Open Letter to Willa

Dearest Willa,

How you make my heart thump. You attempt things that I never dreamed possible. In our bedroom, you climbed on a stool and then on top of our laundry hamper to reach my perfume bottles. They are way up high on a shelf. You never noticed them before. You didn't even mind that the hamper was collapsing under you. You wanted them that badly.

You constantly stand on the back of the living room couch and attempt to unlock the window above it. It scares me because I know you'll figure out the locks someday. You take the kitchen cabinet locks off and then put them on again, and cheer for yourself when you're done, so the window locks can't be far behind.

Our main floor hardly has any furniture left in it because I have to lock it all on the porch when we're home. Otherwise you'd keep climbing on the countertops. Or you'd flip the light switch on and off forever. But the couch is too big to move. So we're stuck with that one.

In the basement you climb on the back of the couch and attempt to scale the wall to get to an upper window. I saw you stacking things on the back of the couch to stand on to make yourself taller. You are relentless and we can't play in the basement anymore because this is all you want to do.

We went swimming recently and anytime someone touched you in the water you screamed, "No! Myself!" Even though you plunged under the water numerous times, you screamed it over 100 times because you did NOT want any help swimming, NO THANK YOU!

When we are outside you don't want to sit on the swing. You only stand on it and fling yourself around. One day, I saw you perform a full back flip off the swing, land on your feet and keep on running. You're only one year old! What will the future hold for you? Can my heart take it? Please have mercy on your poor mother. I'm feeling old and slow.

Love,
Mom