Dear Merritt,

If we wanted to sum up your twenty-first month in one event, it would be you wandering out of your room, naked as the day you were born, attempting to put a sock puppet on your penis.

You are figuring out life, sir. And it is disturbing. And to add insult to injury, somehow you are already more than half my height.

On the plus side, your laundry holds onto the scent of sunscreen and the only thing better than sunscreen-smelling clothes is sunscreen-smelling YOU. Your neck in particular.

This month's phrase has been "it's stuck." While you use it often and mostly accurately, it's been very difficult not to "that's what she said" you every time you determine something is indeed stuck, or possibly stuck, or could become stuck in the future.

I have no idea how this thing has lasted this long, but you continue to love a dancing hamster that you got at Christmas. It wiggles to "Deck the Halls" and you like to "fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la" right along with it. It is seriously like Christmas in July meets LAY'S® potato chips around here; you can't listen just once. And so we follow you in merry measure.

Just before a recent bath, you seemed interested in using the toilet like a big boy. And since I am in no way learned on the topic of potty training, I obliged you and threw you right up on the commode. And you almost immediately fell in. And I ... I didn't save you. I grabbed my phone to capture it as your arms flailed about wildly. So I could show it to you later in an effort to explain why you're still wearing diapers at age 26. I'm sorry, 'Boose. Sort of.

You require oxygen after saying "please," or more authentically (deeeep breath and full exhalation with excited and quivering clinched fists), "PPPEA," and then you run out of air and fall over. But man, you are seriously stoked to be so polite. Other variations include a milder "peash," and a bleeding heart-ish "peace." All forms accepted here.

That brain of yours, and all its eleventy-umpteen-quadrillion synapses, is good at remembering stuff and putting two and two together. Like knowing exactly where your sugar is when Mom asks for it, and pulling her face right to your neck so she can nuzzle in and get it. Or recalling that I always count your toes and so whenever I suggest we count anything, you grab at your feet (or what will later be referred to as your "redneck calculator" if you keep that up and people find out that you's got you some Louisiana relations).

But the biggest thing you recently remembered is something we completely forgot.

I noticed early on the afternoon of the 4th of July that your room was heating up, so I turned on the fans, hoping to cool it off by bedtime. With no luck. You didn't seem to mind, but I fretted and fretted anyway. I checked on you at ten and your room was toasty. By one it was sweltering. I could feel heat trapped in the corners and hanging from the ceiling. So I opened your door and the living room windows and brought the total number of fans involved in the project to FIVE, which, coincidentally, was the exact hour at which you woke. It wasn't until way later that morning when I gave up and headed to your room to install the window unit air conditioner that I realized your heater was on. And that it had been on, cranked to about 90°, for approximately 24 hours.

You totally remembered how to turn your heater on; we totally forgot heaters existed.

My goodness, you have destroyed us.

Last week at Forest Park we passed three banana slugs because we hike. that. fast. On our way back out of the woods, we passed them again, but this time they were no longer in a pack. The couple of Momma-sized ones had trudged up the muddy hillside and the tiny, tiny one was not following their slime trails or even acknowledging their mothertude and was about a foot (which is like a mile in slug) below them. That's when Mom broke it down for us. She explained that the tiny, tiny slug was probably almost two and had probably just thrown a tantrum in Trader Joe's or at the library and the mommas probably decided to leave him behind. Mom's story did not faze you. What was I saying about how you've destroyed us?

You (finally) have an exuberance for bedtime that is like nothing I've ever seen. You screech "NIGH-NIGH!" and race to your crib, holding onto the edge, feet climbing the air trying to get in. We scoop you up and you lean in for your smoosh kiss. And then we lay you down, remind you you're loved, and then you sleep and sleep and sleep with Raccoon and Alligator and Blue.

You have a puppy whom you adore and love to walk and only occasionally forget is actually a living creature with which you must be gentle. Your care for and attention to him, and all living things, affirms to me that there must be a miniature Dr. Dolittle inside you, or at least a really nurturing human.

(It's super impossible to photograph a toddler and a puppy together, at the same time, in the same universe.)

You're at the age where you require a kiss when something is injured, and you faithfully believe that it makes it better. This is spectacular.

A couple of days ago something disturbed your nap. When I came into your room you were crying, but still crumpled in your crib. I picked you up and you immediately rested your head on my shoulder. Your whimpers ceased and I covered you with your blanket and asked if you were okay. In that moment, you didn't respond with your typical--somewhat Canadian? Minnesotan?--"yeah." You mustered all your strength and shook your head "yes," still buried in my neck. We put you down in our bed and just watched you sleep ... with awe and wonder over the little person you are. The same little person, who, minutes later, would blow a raspberry from dreamland, and then roll over.

We will always hope you're okay. Better than okay. And we will always do everything in our power to make sure you are. We will always marvel at your character. And you will always, always, always make us laugh. But you will never be able to fathom how very much we worship you, the way we relish being your mommas, or the ardor with which we love you. Not even in dreamland.

Love,

Momma (and Mommy)