couldn't think of how to reproduce an airplane sound, myself). You paused for a moment, then opened your mouth wide. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" you yelled as you swooped the airplane around my head. Then you ran to your Daddy's study to show him, too.

Your new favourite word is "yeah!" You say "yeah" most enthusiastically when you are trying to communicate something for a while and I finally get it. "Shu shu? Shu shu please?" you'll ask. "You want lotion?" I guess. "YEAH!" You always nod your head vigorously and give me a giant smile. Your "yeah" is super cute but before that, you used to say "hi!" in a very Japanese-like way instead of "yes." "Want some lotion, Anna?" "Hi!" That was super cute, too.

We went out to eat at The Deli with Bop and Grammy for Mother's Day and midway through the meal, you started fidgeting and wiggling around in your seat. You turned to me and tried to tell me something. I didn't get it, busy as I was eating my chimichanga. Finally, exasperated, you grabbed my napkin, stood up in your high chair, and wiped the seat of your pants. "DIRTY," you spelled out. And yep, you had a poopy diaper.

Your dad and I like to talk every once in a while about what we observe in your developing personality. (It helps that I have been doing the SHAPE workshop at church and am constantly thinking in terms of DISC and Myers-Briggs.) We noted that you are brave but deliberate. You WILL go down two flights of steps IN MY SHOES (not my proudest parenting moment) but will take each step very carefully. You will go down the slide backwards, but only after getting yourself in JUST the right position. You are like this when it comes to being social, too. We will walk into a room full of strangers and you will spend the first fifteen minutes with your arms around my legs (or my neck), sizing up the situation. Then you'll spend the next two hours circulating the room, eating off everyone's plates.

You have a stubborn streak (you are a Brion, after all). When you disobey and I ask you to say "sorry," you will stare me down, expressionless. These are the moments that test my patience and also make me glad that we have taught you how to sign, since I can't force you to SAY "sorry" but I can certainly make you sign it.

We recorded you going down for a nap a couple of weeks ago and edited it so it is 10x the actual speed. The video is hilarious, because it showed that you were ALL over the place, clearly not tired, entertaining yourself with your stuffed moose and playing with your belly button. Your Lola didn't like the video, as she felt sorry for you, in your crib, by yourself for forty-five minutes, but one thing we HAVE realized about you is that, social as you are, you really need down-time once in a while. When you are being disobedient, acting up, abnormally fussy, we know that either a nap or some time by yourself in your crib really helps. Luka was that way, too. So am I. And so is your dad.

You love sensation. I brought you and Gloria outside to play with the hose and a bucket of water on one of those sticky days last month. You kept asking me to spray the water in the air so that the water would hit your face. When we run to the car in the rain, you gleefully shout, "RAIN! RAIN!" and tip your head up, all the better to get wet. You loved winter, too, and would pretend to shiver when we stepped out of the house, signing and saying "COLD!" with a giant smile on your face. You are a windows-down kind of girl.

You also like to explore. We were visiting a friend months ago and you disappeared. I jumped up, worried that you were getting into trouble, and our host assured me that there's nothing you could get into that her older son hasn't already tried. She was wrong. You showed the son how to stick your hand in the toilet, how to manipulate the dishwasher controls, how to play with the pedals on the piano, how to empty the dehumidifier. We stopped you before you tried to show him how to turn on the stove. Our friend was taken aback but very good-natured, thankfully. We think that maybe you will be an adventurous child.

Your friend Gloria is communicative enough to be at the point where she can seriously embarrass her parents if she wants to. You're getting there. The other day, I raised my arms to stretch and you pointed to my armpits and said, "gross!" (I did not appreciate that.) Later, when changing your poopy diaper, I asked you not to touch your bum because it was dirty. You said "Dirty? Olivia dirty!" You had heard us talking to our friend Olivia about what a clean child you are (always insisting on washing your hands, washing Sylvia, brushing your teeth), and Olivia joked, "Anna! You are so much cleaner than me! I don't even like to take baths!" and Anna decided, then and there, that Olivia is dirty. (Thankfully, Olivia is a good sport and thinks this is funny.)

Earlier this year, my friend Aimee was killed in a car accident. It hurts to type that. I think about her a lot. Every few days, the shock that she is not coming back still hits me so hard that I have to catch my breath. Your dad and I sat down the other day to talk about what to write in our wills, whom to choose as your guardians if something happened to us. That was one of the hardest decisions we've had to make. We joked about how trying to decide which friends are "good enough" to be your guardians invites us to be more critical of our friends than we've ever had to be. We decided on your Uncle Mike and Aunt Tegan, not just because we love them and think they will be wonderful parents, but because we know that they 1) value family and would raise you to know and love your relatives and 2) will love you as their own, evidenced by their desire to adopt. Most importantly, we know that they will raise you to seek God in a very real way. We hope and pray that you will never NEED guardians, that we will be around to see your children, to see you as an adult. But having to think through this decision makes me all the more aware of the importance of making each day count. Of our responsibility to raise you to live life fully. And even more so, of raising you to live with one eye on eternity. Of raising you to know that this life is not the end all, be all. Of raising you to be a woman like my dear friend Aimee, who lived life so well that her death couldn't help but bring more of an awareness of life and God and love to everyone around her.

I hope it's okay that I'm ending this month's letter on this note. You are a gift, Anna. Every day with you is a gift. Now please wake up from your nap so we can play.

Love,
Your mom