Letter To The Chillins

Dear girls,



as there are two momentous occasions this month (N turning 3, Jé turning 4 months), I figured the only way to get anything written was to do the whole kill two birds with one stone thing. So there you have it.



Let's start with the Moop. You know who you are. It was a big year: Potty training, moving, and becoming a sibling. You have done well with all of them. I'm sure deep down you find it a bit unnerving losing some of the attention you once had, but you never take it out or direct it towards your sister. Whenever you see her, you tickle her face and say, "oh hi yiddo (little) one!" The other morning I came out to find you standing beside the swing (after a rough night, I had put her in there to get an extra hour of sleep between 6:30 and 7:30) talking and giggling with her. It was very cute.



Your memory continues to amaze us - one day you sat down while I was nursing Snugs, opened the Mother Goose anniversary edition, and started rattling off rhymes, one after the other. In fact you have most of your books memorized already, hence me hoping you will get more for your birthday. You love letters and numbers and astounded us over Christmas when you matched stickers with a word and a picture to the corresponding word on the page in the book. Ok, so it's not like you were reading, per se, but hey, it's a start. And a good one at that.


Occasionally we butt heads over things like cleaning up your room, or putting on your winter gear in a timely fashion before Snugs freaks out before we go running, but for the most part I think you're a pretty good kid. Especially when you're with other kids. At the Y you delight in watching other kids, always reporting back to me who got in trouble, etc. The other day you got in the car and said, "a yiddo girl was funny. I made her yaf." I think you meant she made you laugh. Whatever. You showed me what she did and giggled and then you made me laugh.



After you turned 18 months we decided to try giving you cow's milk when previously you had been drinking goat's. We quickly figured out that it didn't agree with you, making you quite irritable. Cheese and yogurt, however, you loved, so we continued to give you those regularly. Well, recently we figured out that some sort of dairy, still not sure if it's cheese or yogurt, wasn't agreeing with you, so now you have none. But fortunately you seem to love soy cheese and can handle lactaid. I know, it sounds strange. Maybe we'll be able to convince your doctor to order up some allergy tests.



Oh, and doctors! Going to midwife appointments with me seems to have sparked quite the interest in the medical field, so much so that the doctor kit we got you for Christmas has hardly gone a day without being used. Traditionally you scream your head off at doctor's appointments but you were a champ at your recent dentist's visit so let's hope your 3 year check-up goes as swimmingly.



You have pretty much given up naps (not that you were ever that great at them), but you are getting better at playing by yourself so life with you is getting to be a lot more fun. Because we spent so much time devoting every available hour sitting and playing with you, I kinda feel guilty that having another kid is taking me from that (though I will admit I neither had the energy nor talent for it that your dad has), that you will feel neglected, but then I think about how I doubt very much anyone did that with me or most other kids to that degree and think you will be just fine. You definitely like one on one interaction but learning to do a bit of imaginative and independent play probably won't hurt you.



You think it's funny to have your picture taken and then close your eyes. On purpose. You also think it's funny to replace lyrics in songs, which is no surprise because I do it all the time. And it is funny.

Another funny thing is that you recently named your first 'friend.' That lion you got at Christmas? Yeah, apparently his name is now "P90X." It makes sense, I guess, because you constantly ask us when we're going to do our 'exercises.' (For anyone that doesn't know, p90x is a series of workout videos.) You're actually better at pull-ups than I am. Believe that. (For the record, your dad has been much more committed to this endeavour.... I prefer classes at the Y for my toning and hey, you love that too!)

Ok, now Snugs. Well, you are still as sweet as can be. You did have a period of about 3 days where you went through a period of what I call "purple whining." I still don't really know what that was all about. Anyway, you need to sleep and eat about every 2 hours and if you're really tired (especially in the morning), you don't want to eat and in fact get VERY mad if I try to make you. That's why I don't even bother trying to nurse you when we get to the Y or when we leave, especially because you are so content to just sit and watch your new surroundings. Seriously. There have been times when you have just SAT in a swing and chilled. For an hour and a half.

Back when your sister was a baby we used to see kids just sitting in strollers, with the strollers not moving and think "really? Babies do that?" Well, we now have that baby. (To a certain extent.) And that baby is you. And it is awesome.

The day before you turned 4 months I put you on your tummy (from my experience with two kids, tummy time is not well-liked and I don't think it's necessary in the grand scheme of development... I think kids will like to hang out on their tummies when they can get there themselves) and voila! You rolled back to your back. The next day, you started rolling from back to tummy. You have done it a few times since but I still wouldn't say you're doing it consistently. Regardless, though, it marks the beginning of a new chapter - a chapter that involves not leaving you on unguarded beds and such anymore.

You have been sleeping with just your legs swaddled as part of our weaning from the swaddle process and for the past couple of weeks have been SLEEPING LIKE CRAP! Ok, I know it could be worse, but it was SO MUCH BETTER a few weeks prior. But then last night you slept from 8 to 5 (and yes, at 4:30 I went in to see if you were still breathing) and then from 5:20 to 7:45 in a sleepsack (swaddle be gone!) so let's hope you're in a new groove and maybe it was the swaddle keeping you up.

Your sister likes to play with you when you're in your little play disk, a disk that rotates and can easily pinch your fingers. I constantly tell her not to turn it when you're in there but the other day I walked away and heard you scream like you were in pain, but then you stopped. When I came back you were twirling the bead ball with one hand while the other one was stuck. It's like you said, "HELP! I'm hurt! Oh, no one came immediately...oh... oh well... I guess I'm ok... hey! pretty balls! I wonder what this does?!" It really amazes me, your lack of commitment to complaining. It's the same lack of commitment that makes you give up your car seat protests in the car and makes driving so much less stressful for me. And I thank you.

Love,

M.