Dear Hayden:

Mommy is bad at blogging.   I totally missed your 18-month newsletter, partly due to the fact that I HAVE AN 18-MONTH-OLD.   Anyone who owns a toddler knows what I’m talkin’ ’bout, Willis.  So I’m combining your 18th and 19th month letters, as the last couple of months have been a blur, anyway.

Might I start off by saying that you’ve been SUPER helpful these past couple of months?  That sounds totally sarcastic when I read it back, but I’m actually dead serious.  You’re eager to help mommy with tedious chores such as folding laundry (read: hoisting yourself into the laundry basket and lying on the contents),  unloading the dishwasher and putting your toys back where they belong.  I’m savoring this stage because I’m acutely aware that it won’t last forever.  Something tells me that once you reach age 7 or 8, helping your mom becomes “OMG, SO WHACK”,  or whatever  kids your age will be calling it.  I’m thankful for the help now, and I’m sure you’ll resume helping me when you turn 16 and we can barter goods and/or services for the keys to the car.  Unless we still have the Buick Regal, in which case you’ll likely opt for public transit.  Or a hobo’s shopping cart.

Thomas The Tank Engine (or, “Thomas, Big Truck”, as you like to call him) arrived into our lives in the last little while.  Since we discovered “Thomas And Friends” On-Demand via digital cable, that is ALL that is on our television set during your waking hours.  We find you in the living room, shunting your shopping cart/wagon combination back and forth across the floor, listening to Thomas in the background.  You’ve seen some of the episodes SO many times that if something “locomotively catastrophic” is about to occur, you shout “Oh NOOOOO!” several seconds before it actually happens.   You know all of the engines by name and colour.  I’m not sure how, ’cause they all look pretty much the same to me.  You are OBSESSED.  Your dad is just relieved it’s not with Strawberry Shortcake.

We also just got back from the cottage at Weslemkoon Lake, where we spend Victoria Day with a group of our family and friends.   Even Uncle Mark was able to join us this year, due to the fact that he’s basically a hobo for the month of May.  But that’s a story I’ll tell you when you’re a little older, and we have a bottle of Jagermeister in front of us.   Cottaging was a great experience, after the initial “adjustment” period in which every time we brought you inside you shrieked as if we were plunging a rusty screwdriver into your chest.  OH GOD, do you love outside!  Like,  you would totally marry outside if it were a person.  And it was GORGEOUS this year, which in turn brought on the bugs along with innumerable bites.    Blackflies, mosquitoes, spiders.  Even ticks, in Aunt Britt’s case.  Yes, that would ONLY happen to Aunt Britt.   At the cottage, you collected rocks.  You ate an abundance of Freezie pops.  You took a nosedive into the dirt while Mommy was inside preparing dinner.  You had a FREAKIN’ BLAST.

Let’s do it again next year.  Turns out you’re pretty fun.

Love,

Mom

Allison Empey is a 29-year-old medical transcriptionist from Ontario, Canada.  She is happily married  since 2006 and is having an obscene amount of fun being a mom to her 17-month-old son, Hayden.  Allison is an avid amateur photographer with a penchant for portraiture.  She loves to write, and to make people laugh, and has combined the two passions by regularly updating her blog.   Allison’s other loves?  Reading, board games, medicine, cheesecake and wine.

Check out Allison’s websites:  www.flickr.com/allygalore for photos, www.galore.tumblr.com for hilarious (and modest) blog, and www.twitter.com/AllyEmpey to follow her on Twitter!

Tags: 18 months, 19 months, children, chronicle, family, home, kids, newsletter