Everyone around me (ok, my Mom & Dad) are really into lists. Ok, mostly, my Mom is into lists. She has a list for everything. What food to buy. Activities. “Important” phone numbers. What food is for dinner. When I go to “daycare” (or better known as “toddler’s united in guilt-tripping parents for abandonment”). And now she keeps looking at lists of what people want so that she can buy them. So, I am making my own list so she can buy things for me. Apparently I have to address it to Santa Fe, although I don’t understand why I would be addressing it to the place we just visited on the Christmas train. Everyone says babies are a mystery but let me tell you it’s actually more the parents who are the weird ones.

Dear Santa Fe,

This Christmas I would like 10 things, which is twice the number my Mom counts to before she pulls me off the bookshelf I’m climbing up and sets me down in time out. I am a good counter (and a good climber too), since I can wait until she get’s to onetwothreefour before I step down and smile at her and then just wait for onetwothree before I step back up to do it again, but that’s another story about climbing. This is my list:

1. I wake up between 3:30 and 4am fresh to start my day. For once, I would like Mom to just bounce up and start cooking me scrambled eggs, actually I like Dad’s omlette’s better but if they both got up one could cook the eggs while the other fed me milk and read me Quick as a Cricket 38 times while I turned the pages.
2. Milk from the bottle. Don’t try to fool me with putting that stuff in a sippy cup, just give me the bottle.

   

   Baby don’t need no “weaning” from bottle. Milk in bottle. Milk in bottle. I repeat myself. I repeat this request every morning, nap, lunch, nap and dinner. Get it straight, Mom, and peeeez (say this and they smile and give you anything) give me mo’ milk in baba.

3. Nu-nu’s and boobs. I know you think it’s cute when I say nu-nu, but if you could just give me the nu-nu now, it would be better. You keep cooing about “how cute it is that I say nu-nu for cookie” but enough is enough I don’t want the green peas or broccoli or whatever is a “cookie,” please just nu-nu’s for every meal with a side of milk bottle. If not nu-nu’s, I could settle for boobs.

   

   Everyone giggles at me but I’m serious, just hand over those little blue berries from the pack in the fridge or even those ones that are really cold in the freezer I just need my daily cup of boob. With mo’ milk, of course.

4. The baby gates were recently removed from our home, which really blew my mind when I got up from nap to find out they voluntarily opened up the entire zoo-maze we inhabit. This freedom makes the powerstrip and the cords that are neatly coiled and hidden (or, were neatly before I started writing this but now I decided to pull them out and play with them) behind the cabinet all the more accessible and alluring. I love to pull and wrap these around my feet and they are especially fun to make necklaces out of and sometimes they are fun to chew on. I am growing new teeth, so I would appreciate Mom & Dad don’t look horrified when they see me chewing on them.
5. I want to feed Risa all of the food off my high chair tray, and I would like to be able to eat her food.

   

   It is small, just right for my hands and I can fit several pieces in my cheeks at one time. I know this from experience. Secondly, when it comes to the dog, I would like to sleep in her bed, not my crib. I love her bed. It is filled with her fuzzy toys much like my toys, and we both like to chew on them and she is warm and fuzzy too much better than my “sleep sack” which really makes it so I can’t escape from crib to dog bed (see below).

6. Prison break. So far I have not been able to escape from my crib. Mom & Dad think this is great, but really, Santa Fe, if you could just sneak my giant teddy bear back into my crib then I could stand on him and get a leg over and out. I’m that close.
7. If I could please use markers to draw always instead of crayons.

   

   I am especially talking about my large canvas, and after this last experience (of drawing on the walls and being scolded) I understand now why so many artists were tormented. They were constrained in their medium and not allowed to fully express themselves, much like I am, always being told to “draw on the paper not the walls/floor/Mom/your face/the dog/etc.”

8. I would like to have Feist come and visit me. She can sing my favorite song for me, with the help of Elmo and friends from Sesame Street. I already ask to watch this every day at least eightsixfifteentwotwelve times a day, so, if I could just get it a few more times that would really make me happy. I also like my Frosty the snowman that sings Frosty the Snowman overandoverandover and i like to make Mom & Dad sing and dance to his song alldayallnight.
9. I like to turn the knobs on the stove.

   

   Sometimes they make Mom and Dad jump up and dance around and it for sure gets them from looking relaxed in the living room into the kitchen with me really fast. Also increases scolding but them sometimes I can look so sad I get nu-nu’s. I like that best, but also they are not very good dancers, like I see from Sesame Street, which makes me sad. In the best of possible scenarios, I would turn all the knobs at once while Sesame Street music was playing and help Mom & Dad practice their dancing while I have nu-nus or boobs and marker on the floor.

10. I just want to bite one person. Every. Single. Day. I know this might be asking a lot. But sometimes I just need to bite someone. Because I’m excited. Or they took the toy from me. Or I want more milk. Or I want my turn on the slide. Or they were hugging me. Or I don’t want to stop turning the stove knobs. Or I can’t have any more nu-nu’s. Or I needed to stretch my neck out and some part of someone was in my way. But, if I could just have one bite per day, that would be ok. I would even be ok if it was just Risa, but she is really furry so maybe I could bite her twice a day. I promise, I’ll be a good little biter.

Thank you very much, Santa Fe, this is another list from someone you maybe were going to forget about kinda like my Mom has been doing lately because she was busy with “giving a final exam” or “had walking pneumonia and was coughing and really sick” or whatever.

My Dad is not much better. Mom says he is “providing for us” by “actually earning money” so she can buy me more nu-nu’s and milk for me but I don’t get it because I really want him just to push me around on my music truck and we can sing sesame street songs together and draw on each other’s faces because Mom doesn’t let me draw on her face but sometimes I can sneak marker onto Dad’s face before he has had coffee. Which brings me back to the first thing on my list. I write this at 3:45 am, and I know they are ignoring me. I won’t go away, but I may just find a new way to accomplish item # 6 if I can get some help from you, Santa Fe.
Thank you,
MariaElena, your 16 month old friend.

ps: mom says to “follow” her @RunMagdalena whatever that means. I follow her everywhere. every day. all the time.