A Letter to my Daughter on her Third Birthday

To My Dearest Aviendha,

Holy cow, you are three! THREE!  How did that happen?

One day, you are my little baby and then suddenly, you’ve become a passionate, opinionated, talkative, brilliant little girl. It’s amazing.

Over the past year, you’ve moved from your “Avi-ese” language into full blown English. To where strangers can understand you. Granted, they still have some trouble with some words, but you are very good at getting your point across.

This morning was wonderful…you woke up when Daddy was making coffee and I was putting my makeup on, so we got to do a wonderful “Happy Birthday” snuggle. Your Daddy said “Happy Birthday” to you and then asked you how old you were and your little voice shouting “THREEE” so happily made my morning.

You bring so much joy to my world. Fully weaned, sleeping in your own bed and almost totally potty trained – you really are a big girl now.

I cannot wait to see what this next year brings. Whatever it does, it’s going to be amazing.

Because you are incredible. You know when your daddy has a headache or when he is sleeping. It’s normal. You handle it so well and are so amazing.

Just to share the difference a year can make, two different dancing videos. One from your last year birthday and another from this year. You grow up so fast!

2011 Dancing Queen   2012 Dancing Queen

23 Months Old

To my darling daughter,

In a month, you will be two.  It’s crazy to believe that you haven’t been a part of our lives forever!

This past month, you have shown your strength.  You were amazing when we went to the hospital with daddy, not knowing what was going on.  Even though it was so early in the morning, you were charming the nurses and playing with Grammy and just watching what was going on.
You were scared with the feeding tube in his nose and the oxygen tube but we got you settled down and you were still willing to hang out with us in the hospital.

Even moving in with Grandpa and Nana didn’t phase you long. Pretty soon, you had Grandpa wrapped around your finger even more than he use to be.

You ask him to snuggle with your hospital doll Suzie and he does, while you are very busy watching Sesame Street.

He even lets you help him in his shop!

You are such a good helper.

More importantly, I love how much you love your daddy. I’m so very happy that you want to play with him. You love seeing him and when we visit, have to tell him all about your day. Sharing everything in the room and trying to tell him stories. It’s so wonderful. I know you are going to love having him home when he gets out.

Thank you for being my daughter. I love you so much!

Love, your momma!

21 Month Letter

To my rambunctious, temperamental and adorabley smart daughter,

Today you are 21 months.  One month closer to being 2.  This is mind blowing to me.  Wasn’t it just yesterday we were watching you try to roll over?

How did we get to you being able to put your own shoes on (granted, on the wrong feet, but still)?

You still hate to get your hands dirty, but did wonderful at the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday.  We found you a fairly clean pumpkin, and you carried it all by yourself.

You even helped us pick out some funny looking gourds to surprise Uncle Matt with.

Even though you are still working on your English skills (the only word we can translate accurately is shoes), you communicate very well.  We’ve started you on some sign language and you now say “please” whenever you want something.  It’s so cute when you do it, that I pretty much let you nurse almost any time.

So much for weaning.

Some mornings you wake up after I get out of the shower.  You’ll sit in the bathroom with me while I do my hair and makeup, talking.  I imagine you are telling me about your dreams.  If you are anything like your momma and Nana, you will have very vivid and intense dreams.  This morning though, you read to me from The Ear Book.

It was a glorious way to start the morning.  Especially when you then crawled into bed, gave me a kiss goodbye, asked me to kiss daddy goodbye and then waved to me as I left.

No tears.  No cries.  You knew I had to leave and accepted it.

Then there are moments when I can’t believe how little you are.

Seeing you wrapped in my arms, fast asleep, and you are tiny again.  Delicate, precious.

And so loved.

So very very loved.

❤ Your Mommy

Twenty Months

I know it’s a day late, please forgive me, Sugar Nut!

Yesterday was a busy busy day and since we are at our new place, we still don’t have internet, so you’ll have to bear with me.

Yesterday was the day we met little Baby Andrew.

You were, of course, immediately enthralled.  It was a baby!  And since he was only 5 days old, it was easy for you to hold him.  You even gave him kisses.  As always, you were absolutely adorable.  I love how nice you are with babies!  Granted, that also means everyone always asks when you will have a little brother or sister.  We enjoy politely telling them we haven’t decided yet, but chances are, we will only have you as a daughter.  And we are okay with that.  I just hope you will be too.

You are, of course, still totally in love with your puppies.  More importantly, they are even more loving you.  Angel will let you play with her, and both of them LOVE playing fetch.  You’ve learned to pat on the bed or couch to have them jump up and sit on you.  It’s so great seeing how overwhelmingly excited you are when they do that.

You are continuously singing and dancing.  Even the smallest bits of music will get you to bob your head.  You’ve started singing even when there isn’t any music playing.  Babbling on with your own lyrics and a soundtrack that only you hear.  You only sing in a whisper, so anytime I hear that little whisper coming from where you are playing, and see you singing to your babies, my heart just goes pitter-patter.

The day before we moved, we had one last berry picking jaunt.  Your face is so priceless, as is you ability to imitate us.  I’m just continuously shocked at how adult you are becoming.

Your verbalization is changing, finally working out fuller explorations into (as Uncle Matt would say) “real person-hood”.  Your bath time has changed too.  You must actively be doing something, helping us pour water into a cup or putting it in our hands, something.  Anything to help.  The only way we can get you out of the bathtub is if we drain the water first, letting you scoop and pour until the last little bit drains.  Then, with a grin and a giggle, you’ll stand up, arms raised, ready to “shake shake baby”, be wrapped in a towel and ready for bed.

Every month, I write these letters and every month am just overwhelmed with how much more I love you.  My baby is not a baby any more.

With love, always and forever,

Mum

18 Month Letter

Dearest little imp,

You have truly hit the terrible twos.  Early as always.  So grown up.  You’ve discovered the “joys” of temper tantrums when you don’t get what you want.  You have Grandpa, Nana and Grammy wrapped around those little fingers, but we are hoping to train them to react how we do – after making sure you aren’t hurt, ignoring you.  When you don’t have an audience, you definitely stop sooner.  You are learning.  We are hoping this teenage stuff stops for a few more years.

You still sleep with us.  We’re able to get you to sleep by yourself, but after a few hours, you wake up and freak out.  Full blown screams of terror.  That, along with the fact we are hoping to move soon, we’re back to just having you sleep by yourself for naps.  This is hard.  So hard.  I have faith, though, that you’ll be great at sleeping by yourself.  As it is, when it’s bedtime, you plop down with your head on the pillows and pull the covers up over yourself.  We are just about Toddler Bed time, I think that will help.  Probably when we move, we’ll make the switch.

I am excited to move with you.  We’ll live in an apartment complex, which will be sad when it comes to forest…but will be wonderful for you!  There is a swimming pool and a playground and KIDS!  Oh the KIDS!  As it is, when visiting Uncle Matt, you will ask Daddy to open the door to the balcony, walk out with your little feet pitter-patting on the floor, crawl into the deck chair and sit.  For 10, 15, 20 minutes, just watching the big kids run around and play.  You are content.  So content, just to watch.  To absorb.  To dream.  When you get to touch or kiss or play with a baby?  You are in HEAVEN!  The other day when you went with me to meet with Leah, you were content when her kids came home, the two youngest were passed out asleep and her oldest was playing with you.  Dream come true, for sure.

The way you are with babies makes me sure that if we decide to have a second, you will be a wonderful big sister.  As it is, we have decided to hold off making that final decision in a few years.  We know we aren’t ready for a second one now (mostly for financial reasons, but the memories of the pregnancy are still WAY too fresh in my mind) but we are also content with our family as it is.  We haven’t completely counted it out, but in a couple years we will make the decision for yes or no.  I’m cool with that.  Having you as our one and only?  I’d be totally fine with it.  Totally and completely.  Especially since you are a handful…but also a love.  My dear dear one.

Your ability to completely and irrevocably make us fall hopelessly and madly in love with you is a major redeeming quality.  There are moments when we understand why some animals eat their young…..your temper is like your mommy’s.  But then, a heartbeat later, you do something that melts our anger away.

~When you tilt your head to the side and look up at us under your long beautiful lashes, a charming smile on your face.  It’s guaranteed to get a smile from us.

~If you drop anything, it MUST be picked up.  RIGHT THEN!  A cracker at the restaurant?  Down on the floor RIGHT NOW!  The fork from your food?  DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!  A drop of water?  Down and dabbing it with a towel QUICKLY!  Course, this only relates to something you are actively involved in, which is why Grandpa and Nana’s house looks like a tornado blew through while we house sit.

~You know where your nose is.  As in, if we actively ask you to touch your nose, you do it!  When not distracted with anything else anyway.  Next up, your ears.  Hoping when you learn that, you will stop TRYING TO PLUG HEADPHONES AND KEYS INTO THEM!

You love sitting in big people chairs and when we go to restaurants, you most often sit in the booth with us.  It keeps you content for longer and lets you be a big girl.  Especially if you get a cup all your own.  You do fantastically with straws and with real cups, as long as you don’t get too excited and spill it all over you.  This past weekend, we discovered on our 3 hour drive down to see family camping, that you can screw and unscrew the lid on water bottles.  Which you do often.  You’ll unscrew the lid, pose, take a drink, pose, put the lid back on and pose.  With a giggle or two.  Before repeating.  Like most kids, you love repeating anything, but especially when it has to do with drinking.

I love you, sweet pea.  My precious brown eyed girl with the angelic curls.

Happy 18 months.

Love,  Mommy