To My Baby-Monkey (Who Is Not Quite A Year Old)

Today you are eleven months old! It sounds strange, but I don't think of you as a baby anymore. You're more like a little foreigner. Like an exchange student from the country of Minutia, where you're all little and yell at each other in strange languages and have to touch everything. Now, I can't find Minutia on the map, but I can kind of guess what it's like from from what I know about you.

First off, there's no gravity where you come from. You have no regard for it because you've never seen it before. It is still an utter shock when you miss a step and fall on your butt. "Where did this ground come from!?". We put you on the bed to play with the kitties and as soon as they jump off, you go right after them, like you got wings or something! You're in America now, little girl! What goes up must come down! It's in the Constitution.

Secondly, where you come from, sometimes things can be solid, then change. You must therefore check everything vigorously and repeatedly to make sure it is still solid. There's nothing as treacherous as a solid thing that's not solid anymore (I guess). But you're very good at it. I'm sure you do your fellow Minutians proud.

And more, I know you're saying something in another language. You have been walking around for weeks saying something that sounds like "pootaapootaapootaa". I swear, I have tried to sound out every variation of things we say to you that might sound like that - dippy? potato? boater? But you'll even say it silently to yourself.

At night when I'm rocking you to sleep, you will open your eyes a little and whisper something, like it's something you just remembered and you have to tell me before you go to sleep. Sometimes when I answer you , you look me in the eyes and say "pootaaapootaapootaa", then fall asleep again.

Other than that you've been a perfect houseguest. I know that one day you'll learn to love our all American, gravity enhanced, constantly-solid lifestyle. You seem to enjoy the food. That's good. Oh, and sorry we won't let you out of the cat door anymore. It was really cute, but you got a little scratch on your leg, and in America we bleed.

I love you very, very much, and will write again soon.

Daddy.