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Dear Sammy, I have a lot to tell you about this past month, but first let me tell you a little anecdote that has completely charmed your father and me. We still end your day with a reading of Time for Bed (by Mem Fox)“a little story book we received when you were born. We’ve been reading it to you since you were about 4 months old. Each page has a little rhyme about a parent animal telling the baby animal that it’s time for sleep.

Dear Sam, Wow. What a month. It is a real pleasure when your mom takes one of the monthly newsletters because it helps me recharge and get more energy and enthusiasm for writing. This month is a pleasure to write not just because of that break though. So much has happened in the past month, I barely know where to begin. I guess I want to start with your verbal development, as despite everything else, that has what has impressed me so consistantly this month.

Dear Sam, April has always been one of my favorite months, as it usually heralds the arrival of spring: longer, lighter days, breezy weather, delicate daffodils, and peeping baby frogs. Academics, however, like to quote T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and proclaim that “April is the cruelest month.” While it is true that the last month of the academic semester usually entails a mountain of grading, I always welcomed April gladly because it meant that the end of tedium and the beginning of May freedom was near.

Dear Sam, Do you have anything in your life that you’re (almost) always glad that you’ve done, you usually enjoy doing, but you dislike (or just have a hard time) starting? I have several of these. Working out is one of them. I have a hard time getting from the house to the front door of the gym. Once I’m through the doors, I usually enjoy myself, and when I’m done a workout, I rarely regret having been.

Dear Sam, Some of the other moms that brings kids to your tot group remarked, “Oooh, 17 months, that’s a rough age.” If that’s the case, I can’t wait to see a great age, because you’ve been a real pleasure to be around this month. It’s true that you’re starting to explore this thing we call a tantrum, but the ones I’ve been exposed to have been pretty managable, and we’ve gotten you out of them without too much trouble.

Dear Samantha, Tomorrow you will turn 16 months old. Back in Pennsylvania, a little groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil will stick his little brown nose out of his hole-in-the-dirt house and venture out into the air. Hundreds of people will watch to see if he sees his shadow. If he does, folklore has it that there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, there will be an early spring. I was saying to your Dad the other day that I doubt people in the San Francisco Bay area pay much attention to Groundhog Day.

Dear Sam, Already it’s been almost a month and a half, since I’ve written your newsletter. Yet, in some ways it seems to me like I just wrote your month 14 newsletter. I’ll be fascinated to see how both of us have a changing perception of time as we both mature. I remember as a child ((I was about to write ‘kid’ here, but then remembered that as a kid, I wouldn’t let anyone refer to me as ‘kid’ because it (also) meant ‘baby goat.

Dear Sam, It’s been a while since I (Dad) have written your monthly newsletter. I’ve been fortunate that your mom has been willing to take up the challenge during the time that I was out in California without you guys, and during your transition out here. But I’m back (and with a new interface on the blog) and do I get a great month to write about. Tonight, the night of your 14 month birthday, we’re leaving you with a baby sitter for the first time in your life.

Dear Sam, Today you turn 13 months old, which means we have completed the first month of your second year of life. This means that for the past month, we’ve been saying things like “Oh, remember this time last year…?” This time last year you were too small for the Halloween costume we had for you (a black cat), we barely noticed the change back to Standard Time, I was still getting the hang of feeding you, and Daddy and I spent the better part of the days in pajamas.

Dear Sam, Do you hear that noise? That’s your parents laughing and crying and jumping up and down because you turned ONE YEAR old, which means we MADE IT! We survived the first year, and here you are laughing, smiling, talking, and nearly walking. One full orbit around the sun and our newborn blob has become a little person with opinions and personality. Dad and I feel like we can finally breathe after 365 days of worry.