Dear Kate,

I usually talk in these letters about all the things you are doing in a month, and while I'll certainly be getting to that in a few minutes, I think the overwhelming theme of the last two months of your life hasn't been about what you will do but how you will do it. Namely, you will DO IT YOURSELF. Right this red hot minute. And heaven help anyone who helps you or gets in your way.

I knew this was coming, because I wised up a couple of months ago and bought a book about this year of your life. I read all about the "I can do it by myself" phase. But I was unprepared for the way this phase is manifesting itself in your unique little personality. Kate, I love you, but I think it would be good for you (and probably your future husband) if we're up front about something: You can be kind of high-maintenance. Sorry. I can be that way too, so you come by it honest. In our defense, I don't think we're generally demanding people, but when it comes to certain things, we just "want it the way we want it" as Meg Ryan says in When Harry Met Sally.

Harry Burns: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally Albright: Which one am I?
Harry Burns: You're the worst kind; you're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.
Sally Albright: I don't see that.
Harry Burns: You don't see that? Waiter, I'll begin with a house salad, but I don't want the regular dressing. I'll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. "On the side" is a very big thing for you.
Sally Albright: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry Burns: I know; high maintenance.

I could tell thousands of stories about how this has played out for your poor father who has to deal with me all the time, but this letter is about you, so we'll keep the focus there. For you, as a high maintenance kind of girl, it's all about the little things. Right now, you insist on having a plate for all your food. I think it's because we eat off plates, and you're very into doing what we do, but if I try to put your food directly on a high chair tray like you were some kind of baby, you refuse to touch it. You also want nothing to do with plastic beginner forks. You want a real silver fork, preferably sharp enough to poke your eye out. Sometimes you want to sit in one of the chairs at the table instead of in your high chair, and I am supposed to read your mind and know which way you want it before I start trying to seat you. You do NOT want to have your face wiped, your diaper changed, or your clothes put on you unless it was your idea first. The list of things you want to do in a certain way at a certain time goes on and on.

This means that as a mom, I am working on what I believe is called picking my battles. I am proud to say that you now allow your teeth to be brushed without being restrained or making me afraid that I will lose a finger. This sounds like a small thing, but I'm telling you, Kate, that was a two month battle. Two. Months. And it was worth it, because your teeth are important and I don't want them to fall out of your head. But I do not have months of my life to spend waiting you out on things that don't really matter, so the rest of the time I am learning a giant lesson in Letting It Go. This is a big stretch for me, to say the least. (Have I mentioned that when I was a little kid, my nickname was Big Time Bossy Britches? Yeah, I think I am getting some payback now. Your Gam is highly amused.)

Living with you is interesting in ways I could never have imagined even a year ago. You definitely get more challenging as you grow, but you are so much fun right now that I wouldn't go back to one of your previous stages for anything, even though I loved those at the time. It's really cool to see how your increasing grasp of spoken language combined with the signing you've learned really makes you able to talk to us in remarkable detail. You know your name, which you pronounce "Ate." You know where your ears and nose and mouth and eyes and feet are. You can pick Elmo out of a lineup from 20 yards. You pronounce it "Elbow" which is pretty cute.

You are developing quite an imagination. This mostly extends to Dangles the Monkey. Dangles is already a big part of our world, but lately, he has a busy life of his own to lead. He has to have a bagel in the morning, just like you. You have to put him in the high chair, snap the tray on, and give him a sippy cup of milk too. You hold it up to his mouth and make smacking sounds so that I know he is enjoying his breakfast. You insist that I kiss him goodnight when I kiss you before your nap and bedtime. And we recently started having to explain to you about how Dangles takes special baths that aren't in the tub, because one night, I caught you about one-half second before you threw him over the side of the tub so he could enjoy your evening bath with you.

You love to imitate anything that we do. You kind of insist on it, actually, to the point that I recently had to make you your own bag of makeup so that you would let me use mine in the morning when I'm getting ready. I filled a bag with a bunch of samples that you can't get open and gave you some brushes, and now we both do our makeup in the morning. This may backfire on me when you do figure out how to open those little jars, but for now it's a good solution.

I love it that you pretend like this, and it's really impressed upon me the extent to which you really do learn by watching your dad and I. I never realized that more clearly in these last two month than one Sunday when we were at church. Our church doesn't have a nursery during the worship service because we think it's important for children, even at your age, to be part of worshiping God with the church. It's not a really common practice, and it's one that's honestly hard to stick with at times. We've got a lot of toddlers your age in our church, and there are Sundays when it seems like you've all communicated via telepathy on Saturday night about the exact moment in the service when you will all completely lose it and start a riot.

We had been through a few weeks where you were leading that riot, and I was getting pretty discouraged. Then one Sunday, when we stood up to sing, you wanted to stand up with us, and you sang in your little way, which is sort of a wordless humming. When we bowed our heads to pray, you held our hands and closed your eyes and said "Amen!" at the end. (Awww-meeen is what it sounds like when you say it.) All this happened in a five minute span, and then you were right back to squirming and demanding graham crackers and trying to take your Sunday shoes off and the usual things. But I was so thankful for the chance to see that you are learning this, too. There really are no magical turning points in parenting, I'm realizing. There's just a lot of plugging along, trying to be faithful. I really won't know for a long time what that work will yield. But my prayer for you is that even now you will love the Lord and walk in his ways. That is the most important thing.

I love you,
Mommy