Twenty six months

Dear Brooke,

We’ve had a lot of fun these past few months with spending every day together while I was on maternity leave! I feel bad saying this but maternity leave with you was kind of boring. But maternity leave this time was so much fun because I got to play with you everyday! I could easily take a whole year off to hang out with you but work beckons. Fortunately I’m only back working 3 days/week and will keep it that way as long as I can.

We’ve taken a few trips recently with a week in Utah with just the girls (this was your 10th round trip flight and first ticket!) and a family vacation at Lake Chelan over Memorial weekend. You had a lot of fun in Utah playing with friends and your cousins; Jack was so sweet holding your hand down the stairs and when we were out. You have started rough housing with certain kids now including Jack, Seth and Roya. In Chelan you LOVED the water slides and wanted to keep going even though you were shivering after getting out of the water. You also LOVE to be outside! You can spend hours in the yard with me wandering around, playing in the dirt (sometimes putting it on your head to my dismay), playing with sticks or asking me to find worms. I love your company!

You still don’t show much interest in Sylar (you don’t pronounce the ‘k’) except at bath time. I’ll put her in the tub with you and you like to help wash her. But you are good about giving me her toys, blanket or binkie. I think once she can hold things you’ll have more fun with her!

You’ve had several doctor visits over the last month. Your pediatrician checkup went great until the shots. I felt awful, I’ve never heard you cry like that before! You had your first dentist visit and couldn’t have been a better patient. Finally you had an annual hip x-ray and good news, your hips are perfect! But the doctor still wants to watch them so we’ll go back when you are 4-5 years old.

For several months now your sleep patterns have been in flux. Some days you just don’t fall asleep at nap time, about every third day. When you do nap you take a very long time to fall asleep at night. Are you trying to tell us that you don’t need naps anymore? I’m not sure you are ready for this, or maybe I’m not ready. :-)

You continue to make me and daddy laugh at everything you say. I wish I could remember it all... We try to hold on to each precious moment and engrave it into our minds but there are just too many to remember. A cute saying is you asking me “how ‘bout tickles?” since I know a secret tickle spot that you love and daddy asks where it is but I won’t tell him. Another memorable thing you do is asking daddy to play the guitar and then you sing into the guitar stand likes its a microphone...not sure where you learned that but we love it! Brooke you are so special to us, we love you so much!

Love,

Mama

P.S. Two days after I wrote this letter you got stung by a bee for the first time! It was so sad, you were shocked and then started wailing for about 5 minutes. Daddy was successful with getting you to put your hand in ice water. Your thumb swelled a little but you recovered quickly.