Open Letter to Desmond: 20 months

Des...

Des, oh, Des, oh, Des. 

You are one crazy little man.  Your personality is exploding all over the place.  It's thrilling to see how you are developing these little idiosyncracies all on your own (because God knows Mami doesn't jut out her lower jaw like you've been doing and Dada doesn't walk around with his hands down his pants all the time...at least not in front of me).  Where do you pick these things up? 

You are starting to be more communicative with us.  You are so smart (seriously!): you know which English/Spanish word is easier to say and you focus on saying that one.  For example, you say "bah" for ball instead of "pelota" and "loo" for "luz" instead of light.  Your first complete word in Spanish was "pavo" (turkey).  Yeah, I wish it would've been something cooler, too. 

Des loves birds, so naturally, we would take him to the World Bird Sanctuary near St. Louis for Eagle Day.

I don't think Des gets it.

You get so frustrated when you want to do something and we can't understand what it is that you want to do.  You sort of grunt, "uh," and point at things that you want or sometimes, you just say "mamamamamama" and look at me with these beautiful brown eyes, begging to be understood.  And if we get it right, we are rewarded with your version of yes: a big grin and a breathy/laughy "yeah."

You love balls (mind out of the gutter, people)...all kinds of balls, but your favorite is the basketball.  I love watching your little face light up when, all of a sudden, on a neighborhood walk, your eyes get wide, you turn to face me, and you point at some yard out in the distance.  I ask you what you see and you say, "bah, bah."  And then I try to find the basketball.  You notice them everywhere: on t-shirts, supermarket sweet 16 signs...everywhere.  And to calm you down when we are out to dinner, your dad puts on a basketball game on YouTube.  This fascination of yours isn't thrilling to me by any means (having never sat through an entire game of basketball), but it does make me smile from ear to ear when I see you clap every time a player makes a basket at the gym and every time you try to steal said player's ball when they throw it out of bounds.

Des helping out with the gardening.

You hate it when we try to brush your teeth and your signal to go outside to play in the backyard is to put on your green froggie boots (and you can almost do it by yourself!)  Although I tried to hold out until you were 2 (as per the American Pediatric Association's recommendation), it was so much easier to get dinner ready or get myself ready for the day if you were busy doing something else (i.e. watching TV).  You never liked anything that I tried to offer to you (mostly Sesame Street), but you did latch on to Curious George 2.  And you love to watch it as you sit and eat your breakfast (and as I get ready for the day).  We try to limit it to 30 minutes of George a day, lest you become a zombie in front of the TV and get a major crick in your neck.

You love playing with your friends Dunnen (Dun-da) from across the street, and Joshua y Lucas, the two boys who live in your nanny's house.  You try to keep up with the big boys in the park.  They mostly ignore you...you with your little legs and arms pumping as fast as they can to catch up to them...and it makes me want to scream at them, "Hey, kids, don't you see that my little boy wants to play with you?" but I take a deep breath and realize that kids have no peripheral vision outside of their own boy sphere and that at their age, I wouldn't have noticed a little rugrat trying to tag along either.  But it still breaks my heart.

Even though some of your other "peers" are saying and vocalizing more than you, and some people might question our method of trying to raise Desmond in a bilingual household, we firmly believe that you will eventually filter out what's Spanish and what is English and that you will take your time in communicating in your own way, whenever you feel ready to do so.  Already, you will listen to your dad and I while we are simultaneously speaking to you in both languages and understand what we say. 

I've had my mind blown before (in good ways and not so orthodox ways), but nothing can compare to seeing what you have accomplished in your little lifespan.  And to think that just 2 regular old people like your dad and me could have created not only a creature who has a heartbeat and eats and moves around, but one that has developed the capability to communicate, emote, and make jokes. 

Ah...You're growing on me, Des.