Dear Eleanor,

Today you turned 1 year old. Happy birthday, my beautiful girl! A year ago, we met for the first time, and my life split open. Even after all those months of waiting for you and imagining your face and feeling your punches, I wasn’t ready. Nurses kept bringing you into the hospital room and talking about my baby, but it didn’t sink in. They told Dad to change your diapers and told me to feed you, and I just wondered why they were foisting this baby on us. Who were we to take care of this little stranger? She should be with her parents.

Then they sent you home with us. My gosh, these crazy people are giving us this human! Learning to be your mom was the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced, bigger than calculus and moving away from home and enduring food poisoning in foreign countries. Did I just compare having you to getting food poisoning? I mean that in the most loving way.

Now we have survived a year together, and your needs seem small compared to all the joy you give back. And I’ll probably regret saying this, but you are at your funniest when you disobey me.

Our baby book says that you can understand “no” at this age, but if you get it, you’re not letting on. You have become obsessed with the bathtub. You constantly crawl into your bathroom, stand at the tub and smack your hand against it. This is your way of demanding things. If you want more food, you smack your high chair. If you can’t reach a toy, you smack the table it’s on. I might as well buy you a gavel because you are Judge Eleanor and this home is your courtroom.  You really don’t need a bath twice a day, so on a few occasions, I’ve set you in the empty tub with your toys. This, of course, did not satisfy you. You smacked the faucet to demand water.

Even more troublesome than the bathtub is the stairs. Whenever you get quiet, I know I’ll find you halfway up the stairs to the second floor. How can someone so short scale them so quickly? You could lead mountain expeditions. I follow you up, and when you get to the top, you crawl into your room and slam the door. The only problem with this is that you can’t open it, so you have to wait for rescue. You don’t even think about it though because you’ve crawled into your bathroom. To bang on the tub. Again.

Dad, who is excited that you’re climbing the stairs (and incidentally, isn’t in charge of watching you ALL DAY LONG), has started chasing you up. You squeal with glee as you try to get away from him. You’re always up for a game of peek-a-boo. You like to hold kitchen towels over your face while Dad and I pretend that you’re invisible and call out, “Eleanor, where are you?” A few nights ago, you tried to play peek-a-boo with Abe when he licked you on the face. You don’t like his licks, so best to become invisible, right? Sadly, Abe could still see you.

Given my talk of calculus and food poisoning and other hardships, perhaps you’re wondering why you’re here. I’ll back up a little and see if I can explain. A few years ago, your dad and I went to Alaska. It was the most fantastic time we’ve had, day after day of brand new things. We watched glaciers crack into the ocean, grizzlies lunge for salmon and puffins flutter about. That part of the world holds an orchestra of color and sound. We talked about how even though we were having a great time, it would be even better if we could share it with other people. And we wanted to share it with someone who had fresh eyes, someone who would be even more awed than we were.

Eleanor, every day with you holds a little bit of that awe. We took you to the zoo recently, and I kept thinking what it must be like to see a lion or a wolf for the first time. I’m so used to them now that I sometimes forget how magical they are. Yesterday I gave you ice cream for the first time, chocolate. And you frowned! Why was I giving you this very cold food? It stung. But after a few more bites, you realized that it melted into creamy perfection in your mouth. Every taste and object and person is new to you. Watching you reminds me to savor the ice cream, to wonder at the lion, to race up the mountain. To live.

Love,

Mom

I’m here today to talk about baby violence. I’m not referring to violence against babies, though of course that is a horrible crime. No, I’m talking about violence committed by babies.

Perhaps you or someone you know has been a victim of baby violence. Victims of baby violence may have scratches, bites, bruises, exhaustion and baldness. Babies use their razor-sharp body parts, including fingernails and teeth, to inflict injury. And those heads that everyone cradles so delicately are actually nose-breaking machines.

Do not approach a baby you do not know as babies may attempt to tear off your freckles, moles and even nipples with their bare hands. If you know someone who has been a victim of baby violence, alert the authorities. Victims of baby violence are often reluctant to ask for help. “She didn’t mean to do it,” the victims will say. “Oh, but she’s so sweet and innocent.”

Do not be fooled. Babies have perpetuated this myth of innocence for centuries. They are intent on taking over the world and will stop at nothing to reach that goal.

Dear Eleanor,

Today you turned 11 months old. I think all three of us would rather forget this past month. First you came down with a cold. Then I got sick, and then Dad, and then you got the flu. We’ve finally all recovered, and these past few days have felt magical just because we’re healthy.

Even when you were sick, you still loved to eat. When you see me with food, you always want a bite. And I almost always share, assuming that you’ll learn to stop begging when you taste whatever I’m eating. Surely a baby wouldn’t like lentil soup. Or cooked spinach. But you eat it all. When you get a little older, you’re going to be appalled that you ate cooked spinach. That tops the List of Yuck for most kids. A few things that kids would rather eat: dirt, bugs, dog food.

As I fed you one day, I opened my mouth to see if you would share, and you did. You pushed your chubby fist toward me and stuck a piece of carrot in my mouth. Same with a banana. But the day you were eating cheese and I opened my mouth, well, that was different. You held the cheese next to my mouth but refused to let go. You snatched it back and put it in your own mouth. You looked pleased with yourself. Yes, you appreciate my giving you life and all, but that piece of cheese is way too much to ask in return.

When I started this whole Mom job, I didn’t intend to buy you any dolls unless you asked for them. I didn’t want you to be stereotyped because of your gender. Alas, a few dolls have shown up anyway, and your favorite is a Cabbage Patch Kid that used to belong to Dad. I don’t know how to break this to you nicely, so I’m just going to say it. Eleanor, your baby is homely. Lyndon Lionel has blue paint on his bald head, and he’s wearing a little tan get-up that makes him look like a prison inmate. Like a good mother, you love him anyway. You drag him around the house with you, and I’ve showed you how to pat him on the back. You do this incessantly, though most of the time your pats land on his face or head so it looks more like you’re hitting him.

The good news is that all of your care-taking has transferred to the pets as well. You’ve started patting Winston on the head just like you do with Lyndon. You’re a little rough sometimes, but Winston has been so tolerant of you that it almost makes me forgive all his past hostilities.

You’re spending a lot of time talking, though I’m having a hard time trying to decipher it. You can mimic many sounds I make but won’t say anything on queue. Lately, you’ve been saying “Whee!” or maybe it’s “Oui!” I prefer to think it’s the latter, that you’re already fluent in French and Dad should whisk us off to Paris right away.

We’ve started taking you out in public more now that we can keep you entertained with toys. We’ve taken you out to eat a few times, and I’ve taken you to story time at the library. The interesting thing is that you already seem to have a public persona. When we’re around new people, you tend to be quieter and more serious. Everyone comments on your furrowed brow. You have that side at home, but you also have a boisterous side. You shriek as you race toward us on hands and knees. You dissolve into giggles as we tickle you. I know this is a lesson lost on a baby, but I do hope that someday you’ll love yourself as you are. Don’t feel that you have to dress a certain way or like a particular type of music or hold a certain belief so that others will like you. People are only worth having as friends if they like you for who you are. Dad and I couldn’t love anyone more than our cheese-hogging, furrowed-brow baby.

Love,

Mom