happy birthday, big girl
Dear Mia,
Today is your birthday but we did most of our celebrating yesterday at your party and throughout the day with your grandparents. We are all sick and tired but managed to have a nice day and I was so happy to lay with you and listen to you chatter before you fell asleep tonight. My big three-year-old girl. You have so many questions and observations and recollections I wish I could write them all down. This week you looked out the window and saw the boy across the street spraying water on the lawn and exclaimed, “hey that’s a big spraying mantis!” A few days later when Jessica came to take care of you and told you about Tony’s fender bender, you asked a few minutes later why he had a “thunder bunder.” The best word to describe your personality is intense with a capital “I.” You get so angry that you just stand with your mouth as wide as it will open and yell for the world to hear and yesterday you got hurt and declared that you were “angry at the whole world.” On the other hand you are incredibly cuddly and loving. I can’t imagine many kids your age give as tight of hugs as you do. You hold on with your whole body and don’t let go. I love it more than you can imagine. Sometimes when our faces are close to each other you take my cheeks in your hands and pat them and make your eyes maniacally wide and grin and say “hi mom.” I hope you always have the ability to melt my heart like this. I worry some days about the inevitable challenges that mothers and daughters seem to have and desperately hope we can avoid it even though I don’t know if that’s possible. I have seen it a few times so I know it can happen and I just hope we can figure it out. I feel like I understand you so well right now that maybe, just maybe, that understanding and connection will persevere. No matter how our interactions and relationship changes over time I know that I will always love you more than you can imagine.
This year you mastered riding a tricycle and are close to moving from your balance bike to a real bike. You are strong and coordinated and loving your recent community center gymnastics class. Having Henry to follow is a big part of it but your are both naturally comfortable and in control of your bodies most of the time. Speaking of which, thank you for potty training yourself well over a year ago. When I see other 3-year-olds still in diapers I am very thankful for your tenacity and commitment to the potty at such an early age and thankful that we haven’t had to deal with diapers for so long.
You and Henry have your ups and downs. You immediately want to be with the other first thing in the morning, which isn’t hard since you share a room but inevitably one of you wakes the other up too early. Some days you play beautifully together for hours and some days you aggravate each other more than anything. Often it is a mix but really you do love each other and both care more about telling each other about the events of your days than you do telling your daddy or me. We are all very fortunate to have each other and this isn’t lost on me very often. I could have done without the recent weeks of early spring illness but otherwise our lives are pretty great most days. You wake up smiling and happy and usually fall asleep the same way. Really, I couldn’t ask for anything else.
Today is your birthday but we did most of our celebrating yesterday at your party and throughout the day with your grandparents. We are all sick and tired but managed to have a nice day and I was so happy to lay with you and listen to you chatter before you fell asleep tonight. My big three-year-old girl. You have so many questions and observations and recollections I wish I could write them all down. This week you looked out the window and saw the boy across the street spraying water on the lawn and exclaimed, “hey that’s a big spraying mantis!” A few days later when Jessica came to take care of you and told you about Tony’s fender bender, you asked a few minutes later why he had a “thunder bunder.” The best word to describe your personality is intense with a capital “I.” You get so angry that you just stand with your mouth as wide as it will open and yell for the world to hear and yesterday you got hurt and declared that you were “angry at the whole world.” On the other hand you are incredibly cuddly and loving. I can’t imagine many kids your age give as tight of hugs as you do. You hold on with your whole body and don’t let go. I love it more than you can imagine. Sometimes when our faces are close to each other you take my cheeks in your hands and pat them and make your eyes maniacally wide and grin and say “hi mom.” I hope you always have the ability to melt my heart like this. I worry some days about the inevitable challenges that mothers and daughters seem to have and desperately hope we can avoid it even though I don’t know if that’s possible. I have seen it a few times so I know it can happen and I just hope we can figure it out. I feel like I understand you so well right now that maybe, just maybe, that understanding and connection will persevere. No matter how our interactions and relationship changes over time I know that I will always love you more than you can imagine.
This year you mastered riding a tricycle and are close to moving from your balance bike to a real bike. You are strong and coordinated and loving your recent community center gymnastics class. Having Henry to follow is a big part of it but your are both naturally comfortable and in control of your bodies most of the time. Speaking of which, thank you for potty training yourself well over a year ago. When I see other 3-year-olds still in diapers I am very thankful for your tenacity and commitment to the potty at such an early age and thankful that we haven’t had to deal with diapers for so long.
You and Henry have your ups and downs. You immediately want to be with the other first thing in the morning, which isn’t hard since you share a room but inevitably one of you wakes the other up too early. Some days you play beautifully together for hours and some days you aggravate each other more than anything. Often it is a mix but really you do love each other and both care more about telling each other about the events of your days than you do telling your daddy or me. We are all very fortunate to have each other and this isn’t lost on me very often. I could have done without the recent weeks of early spring illness but otherwise our lives are pretty great most days. You wake up smiling and happy and usually fall asleep the same way. Really, I couldn’t ask for anything else.
posted by mama without instructions at 7:28 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, three.
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