Dear Meghan,

Here we are. FOUR MONTHS away from you being two years old. How did we manage to get here so fast? I know I’ve said that many times before but seriously, twenty months old? Your not a baby anymore, your a toddler who is independent and needy at the same time. You don’t want to me to play with you or mess with your things yet as soon as I leave your sight or you fall over, Mummy is the person you want. You talk more than ever and if I tell you I don’t understand, you’ll come over to me and tell me again so I can hear you clearly. You like to sit and read your books. Every single page says “My ay” apparently. And every single book too. Your favourite books at the moment are the Mr Men and Little Miss series. All the Little Misses are called “Naughty” and all the Mr Men are “Busy” but you can’t tell most of them apart if I ask you where, say, Mr Sneeze is. You love to sing songs from The Wheels on the Bus to Hickory Dickory Dock to Incy Wincy Spider. You do all the actions too. Your eating slightly better. You’ll eat chicken now, when you feel like it and mash potato is something you will now eat. Pasta isn’t on the menu as much as it used to; pizza has replaced it. You had pizza three nights in a row last week without me even realising. I need to do something about that.

Well Meg, this is about it. I’m currently dying of some hayfever, coughing fit, thing and all I want to do is get into a hot bath and then crawl into bed with my new best friend, Big Brother 9. Your not very well at the moment either. Your suffering from the same horrible illness which is why today there are no photos. I didn’t think you’d appreicate it in fifteen years when I have photos of you with puffy red eyes and a runny nose.

Love you as always,

Mummy

Dear Meghan,

I applogise for the lack of photos this month darling but to be quite honest, I wasn’t even sure I would have been able to blog today. Computer problems are the worst. Espeically when it means that Elmo and Barney are unaccessable. Its terrible. I mean what are you supposed to do all day when Youtube doesn’t work?! Hopefully we won’t have to put up with it for much longer. Maybe if you mither Daddy enough, he’ll storm round to his friends house and make him fix it there and then.

We can pretty much keep a conversation going with you now. You don’t talk sentances but you can string two, sometimes three words together at a time. You just shorten things, like if Daddy is in the bath, you’ll say “Daddy bath.” Your very clear with your words so even people that aren’t around you can understand 60% of the things your saying. Your favourite thing to say today is “Mew Mew Power” since thats all Emelye watches on TV when she’s here. I’m still trying to teach you the alphabet but you don’t know much more than you did last month. Its not something we need to rush though, you’ll do it when your ready.

Just because I’m so proud and I like to show off – your currently on the floor ‘reading’ the Photoshop 7.0 manual. (Its an old one I’m throwing out. We’re miles ahead of 7.0 now.)

Your starting to tell me when you need your nappy changing now – by saying “bum.” We really need to get started on the potty training. I would like you out of nappies before you turn two, mainly because it will be easier for when you start playgroup but also because the cost of nappies is ridiculous and I refuse to pay those prices for another year. If your Dad had let me cloth nappy you, we wouldn’t have this problem but never mind.

A couple of weeks ago you suddenly got this fear of the bath. I have no idea where it came from but for three baths in a row, you would scream your head off and cling onto the side of the bath as though if you let go, the monster would get you. I thought it was because you were scared of slipping so I got Amy to help me on the second bath but you seemed to be worse. Those baths weren’t fun. On the fourth bath, I got your Daddy to help me and guess what? You weren’t scared anymore. I’m not going to drown you, you know. I do know what I’m doing. Anyway, all that matters is that your okay with baths again and demand one every night. At least I know your clean.

I think thats all for this month. Other than, will you please eat something other than pasta? I mean, you must be getting bored with having the same thing for dinner every single night. I know I’m sick of looking at it.

Love, Mummy

Dear Meghan,

Wow. Eighteen months. Where did that time go? I feel like you’ve been here for years but then I feel like I’ve hardly known you five minutes and your this walking, talking little person. Its scary and exciting and I’m loving every minute of it.

I didn’t start work. I couldn’t leave you. I thought I was doing the best thing for you by going out to work and providing for you but I just couldn’t do it. It would have to be a damn good job for me to leave you now – in other words, a photography job. I never thought I would be a stay at home mum for this long. Before I even got pregnant I thought I would be one of those mums that went back to work after a year but then you came along and my views changed. I’m glad I did change my mind. Every day with you is amazing.

You have a total of ten teeth last time I checked. You can count to ten and you can say your alphabet up to the letter E. You don’t stop talking anymore. You have a wide range of words you can say now and your trying the sentences but its not happening. I think you get frustrated when you can’t tell me what you want but I try my best to figure it out. You ask to go on the potty a lot but as soon as I put you on it, you start to get upset because its cold. Well I’m assuming thats what the problem is. We need to work on this over the next couple of months. I would like you out of nappies by the time your two years old. We only have six months left!

The tantrums have started. They’re not too bad at the moment. If you don’t get what you want, you stamp your feet and scream. I’m sorry but its the funniest thing I have ever seen! It makes me laugh every time. You only do it when your tired though so as long as you’ve had a good sleep then your a happy bunny .

You’ve connected really well recently with your Uncle Matt. He’s been off work for the past two months or so and he’s been coming round a lot. You will sit with him for hours with his laptop watching video’s of Elmo and Dora and anything else you want him to put on. He moves back to Huddersfield in a few weeks and I know your going to miss him a lot. Your always asking for him when he’s not here and I think he enjoys your company as much as you enjoy his.

I’m going to give you six months and I bet you’ll be talking to me properly and ordering me around. Lucky me!

Loads of love, Mummy

Dear Meghan,

You’ll have to excuse me being one day late for this letter. I planned on doing it last night but then your Daddy came home early from band practice and it totally messed up my plans for the night. Anyway, better late than never!

I don’t really know how you’ve changed this month. This month has just been a lot of learning new words and learning how to climb into your highchair so you can get onto the window sill. You can now count up to six though which is good and I’m trying to teach you the alphabet. You like to draw with pens and crayons but I don’t like giving you crayons because you eat them.

I think we both watch too much TV but once you start going to the nursery, your TV time will drop which is good. Yes, Mummy’s leaving you in two weeks. Don’t think I want to leave you because I really don’t. I’ll miss you like mad but I’m going to try and spend as much quality time with you over these two weeks before I start work. I’m sure you won’t miss me as you’ll be having loads of fun with all the other children at the nursery. I really hope you settle in quickly though so it will be easier for both of us if you do.

I’ve still not started with the potty training yet like I planned to and I think it will probably be left a little bit longer now I’m going back to work. There’s no rush really. We’ll try in a few months, probably in the summer when it’ll be warmer and you’ll be fine running around with no nappy on!

I’m sorry this months letters a bit rubbish but I honestly don’t know what to say to you. Instead, I’ll just tell you that I love you loads and my first day back at work is going to break my heart but I know it will be the best for both of us.

Love, Mummy

Dear Meghan,
This afternoon I realised that you had cut another tooth; the bottom on the left. That means you now have seven teeth. You’ve always been a bit behind other babies with the teeth but you seem to be catching up. No wonder you’ve been a bit whingy the last week or so.

Your doing a lot of repeating recently. When you watch TV, you’ve started to try and copy what they are saying. When I’m on the phone, you copy what I am saying – which by the way is very annoying. You can count up to three. At first I thought you just thought they were new words but you actually understand what they mean. Its great to see you learning so much. Your always asking me to read to you. Literally all day your bringing a book to me saying “story.” Your just like your mum in that sense and its great .

Your new “thing” at the moment is Igglepiggle from In The Night Garden. Last month it was Elmo, this month is Igglepiggle. Or “Gap-o” as you call him. You still have your think for Elmo but I had to go and buy you an Igglepiggle toy because you wouldn’t shut up about him. I bet I looked like a right single mother walking into Woolworths with all my change so I could get you this toy. You sleep with him every night now along with Dora.

Your a very happy little girl but you have a right temper on you. You’ve started to throw things, along with yourself, on the floor when you don’t get what you want. You also ask for food constantly. At least you’ll eat fruit and breadsticks with houmous rather than just eating junk food all the time. I’m actually running out of food to give you though. I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I don’t know what else to say about this month. Your just a clever, mainly happy little girl and I’m really enjoying the time I have with you now since I’m having to start looking for work. I’ll really miss you when I go back.

Love, Mummy

Dear Meghan,
Well, you’ve grown up a lot this month! For one thing, your finally walking! When we went to the doctors yesterday for your immunisations (which Mummy is very sorry for making you have them but you have to), you would not sit on my knee. You were walking around the waiting area and you kept going to the play area and playing with the bricks. I’d pick you up and bring you back and you’d walk right back over to it again. Its okay though because I made a friend while you were busy playing. We really need to get you some shoes because Daddy can’t wait to take you for a walk to the shop to show you off. You have funny sized feet so they didn’t have your size in the shop yesterday. We’ll try again next week.

Your also learning a lot more words now too. Last week you learnt to say “Elmo” and now you want me to play Elmo video’s on Youtube all the time since we don’t get Sesame Street on the TV anymore. I don’t know what your sudden interest with him is but he will never take over your love of Dora. You can also say the number “two” and I think you know its a number as when we were watching Dora this morning they were counting and you said two before they did. Your so bloody clever. You even walk into the kitchen now and tell me you want something to eat (Nah-One – it means “another one”) or drink (Co-Coh – which is cup).

You wasn’t very well on Monday and even though it wasn’t nice that you were ill, it was lovely because all you wanted to do was lie in my arms watching TV. It was really nice for us to spend some time together like that and its nice to know you need me when your not very well. Mummy’s always make things better when your ill .

You’ve decided that sleeping isn’t the best idea in the world. Some nights you sleep from 7PM until 7AM and I don’t hear a sound from you all night. Then there’s the nights when you sleep at 7PM, are awake a couple of times before I come to bed then your up at 1AM and won’t go back to sleep without a bottle, and then again at 5AM. Yeah, Mummy doesn’t like those nights. I just wish you would stick to one routine then at least I would know what to expect. Lets try and sort that out this month.

I can’t wait for this next month to see what you learn and get up to. Lets hope its good, not bad.

Love always, Mummy

Dear Meghan,
I have been wanting to do letters to you since the beginning but a lot of people were doing it at the time and I thought I’d just get comments about copying. I don’t really care anymore. Its a lovely idea and I’m going to do it from now on so we both have something to look back on.

At fourteen months old you can say about fifteen different words clearly including Dora, Kitty, Daddy, Nana and Baby. Your new ones this week are doh-doh which is dummy and bee which for some reason means pen. You can walk you just won’t. You do about three steps and then grab onto something or just sit down. I know right now I wish you were walking but when you do I’ll regret wishing that

Recently you want to just sit with me rather than being on your own. Yesterday you sat on my lap for at least ten minutes just watching TV with me. Its so nice that you want to do that now. When I put you to bed you usually give me a cuddle but for two days you have tried to shove all your dummies in my mouth. It was quite funny the first time but its bedtime so no games. Bedtime is easy though. You go straight to sleep 90% of the time apart from last week when Mummy and Daddy dared to go out together and you just refused to sleep for the next five days in case we left you again.

You fell over today too, while I was out walking Dax. And you cut your lip. Daddy said it bled quite a bit but you soon cheered up. You have a little fat lip now. It doesn’t seem to be bothering you. I’ve learnt not to panic when you fall over because it only makes you worse. If you do fall over I just laugh and call you silly and that usually distracts you.

I’m really loving being your Mummy. I don’t know what I would do without you now. I can’t wait to write the next letter to see how much you’ve learnt. Oh and by the way, stop giving Dax all the baubles off the tree. We hardly have any left. The tree looks so bare.

Love, Mummy