:D

I can still see your chubby index finger pointing at the cupboard, your blond head tilted just so, while you earnestly asked, "Coooooo-key?"  "Coooo-key?"  Those stinking, pleading, blue eyes would pull me in every time.  I'd come this close to giving you another cookie, before stopping myself knowing full well that your parents would wonder why you were so wired instead of sleeping when they got home.  When you finally learned the difference between pointing at something and bleating "neeeeeed?" and pointing at something and bleating "peeeeez?," well, that was it.  I was done for.  You had your babysitter, a sucker for good manners, wrapped around your little finger.  It's a good thing I'm Asian and know how to draw the line.  Until, of course, you batted those blue eyes at me again.  Damn those eyes.  If I didn't know that it's genetically impossible for my own children to have blue eyes, maybe I wouldn't find them so mesmerizing, eh?

I don't know you anymore, what with the distance and the time that flies and all, but I still have fond memories of reading you stories while you patiently turned the pages, scolding you for sitting on the cat when you were old enough to know that was bad but couldn't talk yet, and how, even before you held the bottle on your own, you drank that milk with more gusto than any kid I knew.  You were a terrific baby.  Do you know that my sister would stop by to say "hello" occasionally?  She didn't even like babies.  You guys made her nervous with all your wiggling and nonverbal-ness, so it took her a while to become a fan.  But you, she took to you pretty quickly.

If you're anything like your parents, I'm sure your Mad Libs antics are straight up witty.  Your drawing looks just like the city.  It is spot on, little dude.

I'm going to stop acting like a weird old woman now.  I just wanted to remind everyone that babies grow fast.  One minute they're hobbling along like drunken sailors and the next minute they're drawing urban skylines and signing their names on thank-you cards.  And do you see the ":D?"  Crazy.