Rilla at 21 months

Before having children of my own, I couldn't understand why people counted the age of their children in months. "Seventeen months? Nineteen months?" I would think. "Couldn't you just say that he's about a year and a half?" But now I understand. Every month brings with it so many new adventures and challenges and labor-of-loves that I suppose I feel I've earned the right to number and celebrate every new month. After all, Keith and I still celebrate our monthiversary every month and count the length of our marriage in months - 76, if you're wondering - and I guess it should come as no big surprise that I am so focused on the month-age of our children, too.

Our dear Priscilla is 21 months old today. The day began a little roughly after not much sleep last night, and I had what I have affectionately termed a "spank them all soundly and put them to bed" kind of morning. (If you are familiar with Old Mother Hubbard or have ever had two children under the age of two with whom you didn't know what to do, you may know what I mean. Sometimes mommies just need a little break.) But a midday nap reset all three of us, and we had a mostly lovely afternoon together. I keep an ongoing journal for both of my little ones, and I watched Rilla today with the thought in mind that I should jot down some tidbits about her current sweet little self. Here, then, are some of the beautiful little things that I savored observing in my girl on her 21-month birthday and which I am writing in her journal tonight.

Rilla loves to play with crayons. Not so much draw with them, though. More just play with them. Today she found great satisfaction in closing and (with my assistance) opening the crayon case. Then she would carefully place the crayons back in the box, once with all the pointy ends pointing the same way, the next time with all the labels facing the same way. She finds joy in organization, which I can understand since I do too. She excels at putting household things where they belong and is nicely compliant when it is time to pick up her toys. I do feel it's my duty to keep the house a bit messy so that she doesn't get to be too much of a perfectionist just yet, though.

Rilla delights in sitting on the counter to help me cook. Besides lots of crock-pot dinners, banana bread and granola are becoming regular parts of our weekly diet, and it's largely so that Rilla can have the fun of helping me make something.

She loves to throw things into the garbage. Today I gave her a few things to throw away - the enthusiasm and seriousness with which she appropriates this task mirrors the delight of other children toward ice cream cones - but because we recently moved the garbage location and she hasn't yet gotten used to it, she went to the cupboard, found a paper bag, opened it, placed the garbage inside, and put it under the sink where we used to keep the garbage bag. It often surprises me to realize how adept she is at perfectly mimicking my actions.

Rilla was helping me put her clothes away today when she found a pair of bloomers that she wanted to wear. She managed to put them on inside out and backwards over her pants, then proceeded to wear them like that the rest of the afternoon.

She is very big into imaginary play right now. Her current favorite toys to mother are a yellow bear, a buffalo, Abraham's giraffe, a singing chicken, and, of course, her dolly. She wraps them in diapers or blankets and walks around the house patting them or giving them a pacifier. Or she sits with them and rocks them while I rock Abraham. Often she asks to wear her dolly around in one of my baby slings. The most notable way she mothers them is by pretending to nurse them, something that embarrassed me at first but which I would now have to say kind of blesses me. She is such a nurturing little soul. I figure that even though it looks odd, everyone thinks it's sweet to see a little kid giving a bottle to a dolly, right? But my children have never had a bottle, so nursing her dolly (or buffalo!) is what makes sense to Rilla.

The three of us went for a little walk this afternoon. Abraham soon fell asleep in the frontpack, and Rilla held my hand most of the way to the mailbox down the road, stopping here and there to collect rocks. We watched some deer for a while and then enjoyed the company of three timid young calves that had worked up the courage to stand by us at the fence. When they startled and galloped away, Rilla shrieked, "I get you!" to describe the kind of game she saw them playing. She had brought her dolly Ruthie with her, and she alternately carried her, held her hand so Ruthie could 'walk' next to us, dropped her, ssshhhed her, and picked her up and down saying "weeee!" in imitation of the way that Keith and I swing her when the three of us walk together. There were no mud puddles today, but she tramped around a bit in the places where the mud puddles should have been, obviously noting their absence.

I got the umbrella out this evening and Rilla stared at it with much fascination. She has been entranced by umbrellas in books lately, and I have an uneasy feeling that it is because "umbrella" sounds like "Rilla" to her. Great... my daughter thinks she's named after an umbrella.

I know there are a dozen other things I meant to write down this evening... like how Rilla hugs and kisses her brother throughout the day when one of them is going down for or getting up from a nap, and how much she loves to sing with me now, especially "Happy Birthday," and how often she initiates prayer with me throughout the day, and how every night she wants me to tell her that Mommy, Daddy, Baby Abraham, Jesus, Grandpa, Grandma, and Meg (her Grandpa's dog!) all love her... but my energy is all used up now, so that will have to be enough for today.