Dear Piper, take two

Dear Piper,

I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I sat here last, writing you a letter on your first birthday.  WOW!  Two years old!  And what can I say about year two?  In short, it was the year of The Piper.

This year you really came into your own.  You developed – or should I say learned to better express – your personality.  You’re engaging, friendly, sweet, willful, and very curious about the world.  You have a wonderful – and actually pretty sophisticated – sense of humor.  You love to be funny and ironic.  You’re on the go constantly and you always have your own agenda.  That’s one of the many things I admire about you.  You entertain yourself and decide for yourself what you’ll play with – you’re in charge and we’re just along for the ride.  You’re independent and very determined.

Physically you’ve in a whole new world – you walk, run, climb, slide, bounce!  You push and pull and open and close, you’re up and down and sideways.  You still fall, but not nearly as often as you used to.  You swim (with a floaty vest, which we only bought you because you refused to let us hold you when the water is above your head) and balance.  You adapt quickly.

Mentally – well, you’re just exploding.  By the time you were 18 months you knew the letters in the alphabet, and shortly after that the alphabet song.  You can count to 12 and you also count things – you understand what the numbers mean.  Your vocabulary is just incredible – you can say 5-8 word sentences, and you’re pretty good at pronouns.  You even use “I”.  You use other words – like ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘too’, ‘also’, and phrases like ‘how about…?’  – appropriately.  And you listen to what we say and mimic our language constantly.  You’ve memorized several songs and lots of books.  You LOVE to read and to sing.

Emotionally, you’re much the same happy kid that you were a year ago.  Only bolder.  You’ll stretch the distance between us more and more, and you’re learning to trust yourself.  You’ve made friends at daycare, and you refer to them as such.  You and Connie are, of course,still very bonded and she marvels at what a great kid you are.  You sleep on a nap mat now, instead of in a crib, just like the other big kids J  You’re a great cuddler, but you’re often too busy for many hugs and kisses.  You indulge us, though, occasionally.

One of the ways you’ve really grown this past year is in your diet – you spent most of the year as a strict vegetarian but now you’ll eat most lunch and dinner foods that we put on your plate (thank goodness!).  Once the door opened, you became very adventurous and brave in your willingness to try new things.  We’re thrilled about that!

I’m not sure what else I can say to sum up year two.  Except that it’s been amazing.  You’re a creative, fun, entertaining, and loving toddler.  We love every minute of it!  We often wish you’d stop growing so fast, but at the same time we know it’s meant to happen this way.  It’s incredible to watch you test out the world, and fare so well in it.  One of my favorite quotes was said by Ghandi: “Strength does not come from physical capacity.  It comes from an indomitable will.”  I’ve hoped for many things for you – intelligence, happiness,  good eyesight – but nothing more so than just that.  A spirit that will carry you through the world and a determination that will falter at nothing.  I see that in you now, in this two year-old Piper.  Over the coming years you’ll outgrow so much – clothes, toys, your crib and your pacifier, maybe even your cloth diapers that you love to snuggle with.  But my wish for you is that you never outgrow that.  Because right now you struggle to carry a half gallon of milk at the grocery store – insisting that you’ll put it in the cart despite the fact that you can barely lift it off the ground.  But at two, you’re the strongest person I know.

Happy birthday, to our little tyrant.  We love you so very much.

Mom