Kvelling

Dear Tucker,
You are eighteen months old today.  You're not our oldest child, so it’s not really your birthright to push us regularly into new vistas, yet that's what you've been doing.  With you we haven’t wasted time reading developmental books or looking at milestone charts.  We did that last time, and the information gave us false hope.  Under a deliberately cultivated protective layer of obliviousness everything you do is amazing. And brilliant. And so advanced.  And although it may be kind of annoying for others, we feel like we've earned the right to boast a little at this point.  Technically, we'd like to consider what we do kvelling, the Yiddish word for the way parents burst with pride over their children.  You are the source of our family's joy, Tuck, and frankly it's difficult for us not to tell the world how wonderful you are.  And we try to tell you, too.  You are wonderful, Tucker.  You are.
In honor of your eighteen months, a list of eighteen things we love about you:

1.  The way you choose a book and, with it in hand, back up until your bottom finds a lap.
2.  The way you say your sister's name, and all the ways you show her love.
3.  The way your starfish fingers move from crayon to train to grape to around our fingers.
4.  The way you push your little wooden chair next to the couch, climb up, count to three and then jump.
5.  The way you help put your hands through sleeves, and how you look like such a big boy in jeans and a button down.
6.  The way you ask for melon and 'sicles, a diaper change and a bath.
7.  The way your hair curls into a single soft ringlet at the nape of your neck.
8.  The way you share food with Colby, dropping it from your tray and following it with "Uh-oh. For dog."
9.  The way you, despite an impressive verbal explosion, will only call your blanket "beez."
10.  The way you run with abandon, away from our zooey zip tickles and toward our eyes, nose, mouth kisses.

11. The way your eyes captivate us, as if chocolate was boiled down and rendered into your small gaze, and the way they sometimes smile bigger than your lips.

12.  The way you work at things, confident you can put the lid back on the highlighter or spoon out the last of the yogurt from the container.

13.  The way you break into motion any time you hear a tune, twirling on tiptoe and bending your knees.

14.  The way you sit tall on the piano bench and sing along with the "low" notes, your favorites.

15.  The way you search for pictures of Celia to carry around and smooch.

16.  The way you point at and name all of the items around your room when we kneel next to your crib after you've napped, and then the way, as you wake, you always ask "Mama? Dada? Cobee? Cewee?"
17.  The way you repeat words from adult conversations, and invariably fixate on the ones we should have whispered.
18.  The way you give us stories to tell and smiles to spread.

You show us life through a new window, Tuck, and when we look from your vantage more light pours in.  Your birth altered our whole posture on the planet, and you instantly loaned us some of the shine in your little body.  We thank you for that, baby boy.
You are wonderful.  And we love you. 

Mama and Daddy