Dear Kate,

Since I am combining your 13 and 14 month newsletters, you can probably tell that I have been procrastinating about writing lately. I think everyone goes through writing slumps like this, and for whatever reason I have been in one. But today, I have inspiration. Today, Kate, is election day in our great country. And that means that if I just keep myself busy for one more day, the election will be over, and I can return to a normal life that does not involve robot phone calls from Rudy Guliani urging me to vote for ... well, I don't know who he wanted me to vote for, because I hung up. So in case you were wondering why I yelled "I HAVE ALREADY VOTED! LEAVE ME ALONE!" yesterday afternoon at around 2:30, that is why. Sorry about the outburst.

The good news is that while the last two months have been pretty obnoxious regarding the election, you have been a lot of fun. The biggest change in you these months has been an explosion in your curiosity about what is around you. Shortly after your first birthday, you started pointing at whatever was in front of you and grunting. For several days I was interpreting that as you wanting to hold all of these objects, and since many of them were things that wouldn't be appropriate for you to have, I would say no and you would cry and it was a very frustrating cycle. Then one day your daddy saw you do that and said "You know, I think she just wants you to tell her what everything is." And he was right. Now we spend lots of time every day saying "And that is dishwashing detergent. And that is a towel. That is a trash can." And you are happy as a clam with your new knowledge and your first complete spoken phrase, which is "What's that?" I am taking this as a sign that you will grow up to be a reporter like Mommy. I will buy you a little notebook as soon as I think you won't eat the pages.

And then there is the walking. You still are not an exclusive walker, and spend most of your day crawling, but you can walk when you want to, and you are very proud of yourself when you do. Of course with every bit of new mobility for you comes a new childproofing challenge for me. This week, you discovered the toilets. And now, if I turn my back on you for an instant, you scurry to see if one of the bathroom doors happens to be open. I try to keep them closed, but two times in one day last week, I heard splashing and discovered you with your arms submerged to the elbows in toilet water, gleefully paddling away. Good thing you have recently picked up the sign language for "Wash hands." ( You also know how to sign "shoes", and this is a picture of your first pair of walking shoes).

Speaking of the signing, that's another area where you've made big strides these last couple of months. We recently graduated you to the second video in the Baby Signing Time series, and I don't know if you just like it better than the first one or if something clicked in your head, but you have been independently doing the signs without any prompting from us. The cutest one is that you have learned to sign "blanket" and you do it when you are sleepy and want your blanket. And, of course, your monkey. I think I've mentioned Dangles the Monkey here before, but you are now so attached to him that you cannot move from one room to another without determining where Dangles is. If I leave him in your bed after a nap I will very soon find you standing next to your crib and crying for him. So this week, your daddy and I took out a little insurance and ordered a backup Dangles from Amazon. Not a moment too soon, either. Turns out the makers of this particular monkey are discontinuing that model soon. So we've decided to order a third and then enact a "Guard the Monkey With Your Life" policy for the foreseeable future, because I can tell that my existence would become very unpleasant if you had to do without that monkey.

You're also developing an awareness of humor. By that I mean that you have figured out that when you do certain things, we laugh, and you like it when we laugh, so you do those things more and then try to think of new things to do that will make us laugh. And you mimic our actions a lot more than you used to do. The other day you came across a comb that had fallen off our bathroom counter onto the floor and without any hesitation you picked it up and started combing your hair. It's amazing to me how much you are learning just from watching. Like drinking from a straw, your new favorite activity in all the world.

Or how to hold the phone with your shoulder, just like mommy.

All these little things are adding up to a growing sense for me that you are really becoming less of a baby and more and more of an independent little person. And I'm so proud of all your accomplishments, but it also makes me a little sad to see that baby slip away more and more every day. Which is why I'm glad that every night when you and go to your room to read some books and let you wind down a little before bed time, although you now want to stand by my chair like a big girl instead of sitting in my lap, you still lay your head on my knee and let me rub your back and cuddle you when you start to get sleepy. I love that.

And I love you,

Mommy