20.

Dearest little Meredith,
Today you are 20 months old. 20 Months! It's been a while since one of your monthly milestones felt so significant and yet, 20 months isn't considered a big milestone month. But 20? 20 is awfully close to 24. And when you are 24 months old, you will also be two years old and that seems darn near impossible. But for now, I am past feeling sad about the passage of time because you truly, truly, truly get better and better everyday.

One day I will play you a song and this song has the line: I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow. Before you were part of my life, I always thought of your daddy when I heard these words. I still do, but now you are in my thoughts as well.

So 20 months, my sweet girl is fun. You are learning at least one new word every day. I am so proud of how many risks you are taking with trying new sounds, when I wouldn't describe you as the world's wildest risk-taker. Airplane! Choo-choo! Bird! Book! Baby! Milk! Apple! Night-night! Helloooo? Noooooo! Mama! Baba! Car! Truck! Yuck! Wooosh (for swing)! These are just a sampling of the things you say. Some of your favorites.

Your favorite things right now are Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, trains, cars, airplanes, trucks and birds. You have this unreal ability to spot an airplane so far away it is merely a speck in the big blue sky. You hear trucks or cars driving by and run to our big front window to watch them cruise on.

My favorite thing that you do right now is Eskimo kisses. You grab my face in both your hands, draw me in to your face and turn your head back and forth, back and forth, only our noses touching. You'll also wrestle me to the ground in the name of a hug. Sometimes the grabbing of my face results in a big, wet kiss. Your affection is what gets me through these tiring, pregnant days. You also love pushing your daddy's and my faces together so we kiss.

 I love learning more about you and figuring out more about your personality. You are a mixture of both your parents. You have your dad's sense of humor and easy way of laughing. You love being silly. You have my shy streak, for which I am so very sorry. It's hard being shy and I can see how nervous you get in big social settings. But when you are comfortable- oh, how you light up the room like your daddy.

I marvel at how big you are becoming. You have become so proficient with spoons and forks. You sit, even without a high chair, like a little lady enjoying your meal. Today you woke up from your nap, marched directly over to your dresser and picked out a skirt and pair of pants that you wanted to put on over your leggings. You have these opinions- your favorite books, your favorite tv character, that it is time right! now! to go outside, that it is not! time for bed yet. While I imagine these things might cause us to butt heads one day, right now I just love to get a little sneak peek into your mind.

Meredith, capturing you, in words feels a challenge too great for me. One day I hope you'll read this and know that your baba and your mama loved you when you were 20 months old. That we spent the hours after you went to bed talking about the funny and clever things you did during the day. That we crept into your room every night before heading to sleep ourselves for one more peek at you. That I stepped back some days and felt in awe of the fact that I could be your mom. That I would take hundreds of pictures of you in an effort to capture just how cute/funny/smart you were, but that no picture could ever fully contain all that makes you so wonderful.

 Happy 20 months, my sweet, sweet girl.