Dear Sabine: Months 13 & 14

Dear Sabine,

It seems like just last week that I was at the grocery store with you as a tiny newborn, all the little old ladies oogling over you. You were a mere week old and I was so proud to be going to the store with you all by myself, much less walking. How did over a year go by already? How can one little person grow so much in such a short span of time? In 14 rapidly passing months you've blossomed into this little person. You totally understand everything we say to you, and you love going to do the things we ask you to do; throw something in the garbage, go get the phone, where'd you put your socks?
As I sit down to finally finish writing this post, you're already almost 15 months old, so don't expect me to have another one for quite a while. I wish I could keep to the once-a-month post, but with two of you kids now, it's been impossible. The most encompassing remark I can make about you to this date is that you are so funny and quirky. You're really fitting into our family quite well. I'd feel sorry for any baby who came to live in this house and was not well-equipped with a sense of humor.
We have family rumbles at any given moment of the day. One of us will start it, give a certain look, make a certain noise and everyone else is like, game on. No one can resist it. Then the jumping onto one another begins, the tickling, play wrestling, and the hiding and racing around the house. You really mess Jacob up when you play with him. You splash him in the bath, lunge at him when you're in a funny mood, and lately you've been taking to biting people! Bath time is always a favorite, you and Jacob both feed off of each other so much. When it's just one of you in the bath, as it sometimes is, things tend to get a little boring.
But you're really lucky to have ended up with Jacob as a big brother. He really is great with you. He loves you so much, and I think you idolize him in your baby way. If you fall and get hurt, and Jacob's the closest person to you, he'll scoop you up and you cling to him, both of you patting one anothers' backs. You both request hugs and kisses from each other at random times during the day. You are a good kisser. You'll walk up to a loved on, lean in close to them waiting for a response and then you give a perfect baby kiss. Sometimes you're in a particularly loving mood and you'll go around the room kissing everyone there repeatedly. It's so rewarding to one of those people!
You've got clear likes about things, but it's harder to pin down things you don't like. You love music, breaking into dance when you hear just a few notes. In the car I'm usually able to calm you down with some kind of music if you're getting fussy. You like putting funny things on your body, and hiding in tiny places. You'll call us into the room to show off an accomplishment. And you love your belly button. I've probably written about that before, but you do love it. You poke your little finger in it, and if someone in another room happens to say the word 'belly' in a sentence, you start struggling to get to your belly button so you can make sure it's still there. If you're wearing a onesie and can't find your belly, then that is a problem which we must fix for you.

And Sabine, you are quite obsessed with shoes. Particularly Crocs. I don't know why, I think they're hideous. I first noticed it when I was in the mall looking for a new pair of shoes to go with a dress for the wedding in Virginia. This was before you were a year old. I was holding you and walked past the shoe section and you almost jumped out of my arms tyring to get to the shoe racks. You pointed out all the shoes you liked and I handed them to you so you could just stare at them in wonder. From that point on it was a full-blown obsession. You a hold of someone's shoes, and it's hard to get them back when it's time to leave. You really like wearing your shoes. One of the first commands you started understanding was, "Sit down so I can put your shoes on." I really should write more about your shoes obsession because it is something that clearly consumes a lot of your brain energy, but I'll just leave it at that.
Some cute tricks you've developed include clicking your tongue and little grunting noises you make, like fake madness when we're playing around and rough-housing. You do a couple cute tricks with your mouth, one being the tongue flapping thing where it makes a sound like "blahlalablahlalalala" - oh dear, I have no better way to describe it! You also do the thing with you mouth open making the 'ahhh' sound so that when someone pats you on the mouth it mimics what people associate with Indians. Jacob taught you that one, I think. You give high fives too. And you have a humorous little scowl you give people before breaking into a smile.

You were starting to say a lot of words in the early part of the summer, but that pretty much stopped at that point and you took up the more physical aspect of your development. You now pretty much say "Mom" or "Mama" or something variation of that) for everything because you know, if I'm not standing right before you in plain sight then what is life worth living? You do follow me around endlessly. It's like all your words are now going to evolve from some version of Mama. There's different versions of it, and as the days pass we can see they're becoming more distinct, but it's so hard to tell. One day we'll think a word means one thing, and then the next day we'll decide, no, she's just looking for me again, checking up on what I'm doing. Maomoa kind of seems like 'more'. maimai, kind of sounds like 'mine' - I realize these are very bad phonetics here. It's like you're learning about everything in the world in terms of how it applies to the place you came from (me). Oh, and speaking of that, you have five teeth now, and you're finally able to eat some normal table food.

And speaking of eating, you ate hot dried hot peppers a few weeks ago. There'a little container of them in with the spices and no matter how many times I tell you not to eat stuff like that, you don't want to listen, because you know, you're a baby. So one day I was making dinner in the kitchen and you started gagging right behind me. I turned around and was immediately frightened because your face was beat red. It took me just half a second to see (from the amount of them on your face and around your feet) that it wasn't because you were choking, but because you put a handful of the peppers in your mouth and they were HOT! That'll teach you to keep putting inappropriate things in your mouth. In the picture below, that's dirt on your face because you were eating it.
A lot of people say that their kids are complete opposites of one another, but I have to say that overwhelmingly you are just like Jacob. There's some differences, but as a whole, you're the same kid of kid - sweet and loving, funny and quirky, smart and responsible, but also with a streak of trouble-maker and boundless energy.

At times your curiosity gets the best of you. Experimenting with gravity is a favorite pastime. For instance, there was the time last month you took a couple glass bottles from the shopping cart at the grocery store while I was putting the empties into the return machine and you smashed them onto the floor, breaking both bottles. That was embarrassing.
You do like to clean up though, and I can see the developing sense of order in your little baby brain by the way you like to have things arranged. Already you're helping with the laundry, taking it from the basket of dirty things and putting it into the washing machine. And approximately 45 minutes later you accompany me back downstairs to take them from the washer to the dryer. You know the drill and you like helping out. It's the same story with the dishwasher. We've been doing an assembly line lately: You pull things out of the dish washer and hand them to Jacob. He stacks them into the right piles and then hands me the stack to put in the cupboard.
One day I'd had two DVD's by the front door, waiting to be returned to the library. At one point in the day I'd noticed you messing around in the spot where we keep our own DVD's next to the TV. Later on when I saw that the videos on the shelf were messed up I went to straighten them out but couldn't get them all the fit back in the way they'de been. I finally realized there were two extra movies there - the ones from the library. You'd found them and traveled halfway around the house to put them back in order!
Not only do you like things in order, but apparently you like them clean as well because I'll often find you digging into the wipes container or kleenex box to retrieve one and then set to work rubbing the floor or some other surface you've seen me cleaning in the past.
For all the good you do around the house though, you certainly like to cause a ruckus from time to time. Most instances of damage are from the aforementioned 'Gravity Game', as I call it, but a lot of the heart-stopping moments don't necessarily results in permanent structural alteration to the house, they just really alarm us. The thing is, just like your brother, you are a climber. You've been doing it for many, many months. Even months before you were walking, you were already scaring us with your climbing. It's hard to keep track of children like you, the ones who are so tiny and quiet in their stealth-like way. It's a good thing we never bothered with a crib, because that wouldn't have kept you down. You like to climb the baby gates, the couch, the back of the couch, the cupboards, stairs, and you're proficient at going back down them as well.
But most of all, it's utterly thrilling to see the way that you care about the people around you, and the animals in your life. You've started sitting on a ball to bounce just like that way we do with you on the yoga ball, showing us that the things we do out of love have value to you. And last month I watched you climb into the little bed, grab Baby Honey and start to sway and pat her back, mimicking what we do with you. It was then that I realized the emerging person I thought you were becoming already has a rightful place in the world with your own sense of right and wrong, and that your father and I are on the right track in raising loving children who will be the future good people of the world. That knowledge alone is worth is all the trouble this parenting business have ever given us.