Monica, at One

I feel bad that I have nearly every cute thing Judah did when he was little typed out, printed, and in a folder, while poor Monica will barely know anything about her young self. So I thought I’d type up a small update, so that people who don’t see her often will know what she’s up to, and so that I won’t completely forget!\par
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Well, Monica is my darling baby girl. So I am entirely biased. However, I’m not the only one. Ezra just said today, “Monica is so cute!” He followed up with, “and she’s so pretty!” He also calls her, “Little Sweet-Sweet,” and both boys finish up my made up songs about her which I apparently sing frequently enough for them to know by heart. An example… “Monica, little Monica, sweet Monica, my girl!” Yes, I know, Frank Sinatra reborn. A couple days ago, as I picked up Monica to bring her inside, Judah said, “Oooh, I wish I could keep the baby out here..” in a very sad voice. Even though she gets into their games, destroys their lines of cars, and generally messes up their stuff, they still love to have her around – most of the time.\par
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She’s walking now. I actually did write down exactly when she did take her first steps on the calendar. But that’s upstairs. Suffice it to way, it was around a week before she turned 1. Now she’s nearly running and seems to get into even more things than she did before. For instance, this evening I heard Michael calling me urgently, and her screaming, and I ran downstairs to find that, unbenownst to him, she had walked into the utility room and started playing in the laundry detergent. She was crying (probably with fright from him startling her), and starting to rub her eye with her detergent-y hands.\’c2\~ Long story short – called Poison Control – gave bath – squirted eye and dumped water on her repeatedly – she’s fine. She almost never crawls anymore, except perhaps on uneven ground.\par
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She talks a little. Mostly she says, “Hi.” She says it a lot, but especially when somebody walks into the room. She’ll repeat “Judah,” “Ezra,” and “Monica,” “Da-da” but the only other word that she uses with much frequency is “Ma-ma.” Somewhat gratifying, after three children to finally have one who says “Ma-Ma,” before he/she’s a year and half.\par
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Her most enchanting game is to pretend that she’s talking on the phone. She’s been doing that for about a month. When the phone rang yesterday she put her hand to her ear and said, “Hi!” before I even got to it. Naturally, she especially loves toy phones, real phones, if she can get her hands on them, and any rectangular shaped object that resembles a phone in her eyes – my camera for instance. One and all, they go to her ear and she says, “Hi” and sometimes jabbers into them.\par
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Ezra’s favorite game is to put her into my papasan chair and play who knows what strange games with her and around her while she’s stuck in there. Generally she only likes that for a minute. Now she starts to call me when she wants to be rescued. She calls the boys, too. Not their names, necessarily, but if they go downstairs and leave her, she’ll walk over to the top of the stairs and loudly holler down at them. It’s quite obvious that she’s calling them, even if there are no real words involved – it’s a very commanding tone. You’d think she’d seen someone else stand at the top of the stairs and yell, “Boys!!!” before.\par
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Lastly, she’s Daddy’s little girl. Especially in the last couple of months, she’ll immediately crawl/toddle to greet Daddy as soon as she hears his voice when he gets home in the evening. He calls her “cutie, ” and says, “What a sweet little girl!” She loves it when he counts to 3 and throws her up in the air. As soon as she’s down she starts to bounce in his arms again to indicate her desire for another toss. Also she likes to be swung down, although that tends to make her a little more nervous. She used to hate being upside down (unlike her brothers) but it’s fun now now – as long as it’s not for too long!\par
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She smiles a lot, but still doesn’t laugh very much.\par
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Well, that was probably more than most anybody could stand – even a devoted grandparent. So I shall adjourn and try to get a goodnight sleep before the frantic goings on of the Sunday before Camp.