Takeshi,

You are growing up so quickly, it is astounding. You have firmly planted your feet in the land of The Terrible Two’s. “No, no, no, no, no” has become your favorite phrase (although your “o” is not a long “o” but more soft and so it sounds like “noo, noo, noo, noo, noo.” You also say this when you’re doing something that you have no business doing (like climbing on top of the table or tapping Kenji on his head).

Your vocabulary is very slowly growing. You understand everything that you’re told but you can’t answer questions as easily because of your limited vocabulary. You say Kenji’s name “Ahh-nee,” cookie is now “kah-KEE,” car is “kah!” (it used to be motor noises) and Papa is back to being “Papa” again (you were calling him Mama). Every now and then when you’re excited you start to call Papa “Mama” and it sounds like “Ma-Papa!” Motorcycle is “koh-koh” (I think it’s for the “cycle” part of the word), dirtbike is “DOOT-bah,” happy is “hah-PEE” and you’re starting to say “wah-TURR” for water (instead of “wah-wah”).

You are headstrong and reckless and carefree. Although I have told you (and shown you) a million times to look both ways before you cross the street, you still will run like a madman right into the middle of the road. I’ve told you that you will be as flat and as dead as the bugs you like to squish and you just laugh and wriggle from my grip. You are absolutely fascinated with bugs and love to squish spiders with your motorcycles.

You have taken on the role of Big Brother very well. When you first saw Kenji, you wanted to give him one of your cars and you kissed him every time you saw him. Then he wasn’t so cool to have around when you realized that Mama had to stop playing with you to take care of him when he got upset. Eventually you saw that he wasn’t going anywhere and so you’re back to being lovey with him. Whenever you lay down, you always make sure Kenji is covered with the blanket (even if he doesn’t want to be). You keep trying to feed him your crackers and you like to share your motorcycles and cars with him. You also like to make him laugh, which always makes you laugh. And when he cries, you run up to him and put your finger to your lips and say, “Shhhh! Shhhh!”

You’ve started to sing to yourself; neither Mama nor Papa can tell what it is you’re singing, but we know you’re singing because along with the nonsensical chatter, your head goes back and forth to some imaginary beat and you do a little dance. Did I mention that you love to dance? I don’t think that will ever change. Just like Papa, you love music; maybe someday he’ll let you play on his turntables… or maybe he’ll get you your own. You have a few wooden musical instruments but on the very first day you got them, you tore right through the top of the tambourine, thinking it was a drum.

It is still amazing to me that in just two years you have morphed from a little helpless baby to a defiant and CRAZY little beast. And even though you can can drive me absolutely insane sometimes, I love you to death. When I hear you say, “Mama, Ahh-looo” — your way of saying, “Mama, I love you” — it makes it all worth it.

Mama

Kenji,

I took a picture of you laying next to Takeshi the other day (actually, Takeshi had jumped into the Pack-n-Play with you, so it’s more like he was laying next to you) and you looked so big! You are no longer a little teeny, tiny squeakish newborn.

Shortly after you turned 3 months old, you started rolling from your stomach onto your back. Then about a week and a half ago, you started rolling from your back to your front. You scoot and do a semi-army crawl to get to things that are out of your reach. I can’t believe you are already on the move; you picked this up much more quickly than your brother but I think it may have to do with you sleeping on your stomach. I wasn’t too keen on the stomach-sleeping idea because of SIDS but you absolutely HATED sleeping on your back. I stared and stared and stared at you while you slept to make sure you were still breathing. Most nights I would sleep with my hand on you or touching you to make sure you were still alive. After watching you for a while, I realized that you never slept with your face completely buried in the bed and you always turned your head so that you could breath adequately. I still wake up to check on you but now that you’re rolling, I’m not worried about you burying your face so you can’t breath; I’m more worried about you scooting off the bed. (And yes, we have rails on the bed.)

You coo and gurgle like no other. Sometimes you like to talk to yourself and you just go on and on and on. You’re also fond of blowing bubbles and sometimes when I say, “Hi!” you smile, blow bubbles and laugh and laugh. You are also very fond of your brother and if Takeshi is around, you will stare at him; I hope you don’t pick up on his behavior — what interests you most is when Takeshi is running around like a madman or jumping off the couch.

You are not a big baby, by any means but we just had to move you to 6 month clothes. Just like your father and your brother, you are a hot-blooded little beast and if I put you in anything other than a onesie, you sweat and scream and cry. That’s too bad because you have a lot of really cute little outfits.

You are so ticklish and and have that wonderful deep little baby laugh/gurgle/scream. It cracks me up to hear you so jolly and I love to see your little toothless grin. You are pretty easy to entertain and even like tummy time. Now that you can roll around, you like it even more. Sometimes you forget that you can roll onto your back and you start to whimper so I flip you over and then you get happy and flip right back onto your stomach. The day you turned 4 months old, you started to do little baby push ups. You seem eager to be on the move but remember that you don’t have to be crazy like your brother. In fact, I’d really appreciate it if you had just a fraction of The Crazy gene that he does.

You have taken to nursing pretty well but get so distracted by your brother that most of the time you end up with milk all over your face, in your ears, down your neck and all over your clothes. Papa thinks it’s hilarious and Takeshi just says, “Awww, mah!” (his way of saying, “Awww, man!”) and then wipes up the milk with his shirt.

I love you, my little stinky, milk-covered boy,
Mama