Lucidia Lohman

Oh, the things you can do!

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again.
~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

Oh, my dear Lulu, how you are growing, changing, and evolving! From a mushy, squishy, ever-so-adorable-yet-ridiculously-helpless newborn to an amazingly independent, almost-11-month-old, bright-eyed girl. You are beyond words.

You are smiling all the time, rolling, and crawling (and you’re not just inch-worming it anymore; you are on your hands and knees!).

You are also

• standing
• pulling yourself up
• exploring
• licking (yes, licking) the cats and pulling their tails
• learning that things do not go into electrical outlets
• discovering a bag of potatoes Mom and Dad forgot about and letting them all drop on the floor while you sit there talking to each and every one of them
• spitting out your food (because you think it’s hilarious to watch the food fall out onto the highchair or floor)
• refusing to eat baby food but gobbling up chicken, pancakes, vegetables (even celery!), pork, fruits galore, turkey,  and random puffs and Cheerios you find on the floor even though Mom and Dad vacuumed, like, 45 times that day
• making our hearts light up with pride every time you smile at us

Yes, it’s true, Little Lulu. You’re not so little anymore. You’re half my height now, and you weigh almost 23 pounds. Your hair has filled in, your eyes keep getting brighter and bigger, and you are exploring. You want to know everything there is to know about everything. You want to use all five senses as much as possible.

You’re trying to walk. Did I mention that? You are! You’ll even move your feet correctly if I support you with my hands, and you and I will walk down the hall together. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.

You will drop everything you’re doing if you hear Baby Einstein somewhere in the distance. And I mean everything, even the cat.

But I don’t want you to grow up too fast. Or too slow. That implies there is some objective set of criteria you have to meet, some sort of predetermined rubric you need to live up to. No. That’s not here. Not in this house. The only thing you need to do is be you and do the things you want to do.

We named you Lucidia because we want you to maintain lucidity in all things, a sense of clarity and critical thought not found often in people. We want you to have that, to remember that you have that, and to use it. Because, oh, the things you can do, Lulu, when you have the capability and the drive. You will be unstoppable.

Heck. You already are.

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