Dear Kelly Belly,

Wow, can you talk.  And talk.  And talk.  I KNOW you’re saying SOMETHING because your talking includes intense eye contact, hand gestures, inflection, and even a little eye rolling (as you point to your sister).  Even the simplest of hellos includes a 40 syllable response from you.  You LOVE to pick up the phone (any phone, all phones, things that aren’t really phones) and have the loveliest conversation.  They are so distinct, those syllables (because you have two volumes: loud and louder), that I feel like any day I’m going to walk into the living room and you will be speaking.

You’ll start mid-thought, as if I’ve understood you all along: “Mommy, you remember the other day when I told you I preferred Hawaiian music to David Bowie?  Well I’ve changed my mind.  “Under Pressure” brought me in touch with some emotions I wasn’t even aware I was having.  Wait a second, is it just me or was there a Reese’s Cup RIGHT THERE like 5 seconds ago?  Where did….oh for Pete’s Sake….SARA!!!!”

I told a small fib about your age in order to get you into gymnastics class.  You are a little too young (for every class in the city…trust me, I’ve called), but I just couldn’t take any more.  You needed an outlet for that awkward, wild energy that threatens you within an inch of your life every single day.  It’s official, there is nothing left in the house to fall off of or into.  You slid like a penguin on your belly into an empty (but WET) tub yesterday.  While holding a toothbrush in your mouth.  You stood up uninjured, soaking wet, and looked at me like, “What?  Oh, like you’ve never done that.”

Your funniest activity is “practicing the door frames”.  You are so tired of running into them that you now PRACTICE.  You get a head start and then charge an open door.  Your head always tilts towards the frame, but if you stay REALLY FOCUSED, you make it through, milliseconds before your head hits the wood.  Then you triumphantly run back into the room and do it all over again.  I don’t think Daddy and I have ever laughed so hard.

Needless to say, you are in love with gymnastics.  Last week you even bounced yourself out.  After a few trips down the tumbling track (a very long trampoline built like a track), you looked at me and said in an exhausted tone, “ALL DONE”.  Your first trip down the track I thought for sure you’d kill yourself.  20 some odd feet of trampoline facing you, and you just took OFF RUNNING.  Full speed, not falling even one time. When you did your first backwards roll down an incline mat, you popped up, hands in the air and yelled, “A HA!!!”  When the teacher thought you might be too small to walk on your hands with your legs propped up on the round rolling mat…well, you showed us both.  Balance beams?  You’re passing on those for now.

Considering you are in the 90th percentile for height, I should expect you to try things that even your sister won’t broach.  After measuring you, your pediatrician looked at the healthy and happy Kel-Belle and said, “You know what they say: you can never be too tall, too blonde, or too rich.”   You know what they say: 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.  I’d better get back to cutting those coupons…

It was a delightful month front to back.  You could read books all day in my lap.  I think I read “No Biting” 50x today.  I love this phase, the intense love of books.  The repetitive part is a bit trying, but you have excellent taste in books.  Thanks to a wonderful family with whom we are carpooling, you are out of the car so much more than last month.  We spend many quiet mornings just sitting on the floor, reading “Raindrop Plop” over and over.  Then we do a little shape sorting, a little giggling.

You finished up the month in a beautiful butterfly costume with wings you didn’t yank off one time.  But Halloween?  You were completely unimpressed.  You and Oliver rode patiently in the wagon with a look of “What the heck are WE EVEN DOING OUT HERE? Begging door to door for candy we have by the bucketloads RIGHT AT OUR FRONT DOOR? Have you forgotten about the bags of candy you bought LAST NIGHT?  This is embarrassing. ”

Oh Kelly, with the oddly white blonde hair and pudgey little belly…I love ya’.  I love you so much it hurts.  You even smell happy.  You’re too busy right now to be rocked or cuddled, but it never fails, if I play Ingrid Michaelson, you always beg to be held while I slow dance, and you bury your face into my neck.  There are no words to describe feeling that much love and wishing to return it, all in a split second.  It is that energy that keeps humanity going in the face of so much change, so much upheaval, so much adversity.

You are the Nexus of Joy,

Mommy