Dear Eleri,
You are certainly definite about things. You always have been--I don't know why we think you're not. We're always asking, are you suuuurrre? Are you suuuurre? But guess what? You're sure.
You recently decided to cut your hair short. For several days I asked if you were certain. Finally you said to me, I am cutting my hair short. Here are my reasons: It will be easier to comb. It will be cooler in the summer. And it will grow back in the winter, like sheeps' fur. Like wool.
I mean. There's no arguing with that. I guess the thing is: I am not sure. You know your mind but sometimes you get blurry around the edges for me. Like how I think of you as little, but if I really look, I will see that you have grown tall and lean. That your legs are long and you just might be gaining on Clio is the height department. (People often think you guys are twins. Isn't that funny? We think it's the glasses. And the exact-same-colored hair.) But apart from that, you are opposites. I'm sure I've written of it here. You eat dessert first while Clio saves the best for last. She's up with the sun and you drag yourself out of bed at the last possible moment.
(fast forward to December!)
I could go on forever with the opposites. You have a major sweet tooth and Clio prefers savory. In piano, you are musical while Clio is technical. When you started at your new school this fall, Clio joined every club under the sun and you whittled back to the minimum. (We let you quit dance, but not piano.) I think you knew yourself well enough to know that everything you had would go to the transition. To all of that NEW stuff. This is what amazes you about me, about the sureness: at seven, you have tremendous self knowledge, and like your father, you are true to you. Your goal is not to please others. This is a gift I hope you keep.
Things get muddled when I write your letter in two halves. It's like these overlapping snapshots, like a double exposure (now that's a reference you will likely have to look up!) This summer was hard and I got way behind. So now I am writing my memory of your seventh birthday more than the moment itself.
For your birthday party this year we went to the paint your own pottery place again, an independent one in Northeast, where they also make all the mugs for the Renaissance festival. You painted tiles, flat tiles that can be used for trivets. We have continued our tradition of letting you design your cake, and this year it was yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting and your name spelled out across them. For your Biggest Gift you for an American Girl Just Like Me Doll, and we went to the store together to pick out blue glasses, like yours. You were pretty awed by the store (even though you went there with your Dolly and Me camp and bought a dalmatian puppy with your own money.) This is something I love about you: big feelings.
Of course, that works both ways and there are challenging feelings, too. You get VERY frustrated and you are still grinding your teeth. (It drives daddy crazy. I had to look it up to reassure him that you won't wreck your teeth.) Piano frustrates you. Having to change gears too quickly frustrates you. Bedtime frustrates you, and being bored, and ending screen time. You LOVE your screen time. All your grandparents have ipads now and are more liberal letting you play then we are. You are really good at Temple Run and you love playing Minecraft. You continue to prefer being home and inside than anywhere else. You spend hours in your own world. When you do want to connect, I love that you are still like a little girl. You still willingly hold my hand and kiss me on the lips. You still snuggle and sit in my lap (in fact, you constantly wriggle into my lap when I am at the computer). You are also learning to navigate being a bigger kid. You finally decided that you wanted your own room, and we surprised you with makeovers after a week at Grandma's this summer. When you came home, the first thing you did was write a sign: Eleri's Room: Keep Out. I reminded you that you might want some access to Clio's room (which was, in fact, your room too, for a long time), and you changed the sign. Now it reads, Eleri's Room: Welcome! And it still hangs there.
I've been thinking about writing another one of these letters, about your transition to Lake Country, but I suppose it makes more sense to bring it up here. You were not happy about leaving Bright Water. (It was a lot to ask, we know.) You cried the first day when I dropped you off. But when I picked you up three hours later, you were a different child. You were your delighted self. A while ago, the difference between your two schools came up in conversation, and I asked you which school you preferred. "Lake Country," you said (to my relief). I asked you why, and I thought you would say because of Art. Or Gym. Or the Land School. all of those "extras" that we are all enjoying. But you said, "because I get to make my own work plan." This is partly the power of Montessori, but mostly, I think this is all you: my independent girl.
I have a hard time finding the pace of these letters once I have lost the original thread. These are moments when I feel terrible, shortchanging you, but one thing I am trying to learn myself is a little perspective. Then I pat myself on the back and instead of thinking, Oh, I'm so late with Eleri's letter! I think, isn't it wonderful that I am leaving my girls this record of their childhood? And I hope that's what you take from it: my love and awe of you.
Know what else? Next year, I'm writing your letter first.
Love you so much, my Elly-Belly.
Mommy
Showing posts with label Letters to Eleri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Letters to Eleri. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
A Letter From Your Mother So Belated I can Hardly Name a Milestone
Dear Eleri,
I have thought of this letter often in the many months that have happened since your 6th birthday. I have thought of it on major milestones: A Letter From Your Mother on the First Day of First Grade; A Letter From Your Mother on Losing Your First Tooth (and Second!) A Letter From Your Mother at 6 and a Quarter and a wee bit. Where has this year gone?
Here's where I kind of messed this up: These letters are supposed to be snapshots in time to chart your growth and development, and of course the "moment in time" I chose is your annual birthday. You have grown and changed so, so, so much since you turned six last July. But also, you are who you are.
The way I was planning to start your letter back then holds true today: You are an artist. Over the years I have come to understand that artists are not simply (necesarrily) people who make art. Artists tend to see the world differently. You have your own lens and I am always surprised by the questions you ask, the things you notice and observe, the connections you make. Your mind is always going, and there is something magical in your processing; I sometimes wonder if it has to do with your eyesight and how you literally see the world, the transformation from blur and color when you put your glasses on and shapes become things. t's not just visual, though. When you play the piano, you are as much about dynamics as you are notes, and I swear you are aiming for the musical, the feel of a song, not the technical. You sway when you plan. You dance around the kitchen with ballet arms. You put together the MOST amazing outfits. You make paint out of chalk.
I would say you also have an artistic temperament, which, as I say this and know it means fiery, it means emotional, it means unpredictable, the term doesn't seem completely fair to artists as a group, does it? But you, my dear, are these things. Fiery. Emotional. Unpredictable. It's mostly that your emotions can turn on a dime. You will be quietly playing on the floor for hours, and a small disturbance may send you into a brief and inexplicable rage. (I fear that, in this way, you are so my child.) You often feel wronged. Putting your shoes on before you are ready is such a burden. Lots is not fair. Your new thing is cracking your teeth when you are sad or angry or frustrated or stressed. It drives daddy crazy. I looked it up and saw some horrible pictures of baby teeth ground down, together with assurances that 6 year olds do this, that you should grow out of it, that there's no real harm done. We'll see. Do you know you used to gnaw on the spines of board book? That you chewed up your crib? (Surely you do: it must be in one of these letters.)
School has been a roller coaster this year. You were excited to start first grade. (We always have such trepidation about transition for you, and ultimately you do fine when you know what's coming. At dance at the beginning of this year, you were shocked to discover that your class was not all the ame students and the same teacher as last year. The first class you sat behind me. The second, you sat in the room on your own. But the third week, you participated, and now you are one of the best students. You listen. You do as you are asked. You remember the counting and the steps. I digress.) You were excited to start first grade, but your classroom was a challenging one. This winter, for the first time, we heard cried from you that you hated school. You were sick a lot, too, which probably didn't help. You missed quite a bit of school. But now! Now you come home just bubbling over with words for all you want to share. You just talk and talk and talk, which is kind of a new things for you. You are being invited to second year lessons, and you LOVE being part of things with the older kids. The class you are in this year is a new class, and it is transitional--K, 1, 2--and I believe you were placed there to be a leader in your quiet way. You lead by example, and in the classroom you do your work, you focus, and you share your experiences with others.
I'm trying to think back to who you were last summer. For your birthday party, we planned to paint our own pottery with you friends, but your July birthday is a challenge and no one could come! So we made it a family party and it was mostly adults in the pottery studio. Papa painted a frog. Nonny made an ugly mug. Daddy made our butter dish (I wonder if we will still have it when you read this?) You got to paint two things, because you were the birthday girl. You chose a dragon first, and then a small cross. You had recently attended Church Camp and you were interested in God. On your actual birthday we had some friends from school over to our house, and painted flower pots and played games. Your streak of designing your own birthday cake continued, and you insisted on six layers and peppermint frosting. In this, your dad obliged you.
Your wish list included lots of My Little Pony and Our Generation doll accessories. We got you a huge set of magna tiles and I swear, we could do away with everything but those (and the set of small rubber animals), and you could still play for hours. You are more into TV and computer games. Your favorite at the start of the year was My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Now you love Wild Kratts, Magic School bus, and (ugh!) Ever After High. You love reading graphic novels.
Eleri, it's 6 am (Clio woke me before 5), and I am so glad I finally sat down and wrote this letter. Please know that while it took a long time to get it down, it was not an after thought. I am thinking about you, who you are, how you are growing, all the time. I love watching you grow and change. I am always so surprised by you, and I love the things you point out to me, the things I am too busy to see, or that are simply not evident to me in the world as I look at it. I look forward to glimpsing the magic of your world, of learning from you, every day, always.
I love you,
Mommy
I have thought of this letter often in the many months that have happened since your 6th birthday. I have thought of it on major milestones: A Letter From Your Mother on the First Day of First Grade; A Letter From Your Mother on Losing Your First Tooth (and Second!) A Letter From Your Mother at 6 and a Quarter and a wee bit. Where has this year gone?
Here's where I kind of messed this up: These letters are supposed to be snapshots in time to chart your growth and development, and of course the "moment in time" I chose is your annual birthday. You have grown and changed so, so, so much since you turned six last July. But also, you are who you are.
The way I was planning to start your letter back then holds true today: You are an artist. Over the years I have come to understand that artists are not simply (necesarrily) people who make art. Artists tend to see the world differently. You have your own lens and I am always surprised by the questions you ask, the things you notice and observe, the connections you make. Your mind is always going, and there is something magical in your processing; I sometimes wonder if it has to do with your eyesight and how you literally see the world, the transformation from blur and color when you put your glasses on and shapes become things. t's not just visual, though. When you play the piano, you are as much about dynamics as you are notes, and I swear you are aiming for the musical, the feel of a song, not the technical. You sway when you plan. You dance around the kitchen with ballet arms. You put together the MOST amazing outfits. You make paint out of chalk.
I would say you also have an artistic temperament, which, as I say this and know it means fiery, it means emotional, it means unpredictable, the term doesn't seem completely fair to artists as a group, does it? But you, my dear, are these things. Fiery. Emotional. Unpredictable. It's mostly that your emotions can turn on a dime. You will be quietly playing on the floor for hours, and a small disturbance may send you into a brief and inexplicable rage. (I fear that, in this way, you are so my child.) You often feel wronged. Putting your shoes on before you are ready is such a burden. Lots is not fair. Your new thing is cracking your teeth when you are sad or angry or frustrated or stressed. It drives daddy crazy. I looked it up and saw some horrible pictures of baby teeth ground down, together with assurances that 6 year olds do this, that you should grow out of it, that there's no real harm done. We'll see. Do you know you used to gnaw on the spines of board book? That you chewed up your crib? (Surely you do: it must be in one of these letters.)
School has been a roller coaster this year. You were excited to start first grade. (We always have such trepidation about transition for you, and ultimately you do fine when you know what's coming. At dance at the beginning of this year, you were shocked to discover that your class was not all the ame students and the same teacher as last year. The first class you sat behind me. The second, you sat in the room on your own. But the third week, you participated, and now you are one of the best students. You listen. You do as you are asked. You remember the counting and the steps. I digress.) You were excited to start first grade, but your classroom was a challenging one. This winter, for the first time, we heard cried from you that you hated school. You were sick a lot, too, which probably didn't help. You missed quite a bit of school. But now! Now you come home just bubbling over with words for all you want to share. You just talk and talk and talk, which is kind of a new things for you. You are being invited to second year lessons, and you LOVE being part of things with the older kids. The class you are in this year is a new class, and it is transitional--K, 1, 2--and I believe you were placed there to be a leader in your quiet way. You lead by example, and in the classroom you do your work, you focus, and you share your experiences with others.
I'm trying to think back to who you were last summer. For your birthday party, we planned to paint our own pottery with you friends, but your July birthday is a challenge and no one could come! So we made it a family party and it was mostly adults in the pottery studio. Papa painted a frog. Nonny made an ugly mug. Daddy made our butter dish (I wonder if we will still have it when you read this?) You got to paint two things, because you were the birthday girl. You chose a dragon first, and then a small cross. You had recently attended Church Camp and you were interested in God. On your actual birthday we had some friends from school over to our house, and painted flower pots and played games. Your streak of designing your own birthday cake continued, and you insisted on six layers and peppermint frosting. In this, your dad obliged you.
Your wish list included lots of My Little Pony and Our Generation doll accessories. We got you a huge set of magna tiles and I swear, we could do away with everything but those (and the set of small rubber animals), and you could still play for hours. You are more into TV and computer games. Your favorite at the start of the year was My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Now you love Wild Kratts, Magic School bus, and (ugh!) Ever After High. You love reading graphic novels.
Eleri, it's 6 am (Clio woke me before 5), and I am so glad I finally sat down and wrote this letter. Please know that while it took a long time to get it down, it was not an after thought. I am thinking about you, who you are, how you are growing, all the time. I love watching you grow and change. I am always so surprised by you, and I love the things you point out to me, the things I am too busy to see, or that are simply not evident to me in the world as I look at it. I look forward to glimpsing the magic of your world, of learning from you, every day, always.
I love you,
Mommy
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
A letter from your mother well past the occasion of your 5th birthday
Dear Eleri,
This letter is long overdue.
The idea with these letters, of course, is to offer a snapshot of who you are as you pass the annual milestone, as you complete another journey around the sun. But as you get bigger, become more you, there is so much I have to say that it is challenging to write two birthday letters in one week, especially when that week involves two (or more) birthday parties. Last year, Clio's was late. I suppose that makes it your turn.
The once nice thing about the lateness of this letter is that I have thought about it nearly daily, which means that I have had my eyes and ears open to YOU daily. The less convenient thing is that you are not the same kid today as you were on July 9 of this year. You are taller and slimmer and have shed the last of the "babyness" that children carry up to kindergarten. You are a kindergartner! You went to day camp for the first time, you know how to play Hot Cross Buns on the piano (or keyboard, as you are bound to correct), you started dance class, you got (much needed!) glasses.
But here is how I was going to start this letter back in July, if I had written it down.
Dear Eleri,
You are a hard nut to crack.
On our vacation in South Dakota, our friend Justin said "when Eleri looks at me, it is like she is thinking 27 questions, some of them in languages that have not yet been invented." He said this and I thought: exactly.
You do ask a lot of questions, my love. You want to know everything.
At your 5 year check up, they tested your eyes. They sent us to the eye Dr.--do not pass go, do not collect $100--and we discovered that you are extremely far sighted. You are a +8! some glasses-wearing friends tell me that this means you have been living in an impressionistic painting. After we got your prescription we went immediately to pick out your glasses, and you were very definite about the process, but you wanted to try them ALL on. Then Daddy and I went to a wedding and you went to Grandma and Grandpa's and you came back too late to make it to the store to pick up the new glasses and it kept getting delayed and I was so worried. How is she navigating the world when she can't see? I thought. Of course, you had been doing just fine all along, but all of a sudden, knowing that the world was different through your eyes, I worried.
When we finally did go to Owl Optical to pick up your glasses, you were VERY excited. Julie put them on you and you turned around and ran to the door. It was so unexpected! I don't know what that was about really--were you trying to see outside? To look at the sky? Did you think you were done? That it was time to go home?--but then you came back to me, and you put your hands on my cheeks and looked straight in to me in that way that you can, and you said, "Mama! Mama, your face isn't blurry." And I nearly burst in to tears right there. You rarely call me Mama. And just to think...
This is part of your being-5 story, and I think how marvelous it must be, in a way, to see the world clearly for the first time when you already know so much about it. I wish I could understand that change, and when we first got your glasses I looked through them, thinking that what I saw through your glasses was the same as what you saw without them; but of course this is not true. I wish I could know the world you see. Maybe when you are older you'll be able to tell me.
But this is not all of your being-5 story. You were shy. You used to take a long time to warm up, and I wonder if that has actually changed now, or if I just think it has. And if it HAS changed, I wonder if it is because you are 5 now, older, or if it is because you can see clearly around you the faces of people who want to know you, to be your friend.
At the back to school Ice Cream Social, you wrote on your "goal fish": Make a new friend. And then you set this wish free in the river of the library bulletin board. I hope you will make new friends. You are introverted. Ms. Christine stopped doing show and tell in your classroom, but in the spring she would make special exceptions for you. If you wanted to put yourself out there in front of the class, her answer was yes. Even when you wanted to "show" a toy--against the show and tell rules. You are still close with Adele, but we don't hear about her as much anymore. I think she is a lot of work for you. Your teachers say they are glad of the friendship for her sake, and their sake, that you help them a lot. But that they hope you will make other friends, for your sake.
You are so capable. So capable, but not always willing. You have little jobs now, and though you are an excellent folder of napkins, you often resist putting them out at mealtime. You are motivated by the big pay off. I can't get you to sit and read Step Into Reading books, but this morning in the car you were sounding out Secrets of Droon. You like fine, detail work. Finger knitting, "real" knitting," embroidery, bead work. In South Dakota, we saw scientists carefully removing silt from fossils. This very close, slow, fastidious work, and I thought, that's something you might do. You have tremendous patience (until you don't) and focus (it can still be very difficult to get your attention when you are engrossed), but you also can get very frustrated. You still deal with that frustration physically sometimes, and I'm no longer the only one who bears the brunt of it. You hit your sister, too. Lately, you stomp your foot a lot, hard. Daddy has been suggesting karate, and i think you might be ready.
You want to take the harp, too. Last winter I asked if you wanted music lessons (I am always asking this.) "Yes, please," you said. "I think I'll play the harp." The harp! Naturally I thought it was passing fancy, but last week you asked again. Clio's piano teacher is looking for a teacher for you, but in the meantime you play a lot of air piano in the back seat, and Clio has proved to be quite a good teacher.
What else can I tell you?
You are still quite funny. You have always had good comic timing, and it seems to be something you won't outgrow. You still love sweets, and now you have learned that it's funny if you just say "SUGAR!!!" when someone asks what kind of dessert you want. You love leopard print all of a sudden, and chose matching corduroys, shirt, and dress, and looked for shoes, too; you wear it all with a leopard coat and hat and it is quite a sight. You continue to be stubborn and resistant. There were many tears this summer when daddy taught you to ride a bike. But here's the thing: you learned to ride a bike! You are still willing to snuggle with me (though not always), still JUST small enough to curl in my lap with my chin on your head. Tonight, I picked you up upside down in your towel after your bath, and cradled you up, and after you stopped laughing, you said, "I'm a baby!"
You are not a baby anymore kiddo, but you will always be MY baby, and boy, do I love you.
Eleri noodle, we love you oodles and oodles and oodles.
Love,
Mama.
This letter is long overdue.
The idea with these letters, of course, is to offer a snapshot of who you are as you pass the annual milestone, as you complete another journey around the sun. But as you get bigger, become more you, there is so much I have to say that it is challenging to write two birthday letters in one week, especially when that week involves two (or more) birthday parties. Last year, Clio's was late. I suppose that makes it your turn.
The once nice thing about the lateness of this letter is that I have thought about it nearly daily, which means that I have had my eyes and ears open to YOU daily. The less convenient thing is that you are not the same kid today as you were on July 9 of this year. You are taller and slimmer and have shed the last of the "babyness" that children carry up to kindergarten. You are a kindergartner! You went to day camp for the first time, you know how to play Hot Cross Buns on the piano (or keyboard, as you are bound to correct), you started dance class, you got (much needed!) glasses.
But here is how I was going to start this letter back in July, if I had written it down.
Dear Eleri,
You are a hard nut to crack.
On our vacation in South Dakota, our friend Justin said "when Eleri looks at me, it is like she is thinking 27 questions, some of them in languages that have not yet been invented." He said this and I thought: exactly.
You do ask a lot of questions, my love. You want to know everything.
At your 5 year check up, they tested your eyes. They sent us to the eye Dr.--do not pass go, do not collect $100--and we discovered that you are extremely far sighted. You are a +8! some glasses-wearing friends tell me that this means you have been living in an impressionistic painting. After we got your prescription we went immediately to pick out your glasses, and you were very definite about the process, but you wanted to try them ALL on. Then Daddy and I went to a wedding and you went to Grandma and Grandpa's and you came back too late to make it to the store to pick up the new glasses and it kept getting delayed and I was so worried. How is she navigating the world when she can't see? I thought. Of course, you had been doing just fine all along, but all of a sudden, knowing that the world was different through your eyes, I worried.
When we finally did go to Owl Optical to pick up your glasses, you were VERY excited. Julie put them on you and you turned around and ran to the door. It was so unexpected! I don't know what that was about really--were you trying to see outside? To look at the sky? Did you think you were done? That it was time to go home?--but then you came back to me, and you put your hands on my cheeks and looked straight in to me in that way that you can, and you said, "Mama! Mama, your face isn't blurry." And I nearly burst in to tears right there. You rarely call me Mama. And just to think...
This is part of your being-5 story, and I think how marvelous it must be, in a way, to see the world clearly for the first time when you already know so much about it. I wish I could understand that change, and when we first got your glasses I looked through them, thinking that what I saw through your glasses was the same as what you saw without them; but of course this is not true. I wish I could know the world you see. Maybe when you are older you'll be able to tell me.
But this is not all of your being-5 story. You were shy. You used to take a long time to warm up, and I wonder if that has actually changed now, or if I just think it has. And if it HAS changed, I wonder if it is because you are 5 now, older, or if it is because you can see clearly around you the faces of people who want to know you, to be your friend.
At the back to school Ice Cream Social, you wrote on your "goal fish": Make a new friend. And then you set this wish free in the river of the library bulletin board. I hope you will make new friends. You are introverted. Ms. Christine stopped doing show and tell in your classroom, but in the spring she would make special exceptions for you. If you wanted to put yourself out there in front of the class, her answer was yes. Even when you wanted to "show" a toy--against the show and tell rules. You are still close with Adele, but we don't hear about her as much anymore. I think she is a lot of work for you. Your teachers say they are glad of the friendship for her sake, and their sake, that you help them a lot. But that they hope you will make other friends, for your sake.
You are so capable. So capable, but not always willing. You have little jobs now, and though you are an excellent folder of napkins, you often resist putting them out at mealtime. You are motivated by the big pay off. I can't get you to sit and read Step Into Reading books, but this morning in the car you were sounding out Secrets of Droon. You like fine, detail work. Finger knitting, "real" knitting," embroidery, bead work. In South Dakota, we saw scientists carefully removing silt from fossils. This very close, slow, fastidious work, and I thought, that's something you might do. You have tremendous patience (until you don't) and focus (it can still be very difficult to get your attention when you are engrossed), but you also can get very frustrated. You still deal with that frustration physically sometimes, and I'm no longer the only one who bears the brunt of it. You hit your sister, too. Lately, you stomp your foot a lot, hard. Daddy has been suggesting karate, and i think you might be ready.
You want to take the harp, too. Last winter I asked if you wanted music lessons (I am always asking this.) "Yes, please," you said. "I think I'll play the harp." The harp! Naturally I thought it was passing fancy, but last week you asked again. Clio's piano teacher is looking for a teacher for you, but in the meantime you play a lot of air piano in the back seat, and Clio has proved to be quite a good teacher.
What else can I tell you?
You are still quite funny. You have always had good comic timing, and it seems to be something you won't outgrow. You still love sweets, and now you have learned that it's funny if you just say "SUGAR!!!" when someone asks what kind of dessert you want. You love leopard print all of a sudden, and chose matching corduroys, shirt, and dress, and looked for shoes, too; you wear it all with a leopard coat and hat and it is quite a sight. You continue to be stubborn and resistant. There were many tears this summer when daddy taught you to ride a bike. But here's the thing: you learned to ride a bike! You are still willing to snuggle with me (though not always), still JUST small enough to curl in my lap with my chin on your head. Tonight, I picked you up upside down in your towel after your bath, and cradled you up, and after you stopped laughing, you said, "I'm a baby!"
You are not a baby anymore kiddo, but you will always be MY baby, and boy, do I love you.
Eleri noodle, we love you oodles and oodles and oodles.
Love,
Mama.
Monday, July 9, 2012
A Letter From Your Mother on the Occasion of Your Fourth Birthday
Eleri bellery pudding and pie,
Eleri belle, belle-belle, baby noodle, noodley toodles.
Today you are four years old.
You're a funny girl, did you know that? You have this amazing natural comic timing that makes us all laugh. To be honest, half the time I'm not sure you know why it's funny, which part was the punchline, but of course you love cracking us up just the same. Your silly faces and crazy dances. Your jokes--it feels like you have been telling honest-to-goodness jokes since you could speak. Remember the one about the eyeballs? I think it was one of your first full sentences.
When you are not being silly, you are working with laser focus. You are so deep in concentration (or in your own little world) that it can take physical intervention to get your attention. Just saying your name is not enough: we need to put a hand on your shoulder, brush back your hair, lift your chin to make eye contact. Then you can hear us.
You continue to do things all in your own good time. And let's be honest, your speed settings do not include "quick." In your end of school report, your teachers wrote that you understand the rules of the community, but take your own sweet time complying. We are no strangers to this at home. When you change outfits a million times a day, it is because you are "too sweaty." When you do not want to pick up toys (and really, do you ever?), "Clio left it out." But when you want to help, oh you are marvelous. Scraping carrots (to their core.) Mixing batter for cake or muffins (and licking the beater as reward. Did I ever tell you that you got your chin stuck in one of those once?) Watering the plants or folding napkins.
You are also stubborn, and will do it your way or not at all. Luckily, your way is usually agreeable. But not always. You sure do know how to stonewall your sister. In the car on the drive to school, you often want stories. You two never, ever want the same one on the same day (even though the list we choose from is only 4 or 5 long.) You would rather have no story than not-your-story, and compromise often means Clio caving. At night, too, when you each choose songs, you are not very diplomatic if you don't like Clio's choice. You will simply shriek over me singing. The solution has been for me to whisper-sing Clio's song right in her ear, and since she loves this, it works out just fine. But why does it need to be this way, my dear? And really, enough already with the shrieking. I have had to pull the car over and park until you stop.
You are fond of "trickin." (Clio is too.) Like pretending to suck your thumb pretty flagrantly until we tell you to stop, and it turns out you were just pretending, your thumb tucked inside your fist. You use "trickin" as an excuse sometimes, too. You do not like washing your hands, and sometimes after you use the bathroom you lie and say you have; when called out, you say you were "just trickin." We got good smelling soap now, so the new drill is to let us smell your hands for proof. Now when we ask and you have perhaps misled us, you just say "oh, I forgot" and wash 'em up.
You hear everything. Yesterday, walking to your birthday party, I heard you saying "god dammit god dammit god dammit" under your breath, just totally matter of fact. You must have heard me say this (probably in the car under poor driving conditions) and you were just testing it out. Right? But it was somehow so endearing, and also funny, and we often have to remind ourselves not to laugh at things we don't want repeated.
You (still) don't like change. At the beginning of the summer program, when the class size is down and the groups get mixed, I walked you to another classroom and you just pointed at yours and burst into tears. But maybe, as things change less for you and you gain a sense of security, this will begin to ebb. Tomorrow you will go to summer school in the school's new building, and when I mentioned this yesterday your response was unbridled (and uncharacteristic) enthusiasm. We'll see what tomorrow brings. This fall, though, you will return to the same class and the same teachers as last year. With four different classrooms under your belt in four short years, I think this is the year where you finally get to really settle in. I'm curious to see what that will bring for you.
As I think about it, four may also be the last year that is sort of "simple," from a parenting perspective. This is the funny thing about parenting: the second time around, we recognize our own phases, not just yours. Perhaps this means I will remember to slow down and enjoy it just a little more. I can't wait to spend it with you.
Happy Birthday, big four year old.
Love,
Mommy
Eleri belle, belle-belle, baby noodle, noodley toodles.
Today you are four years old.
You're a funny girl, did you know that? You have this amazing natural comic timing that makes us all laugh. To be honest, half the time I'm not sure you know why it's funny, which part was the punchline, but of course you love cracking us up just the same. Your silly faces and crazy dances. Your jokes--it feels like you have been telling honest-to-goodness jokes since you could speak. Remember the one about the eyeballs? I think it was one of your first full sentences.
When you are not being silly, you are working with laser focus. You are so deep in concentration (or in your own little world) that it can take physical intervention to get your attention. Just saying your name is not enough: we need to put a hand on your shoulder, brush back your hair, lift your chin to make eye contact. Then you can hear us.
You continue to do things all in your own good time. And let's be honest, your speed settings do not include "quick." In your end of school report, your teachers wrote that you understand the rules of the community, but take your own sweet time complying. We are no strangers to this at home. When you change outfits a million times a day, it is because you are "too sweaty." When you do not want to pick up toys (and really, do you ever?), "Clio left it out." But when you want to help, oh you are marvelous. Scraping carrots (to their core.) Mixing batter for cake or muffins (and licking the beater as reward. Did I ever tell you that you got your chin stuck in one of those once?) Watering the plants or folding napkins.
You are also stubborn, and will do it your way or not at all. Luckily, your way is usually agreeable. But not always. You sure do know how to stonewall your sister. In the car on the drive to school, you often want stories. You two never, ever want the same one on the same day (even though the list we choose from is only 4 or 5 long.) You would rather have no story than not-your-story, and compromise often means Clio caving. At night, too, when you each choose songs, you are not very diplomatic if you don't like Clio's choice. You will simply shriek over me singing. The solution has been for me to whisper-sing Clio's song right in her ear, and since she loves this, it works out just fine. But why does it need to be this way, my dear? And really, enough already with the shrieking. I have had to pull the car over and park until you stop.
You are fond of "trickin." (Clio is too.) Like pretending to suck your thumb pretty flagrantly until we tell you to stop, and it turns out you were just pretending, your thumb tucked inside your fist. You use "trickin" as an excuse sometimes, too. You do not like washing your hands, and sometimes after you use the bathroom you lie and say you have; when called out, you say you were "just trickin." We got good smelling soap now, so the new drill is to let us smell your hands for proof. Now when we ask and you have perhaps misled us, you just say "oh, I forgot" and wash 'em up.
You hear everything. Yesterday, walking to your birthday party, I heard you saying "god dammit god dammit god dammit" under your breath, just totally matter of fact. You must have heard me say this (probably in the car under poor driving conditions) and you were just testing it out. Right? But it was somehow so endearing, and also funny, and we often have to remind ourselves not to laugh at things we don't want repeated.
You (still) don't like change. At the beginning of the summer program, when the class size is down and the groups get mixed, I walked you to another classroom and you just pointed at yours and burst into tears. But maybe, as things change less for you and you gain a sense of security, this will begin to ebb. Tomorrow you will go to summer school in the school's new building, and when I mentioned this yesterday your response was unbridled (and uncharacteristic) enthusiasm. We'll see what tomorrow brings. This fall, though, you will return to the same class and the same teachers as last year. With four different classrooms under your belt in four short years, I think this is the year where you finally get to really settle in. I'm curious to see what that will bring for you.
As I think about it, four may also be the last year that is sort of "simple," from a parenting perspective. This is the funny thing about parenting: the second time around, we recognize our own phases, not just yours. Perhaps this means I will remember to slow down and enjoy it just a little more. I can't wait to spend it with you.
Happy Birthday, big four year old.
Love,
Mommy
Saturday, July 9, 2011
A Letter From Your Mother on the occasion of your third birthday
Oh, Eleri.
We seem to say this a lot: Oh, Eleri.
I'll tell you why: we don't know what to do with you. It's true! What are we going to do with you? I think we've been saying this since birth. I think maybe I don't see you as clearly as I see Clio, because we are not alike. You are a puzzle to me, like your dad.
These past few weeks, you have been transitioning at school, from the toddler room to Children's House. Transitions aren't really your thing. I think it took you seven months to fully embrace your teacher, Miss Bekka, and you still won't shake Ann's hand when she greets us in the morning. There were small conferences leading up to this transition. We've been talking about it since January: the timing that would be best, methods of change that might make you feel okay. Everyone agrees that you are ready, that you need new challenges, but everyone worried about how you would take it. Watching you actually make the transition, I'm realizing something I should have known all along: it doesn't matter what anyone else does. When you're ready, you're ready. Not one moment before, but also no looking back. You've been fairly well potty trained for months now, but we still had you in diapers overnight until one night you said, quite simply, no diapers. And you woke up dry, that morning and every morning since. See? I suppose this can be unfortunate if your timing doesn't line up with the world's, but I also wonder if we leave you to it without extra fuss, if you will go your own way sooner. I wonder.
Did you know that you fall asleep many nights at the top of the stairs? We don't know why, but after being put to bed you come lie there, and frankly, after putting you back in bed a million times we get exhausted and we leave you be. When I hear your breathing change, I know it's time to go scoop you up and put you under the covers. While I don't love you sleeping there--the stairs are big, and hard wood, and I get scared thinking what a tumble might look like--I do love scooping you up, love your head on my shoulder (always have), love that when I finally put you down, you can't fight me on it. You fight sleep bitterly to the end.
You're a fighter. You scratch. It's true. Sometimes you smack me right in the face. We got you a book from the library called "When I Feel Angry," and you read it with great interest, though I think you are too young to understand or employ most of its tactics. Clio and daddy are better at distracting you--maybe this is why I'm the main target for your fingernails. Just tonight, you didn't want to take a second bike tour of the block, but Clio did. I found myself counting to 5 (again) to get you moving, but Clio just told you about a feather she found, and you wanted to see it, too, and that brought you right down the steps like the force of gravity. Do you want to know the flip side of the scratching? The teeny tiny kisses you give me, on my cheek, my hand, my knee. They are perfect kisses. And then there are the secrets you tell, so quiet they are impossible to hear. I suppose a secret is safe with you.
What else can I tell you? You have caught the princess doll fever, and will happily play castle on your own for hours. You like to scoot down and look at worms and bugs. You have been eating all the purple basil from the garden. The other night you said you wanted to go outside and throw something, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. You throw things you shouldn't, especially your (plastic) fork at dinner. I still think this is a hold over from before, when your language wasn't so strong and you had to get your point across one way or another. Your language has improved so much, and you love to tell stories now, love to have stories read to you. You still tell jokes. You love your bike helmet, and rain boots. Sometimes you ask me to braid a teeny tiny braid in your hair, but mostly it is all in your face. You are a night owl--I think this is just your natural circadian rhythm. Noodles with pesto is your favorite food. You eat ice cream faster than anyone I know. You help yourself to nuts from the pantry and yogurt and cheese from the fridge. We went strawberry picking the other day, and while Clio asked permission to eat each berry, and waited until Daddy found her perfect ones all in a row, you just helped yourself at random, your face smeared red. There seems to be no truer assessment of your different personalities.
Sometimes you are so engrossed, I have to say your name many times to bring you back. Eleri. Eleri. Eleri Ruth! Also, noodle. Noodle puss, noodle head, silly noodle. Eleri bellery pudding and pie. Someone asked me the other day why I called you noodle, and I told her it's because you're my silly noodle, and we all had a good laugh at that, like this was the family joke.
I think you are settling in pretty well. Sometimes this shyness comes over you and you are gripped, and twice recently you have hid your face completely in the presence of someone new, just put your head down to the counter or table or whatever you could find. But I see glimmers. On the 4th, there were latecomers to the party, and you were in the pool with me, and you looked up and said, "where's Molly and Mike?" You knew that my aunt and uncle were missing, and wanted them there. In a funny way, I think being close to family has been best for you, of all of us. I think after moving cross country twice in your first two years, maybe you feel that you are home now. I hope that with each passing year things will stabilize for all of us, and the chaos that you were born into (or maybe wrought) will ebb. When that happens, I hope to watch your defense mechanisms melt away; the hitting, the throwing of forks, the hiding of faces, and that you will both keep your independent spirit and let the rest of us in jut a little more.
When you're ready, of course. Not one moment sooner. And no looking back.
I love you baby,
Happy Birthday.
Mom
We seem to say this a lot: Oh, Eleri.
I'll tell you why: we don't know what to do with you. It's true! What are we going to do with you? I think we've been saying this since birth. I think maybe I don't see you as clearly as I see Clio, because we are not alike. You are a puzzle to me, like your dad.
These past few weeks, you have been transitioning at school, from the toddler room to Children's House. Transitions aren't really your thing. I think it took you seven months to fully embrace your teacher, Miss Bekka, and you still won't shake Ann's hand when she greets us in the morning. There were small conferences leading up to this transition. We've been talking about it since January: the timing that would be best, methods of change that might make you feel okay. Everyone agrees that you are ready, that you need new challenges, but everyone worried about how you would take it. Watching you actually make the transition, I'm realizing something I should have known all along: it doesn't matter what anyone else does. When you're ready, you're ready. Not one moment before, but also no looking back. You've been fairly well potty trained for months now, but we still had you in diapers overnight until one night you said, quite simply, no diapers. And you woke up dry, that morning and every morning since. See? I suppose this can be unfortunate if your timing doesn't line up with the world's, but I also wonder if we leave you to it without extra fuss, if you will go your own way sooner. I wonder.
Did you know that you fall asleep many nights at the top of the stairs? We don't know why, but after being put to bed you come lie there, and frankly, after putting you back in bed a million times we get exhausted and we leave you be. When I hear your breathing change, I know it's time to go scoop you up and put you under the covers. While I don't love you sleeping there--the stairs are big, and hard wood, and I get scared thinking what a tumble might look like--I do love scooping you up, love your head on my shoulder (always have), love that when I finally put you down, you can't fight me on it. You fight sleep bitterly to the end.
You're a fighter. You scratch. It's true. Sometimes you smack me right in the face. We got you a book from the library called "When I Feel Angry," and you read it with great interest, though I think you are too young to understand or employ most of its tactics. Clio and daddy are better at distracting you--maybe this is why I'm the main target for your fingernails. Just tonight, you didn't want to take a second bike tour of the block, but Clio did. I found myself counting to 5 (again) to get you moving, but Clio just told you about a feather she found, and you wanted to see it, too, and that brought you right down the steps like the force of gravity. Do you want to know the flip side of the scratching? The teeny tiny kisses you give me, on my cheek, my hand, my knee. They are perfect kisses. And then there are the secrets you tell, so quiet they are impossible to hear. I suppose a secret is safe with you.
What else can I tell you? You have caught the princess doll fever, and will happily play castle on your own for hours. You like to scoot down and look at worms and bugs. You have been eating all the purple basil from the garden. The other night you said you wanted to go outside and throw something, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. You throw things you shouldn't, especially your (plastic) fork at dinner. I still think this is a hold over from before, when your language wasn't so strong and you had to get your point across one way or another. Your language has improved so much, and you love to tell stories now, love to have stories read to you. You still tell jokes. You love your bike helmet, and rain boots. Sometimes you ask me to braid a teeny tiny braid in your hair, but mostly it is all in your face. You are a night owl--I think this is just your natural circadian rhythm. Noodles with pesto is your favorite food. You eat ice cream faster than anyone I know. You help yourself to nuts from the pantry and yogurt and cheese from the fridge. We went strawberry picking the other day, and while Clio asked permission to eat each berry, and waited until Daddy found her perfect ones all in a row, you just helped yourself at random, your face smeared red. There seems to be no truer assessment of your different personalities.
Sometimes you are so engrossed, I have to say your name many times to bring you back. Eleri. Eleri. Eleri Ruth! Also, noodle. Noodle puss, noodle head, silly noodle. Eleri bellery pudding and pie. Someone asked me the other day why I called you noodle, and I told her it's because you're my silly noodle, and we all had a good laugh at that, like this was the family joke.
I think you are settling in pretty well. Sometimes this shyness comes over you and you are gripped, and twice recently you have hid your face completely in the presence of someone new, just put your head down to the counter or table or whatever you could find. But I see glimmers. On the 4th, there were latecomers to the party, and you were in the pool with me, and you looked up and said, "where's Molly and Mike?" You knew that my aunt and uncle were missing, and wanted them there. In a funny way, I think being close to family has been best for you, of all of us. I think after moving cross country twice in your first two years, maybe you feel that you are home now. I hope that with each passing year things will stabilize for all of us, and the chaos that you were born into (or maybe wrought) will ebb. When that happens, I hope to watch your defense mechanisms melt away; the hitting, the throwing of forks, the hiding of faces, and that you will both keep your independent spirit and let the rest of us in jut a little more.
When you're ready, of course. Not one moment sooner. And no looking back.
I love you baby,
Happy Birthday.
Mom
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
A Letter From Your Mother on the occasion of Easter
I have such a hard time putting myself into this space, this voice, these days. I decided I should aim to post at least weekly, that that would feel like I was capturing enough, but something else always has to come first. The laundry, the dishes, the fact that I am trying to build a business from scratch in my spare time. Or I'm tired, I want to get off my feet, lie down, escape to the TV or yet another design magazine. I think about this blog every day. Wonder if my inability to write here is also an inability to see my girls, how they are. I took one day off from posting to the other blog: Easter Sunday. That felt good, but also like a crack in the resolve, like when you are going and going but you sit down and it is sooooo veeeeery haaaard to get up again. That might be where I am right now.
But girls: I see you. I sure saw you on Easter. Clio, you were up first, earlier than I expected, glittery with anticipation. I told you to see if the Easter Bunny had come, to see if you could find a basket for you somewhere in the house, hoping to buy myself a little more sleep, but you were back lickety split with a pink felt basket in hand. You ate chocolate for breakfast. No, wait, that's not true: in a nod to your father, I made you eat a little real breakfast first. Hard boiled eggs, probably. And then you had candy, your very first peeps. The marshmallow is your favorite. Before all this you jumped up and down by my side of the bed and asked me to open the Tangled doll the easter bunny thought to bring you, and that damn packaging required scissors, so roused I was. Eleri was still asleep.
When she got up, you helped her find her basket, though really, they were in an easy hiding spot, the exact place Eleri goes first in the morning: the castle. The castle was on the floor and the baskets were tucked onto its shelf. Each basket had 1 Rapunzel doll, 1 package of bunny shaped sidewalk chalk, 4 peeps, 6 chocolate eggs, and one chocolate peanut butter bunny.
Eleri, somehow I lost track of you (as I seem to, too often), and you came into the dining room with that bunny unwrapped, chocolate on your face, your hands, your dress, and you looked at me with those big, big eyes, wide with the chocolate bunny, and you said, "mommy. I love this," all hushed and reverent. And because this was the cutest thing I may have ever heard, and because you didn't ask, just opened up the biggest treat in the basket first and dove right in, I started to laugh. Boy, did I laugh.
It upset you. You left, and I found you in the office, sobbing. You had thrown the candy bunny on the floor and you were just so upset. It took a while to get it out of you, but of course you were upset because you thought I was laughing at you. I wasn't. Not at you, not like that. We kissed and made up and I offered you the bunny but you wouldn't eat it. Not now. So I wrapped it up and saved it for later.
We spent the morning outside. The sun was finally shining and we went in the front yard. Clio, you and I went out first, and you drew pictures. You drew a dog for the neighbor. You told me that if for some reason they lost one of their dogs, they could be less sad because they would have this picture from you. You drew it in the square of sidewalk closest to their house. You also made a garden full of princess flowers and a row of houses, with ours in the middle (yellow, because you didn't have brown chalk), with an alley that made a big, long, loop, and ultimately led right back to the houses. I like this idea of a circle alley. When Eleri came out, you shared your colors nicely and you didn't get upset when she drew on your work--sometimes this really upsets you, and, honestly, she's not always so very nice about it.
We got dressed up in Easter dresses. Nonny brought them to you a week or two before, and you were dying to wear them. I didn't get your picture, but while I was getting dressed the two of you held hands and spun circles in the dining room, with skirts flying out just the way you like, Clio's soft floral and Eleri's blue and white stripes. We went to Nonny's and had an egg hunt. Eleri, you would find an egg, open it up, examine its contents, and eat the candy, then repeat the whole process. Clio, you found as many eggs as you could and kept them in your basket, unopened. Hours later, after almost everyone had gone home, you had Nonny and my aunt Eileen take turns shaking the eggs, guessing what was inside. Candy, money, or both. When we ate lunch, you sat at the big table with Finn and Lucia. You wanted swedish fish, but you were willing to eat your asparagus to get them.
Eleri, you needed to go home. I don't know if it was just too much for you, all those people, all the excitement, or if you just weren't feeling well (you ended up throwing up the next night--just once.) I kept telling you just a minute, and you finally announced that you wanted to take a nap. You never nap--in fact, when a nap is suggested, you specifically say "nothing, never," so this made us stand up and take notice. Daddy took you home, and you dozed on and off laying on him on the couch while Clio shook her eggs.
You girls are so different. We have known this from day one, but it is more pronounced all the time. Whenever I offer two choices, you inevitably choose the opposite. In the mornings, on the way to school, we tell stories. If Eleri wants Cinderella, Clio wants Rapunzel. If Clio wants Cinderella, Eleri wants Goldilocks. I tell you to work it out. Most days, you do. And there's no pattern. Well, except that Clio always goes right for the negotiation: Eleri, if we do my story today we can do yours tomorrow, okay? But there is no clear pattern in who gives, in who wins. It is a give and take.
I know we always say we can't believe how fast it goes (I've likely said it a zillion times on this blog), but the truth is, I can't believe how big you are. I still manage to take pictures of you now and again, and when I see them on the computer, scrolling by in search of a "before" or an "after," I am struck by them. You are just so tall. So grown. It bears noting that Eleri is potty trained. That Clio is reading. That these milestones came and went some time ago, and deserve their own posts but may not get them. I suppose you might settle for this: you are geniuses. You are difficult. You are beautiful.
We love you so much,
Mom.
But girls: I see you. I sure saw you on Easter. Clio, you were up first, earlier than I expected, glittery with anticipation. I told you to see if the Easter Bunny had come, to see if you could find a basket for you somewhere in the house, hoping to buy myself a little more sleep, but you were back lickety split with a pink felt basket in hand. You ate chocolate for breakfast. No, wait, that's not true: in a nod to your father, I made you eat a little real breakfast first. Hard boiled eggs, probably. And then you had candy, your very first peeps. The marshmallow is your favorite. Before all this you jumped up and down by my side of the bed and asked me to open the Tangled doll the easter bunny thought to bring you, and that damn packaging required scissors, so roused I was. Eleri was still asleep.
When she got up, you helped her find her basket, though really, they were in an easy hiding spot, the exact place Eleri goes first in the morning: the castle. The castle was on the floor and the baskets were tucked onto its shelf. Each basket had 1 Rapunzel doll, 1 package of bunny shaped sidewalk chalk, 4 peeps, 6 chocolate eggs, and one chocolate peanut butter bunny.
Eleri, somehow I lost track of you (as I seem to, too often), and you came into the dining room with that bunny unwrapped, chocolate on your face, your hands, your dress, and you looked at me with those big, big eyes, wide with the chocolate bunny, and you said, "mommy. I love this," all hushed and reverent. And because this was the cutest thing I may have ever heard, and because you didn't ask, just opened up the biggest treat in the basket first and dove right in, I started to laugh. Boy, did I laugh.
It upset you. You left, and I found you in the office, sobbing. You had thrown the candy bunny on the floor and you were just so upset. It took a while to get it out of you, but of course you were upset because you thought I was laughing at you. I wasn't. Not at you, not like that. We kissed and made up and I offered you the bunny but you wouldn't eat it. Not now. So I wrapped it up and saved it for later.
We spent the morning outside. The sun was finally shining and we went in the front yard. Clio, you and I went out first, and you drew pictures. You drew a dog for the neighbor. You told me that if for some reason they lost one of their dogs, they could be less sad because they would have this picture from you. You drew it in the square of sidewalk closest to their house. You also made a garden full of princess flowers and a row of houses, with ours in the middle (yellow, because you didn't have brown chalk), with an alley that made a big, long, loop, and ultimately led right back to the houses. I like this idea of a circle alley. When Eleri came out, you shared your colors nicely and you didn't get upset when she drew on your work--sometimes this really upsets you, and, honestly, she's not always so very nice about it.
We got dressed up in Easter dresses. Nonny brought them to you a week or two before, and you were dying to wear them. I didn't get your picture, but while I was getting dressed the two of you held hands and spun circles in the dining room, with skirts flying out just the way you like, Clio's soft floral and Eleri's blue and white stripes. We went to Nonny's and had an egg hunt. Eleri, you would find an egg, open it up, examine its contents, and eat the candy, then repeat the whole process. Clio, you found as many eggs as you could and kept them in your basket, unopened. Hours later, after almost everyone had gone home, you had Nonny and my aunt Eileen take turns shaking the eggs, guessing what was inside. Candy, money, or both. When we ate lunch, you sat at the big table with Finn and Lucia. You wanted swedish fish, but you were willing to eat your asparagus to get them.
Eleri, you needed to go home. I don't know if it was just too much for you, all those people, all the excitement, or if you just weren't feeling well (you ended up throwing up the next night--just once.) I kept telling you just a minute, and you finally announced that you wanted to take a nap. You never nap--in fact, when a nap is suggested, you specifically say "nothing, never," so this made us stand up and take notice. Daddy took you home, and you dozed on and off laying on him on the couch while Clio shook her eggs.
You girls are so different. We have known this from day one, but it is more pronounced all the time. Whenever I offer two choices, you inevitably choose the opposite. In the mornings, on the way to school, we tell stories. If Eleri wants Cinderella, Clio wants Rapunzel. If Clio wants Cinderella, Eleri wants Goldilocks. I tell you to work it out. Most days, you do. And there's no pattern. Well, except that Clio always goes right for the negotiation: Eleri, if we do my story today we can do yours tomorrow, okay? But there is no clear pattern in who gives, in who wins. It is a give and take.
I know we always say we can't believe how fast it goes (I've likely said it a zillion times on this blog), but the truth is, I can't believe how big you are. I still manage to take pictures of you now and again, and when I see them on the computer, scrolling by in search of a "before" or an "after," I am struck by them. You are just so tall. So grown. It bears noting that Eleri is potty trained. That Clio is reading. That these milestones came and went some time ago, and deserve their own posts but may not get them. I suppose you might settle for this: you are geniuses. You are difficult. You are beautiful.
We love you so much,
Mom.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A Letter From Your Mother on the Occasion of Your Second Birthday
Dear Eleri,
You're a funny little girl. It's not just me, this is what people tell us. She's a funny girl, they say, and then they tell us stories. Like this: at school, all the kids have cubbies with their photos on the outside, and you like to go up to each one, lean against it as if you were sitting in a chair, say their name, and laugh, or cackle, really. You laugh a lot, and I find that your dad and I are constantly smiling at the little things you do and say. You LOVE to jump, and you gallop around the house. You also climb on everything you can and say "kiming," and you show us the way things go around and around (fans, wheels), with an arm gesture so dramatic it almost knocks you over. In fact, this enthusiasm means I tend to flinch when you come at me, never quite sure how powerfully you will fling yourself my way. You do this when I am trying to read Clio her bedtime stories on the couch, leaping across us or doing this patented sideways move whereby you just sort of appear on my lap, generally between Clio and the book's pictures. You love to point out trucks or buses out the window, and have a special fondness for the bells of the ice cream truck, which you pronounce in a way so cute, I must capture it on video. (That and water bottle. You will point them out around the house and say: Dio's batto batto, Daddy's batto batto, Ellli's batto batto.) You are very interested in this notion of possession, and are constantly establishing that things are yours. You open your half of the closet, point at the dresses, and say "Mines," always in the plural. I suppose this makes sense for a child who received candles in the final quarter of her sister's cake for her own birthday.
You are supremely generous and easy going. Both Clio and your friend Dakota frequently take things away from you; what they have yet to learn is that you would simply hand it over if they just asked. At school, your teacher says you sometimes take something from another child for the sheer pleasure of returning it. You enjoy other kinds of helping, like cleaning up spills and putting toys away. The other night, I think you kept spilling more water on the floor in order to wipe it up. Your generosity extends to children who are unhappy or have been hurt. When Clio cries (not an infrequent occurrence), you will go to her, lay your head on her shoulder, give her a hug or a kiss. You also stroke her hair when we say "gentle"; unfortunately, it is not so much that you have learned the concept of acting gently, it's more that you understand this as a remedy to a hurt you may have just inflicted.
It's true: you're pretty physical. I think of you as being "more like a boy" for whatever that's worth: throwing, running, jumping, building, climbing, and yes, sometimes hitting. I do think this comes from your frustration at not being understood. So many of your words sound alike, it can be a detective process to figure out what you're trying to tell us, and I think sometimes you give up. You resort. Mostly, I think this is okay- you don't hurt anybody- but I do hope we can help with the language troubles. You understand so much, and you clearly have a ton you want to say; it's hard to imagine the frustration of waiting for the rest of us to catch up, to piece it together. Often, after severeal tries, I'll ask you to show me, or to point, and this generally solves things. I try to remember to tell you the correct pronunciation, to get you to repeat it back to me, but you can be stubborn and generally don't want to do what you don't want to do. You've been sick lately (we've all been sick lately) with walking pneumonia, and the medicine you need to take happens to taste gross and have a gritty texture. The first day, unaware, you took it. The second day, you traded for your milk (you LOVE your milk). The third day, you refused altogether, you even refused ice cream (your favorite thing on earth, apart from jumping and your baby stroller) because you saw me put the medicine in. You just plugged your mouth with your thumb and turned away definitively. So I have learned to mix the medicine in with my back to you, and you have had ice cream every night for a week.
You make this funny noise and gesture where you pretend to gobble something up. You'll mimic grabbing something from the top of your head, from behind my ear, and then motion to toss it in your mouth. It's super silly, and since we laughed the first time you do it a lot. You love Old McDonald, and at night, after I sing Hush Little Baby, you say "E I E I O" as a signal to sing it. You always choose cat first, lately expanding it to kitty cat. You can sing most of the alphabet song and do some counting, though you usually start with 9 and then sort of jump around from there. In the morning, you do not want to change out of your onesie and I've been layering little sleeveless dresses over the top. When you sleep in pajamas, you often wear them to school. You have new shoes (you can put your shoes on yourself), a pair of gold and copper mary janes with a fur trimmed edge (from the $15 table at the big sale), that you love. You're decisive, see? When we went shopping to pick out birthday presents, you picked up a baby, found her a stroller, and that was that.
Since we have previous knowledge this time, and a better handle on the phases, I'm always curious to see what is your personality and what is a developmental stage. As you head into the twos, will you lost that decisive edge as so many toddlers do, grow confused as you understand the concept of options, or is that simply who you are? As your language develops, will you use words instead of actions, or will you always rely on the physical, the satisfaction of comedy in your pratfalls? I do believe your stubbornness will prevail, but tempered by your generosity; of course, it will be such fun to see how it develops.
Eleri, baby girl, little noodle, you bring such joy to all of our lives, always such a surprise, such a determined way of doing things, like when you joined us in such a rush two years ago, Daddy had to catch you in the bathtub, and the midwife had to instruct us, by speakerphone, how to get you breathing and coax you from blue to pink, while we marveled that you were a girl. A girl! So like a boy, or, I suppose really, so like her very own person.
Love,
Mommy
You're a funny little girl. It's not just me, this is what people tell us. She's a funny girl, they say, and then they tell us stories. Like this: at school, all the kids have cubbies with their photos on the outside, and you like to go up to each one, lean against it as if you were sitting in a chair, say their name, and laugh, or cackle, really. You laugh a lot, and I find that your dad and I are constantly smiling at the little things you do and say. You LOVE to jump, and you gallop around the house. You also climb on everything you can and say "kiming," and you show us the way things go around and around (fans, wheels), with an arm gesture so dramatic it almost knocks you over. In fact, this enthusiasm means I tend to flinch when you come at me, never quite sure how powerfully you will fling yourself my way. You do this when I am trying to read Clio her bedtime stories on the couch, leaping across us or doing this patented sideways move whereby you just sort of appear on my lap, generally between Clio and the book's pictures. You love to point out trucks or buses out the window, and have a special fondness for the bells of the ice cream truck, which you pronounce in a way so cute, I must capture it on video. (That and water bottle. You will point them out around the house and say: Dio's batto batto, Daddy's batto batto, Ellli's batto batto.) You are very interested in this notion of possession, and are constantly establishing that things are yours. You open your half of the closet, point at the dresses, and say "Mines," always in the plural. I suppose this makes sense for a child who received candles in the final quarter of her sister's cake for her own birthday.
You are supremely generous and easy going. Both Clio and your friend Dakota frequently take things away from you; what they have yet to learn is that you would simply hand it over if they just asked. At school, your teacher says you sometimes take something from another child for the sheer pleasure of returning it. You enjoy other kinds of helping, like cleaning up spills and putting toys away. The other night, I think you kept spilling more water on the floor in order to wipe it up. Your generosity extends to children who are unhappy or have been hurt. When Clio cries (not an infrequent occurrence), you will go to her, lay your head on her shoulder, give her a hug or a kiss. You also stroke her hair when we say "gentle"; unfortunately, it is not so much that you have learned the concept of acting gently, it's more that you understand this as a remedy to a hurt you may have just inflicted.
It's true: you're pretty physical. I think of you as being "more like a boy" for whatever that's worth: throwing, running, jumping, building, climbing, and yes, sometimes hitting. I do think this comes from your frustration at not being understood. So many of your words sound alike, it can be a detective process to figure out what you're trying to tell us, and I think sometimes you give up. You resort. Mostly, I think this is okay- you don't hurt anybody- but I do hope we can help with the language troubles. You understand so much, and you clearly have a ton you want to say; it's hard to imagine the frustration of waiting for the rest of us to catch up, to piece it together. Often, after severeal tries, I'll ask you to show me, or to point, and this generally solves things. I try to remember to tell you the correct pronunciation, to get you to repeat it back to me, but you can be stubborn and generally don't want to do what you don't want to do. You've been sick lately (we've all been sick lately) with walking pneumonia, and the medicine you need to take happens to taste gross and have a gritty texture. The first day, unaware, you took it. The second day, you traded for your milk (you LOVE your milk). The third day, you refused altogether, you even refused ice cream (your favorite thing on earth, apart from jumping and your baby stroller) because you saw me put the medicine in. You just plugged your mouth with your thumb and turned away definitively. So I have learned to mix the medicine in with my back to you, and you have had ice cream every night for a week.
You make this funny noise and gesture where you pretend to gobble something up. You'll mimic grabbing something from the top of your head, from behind my ear, and then motion to toss it in your mouth. It's super silly, and since we laughed the first time you do it a lot. You love Old McDonald, and at night, after I sing Hush Little Baby, you say "E I E I O" as a signal to sing it. You always choose cat first, lately expanding it to kitty cat. You can sing most of the alphabet song and do some counting, though you usually start with 9 and then sort of jump around from there. In the morning, you do not want to change out of your onesie and I've been layering little sleeveless dresses over the top. When you sleep in pajamas, you often wear them to school. You have new shoes (you can put your shoes on yourself), a pair of gold and copper mary janes with a fur trimmed edge (from the $15 table at the big sale), that you love. You're decisive, see? When we went shopping to pick out birthday presents, you picked up a baby, found her a stroller, and that was that.
Since we have previous knowledge this time, and a better handle on the phases, I'm always curious to see what is your personality and what is a developmental stage. As you head into the twos, will you lost that decisive edge as so many toddlers do, grow confused as you understand the concept of options, or is that simply who you are? As your language develops, will you use words instead of actions, or will you always rely on the physical, the satisfaction of comedy in your pratfalls? I do believe your stubbornness will prevail, but tempered by your generosity; of course, it will be such fun to see how it develops.
Eleri, baby girl, little noodle, you bring such joy to all of our lives, always such a surprise, such a determined way of doing things, like when you joined us in such a rush two years ago, Daddy had to catch you in the bathtub, and the midwife had to instruct us, by speakerphone, how to get you breathing and coax you from blue to pink, while we marveled that you were a girl. A girl! So like a boy, or, I suppose really, so like her very own person.
Love,
Mommy
Friday, April 30, 2010
A letter from your mother on no occasion at all
Beautiful girls,
I have so much to tell you lately, I find myself writing your birthday letters early, in my head, but if there's one piece of advice I can give you as a writer it is to use up all your words now, and you will discover more.
There is something magic about the two of you right now, something that makes me love you infinitely more together than each apart. I remember when Eleri was born and we realized we had two girls, your dad and I looked at each other and asked, "what are we going to do with sisters?" because neither of us has one. Its turning out not to matter: the two of you seem to know everything you need to about sisters, and I am learning.
Eleri, you copy everything Clio does, and you are constantly looking around and asking, "where did Clio go?" which you say with the absolute cutest pronunciation and an inflection that is simply not possible to capture in print. When your dad took Clio to a baseball game without you, you spent the afternoon crestfallen, not quite sure what to do with yourself without your constant companion.
Clio, you are blossoming into this amazing sister, always trying to help Eleri, to direct her. You are also willing to help us with her, like tonight when she did not want to take a bath and I asked you to go get in the tub, knowing that would make her want to go, too. And even though you usually resist the bath these days, you just said "okay, Mom" and skipped off to the bath, looking over your shoulder to say, "Eleri, come on." And come she did. I'll be honest: three-going-on-four is not the most generous of ages, but you are often generous with your sister. On Easter, she only found a few eggs in the hunt, so you gave her some of yours. The other day we were playing with the watering cans, watering the flowers in the yard, and because I am trying to teach you about resources, teach you not to waste, I would not refill the cans, so you gave Eleri some of your water. Even though you, too, had just asked for more.
Sometimes the sharing and the copying can get a little silly, and ours is a house filled with laughter. You have the exact same laugh, and I wonder if it will be like mine when you grow up, as mine is like my mothers. I love this idea: four women with just the same laugh, like the youtube video Clio used to love with the quadruplets laughing in unison over and over. Like the mom in that video, who says "do it agin," Eleri has recently learned "again" and "more" continues to be the word of the day.
Though your laugh is so alike, you are very different people, and it's fun to see how you continue to compliment each other. Eleri is the adventuress, inventing new games for the two of you to play, and this is when Clio is the copier. Clio I can only describe as my little liberal artist, with the books, the music, the art projects, the play-acting. Eleri, I'm willing to bet that you will get Clio playing sports, and Clio, you will keep your sister reading and developing her imagination. I once posted a litany of future professions for the two of you, one way to capture who you seem to be shaping up to be in the moment. Tonight, Eleri, as you tried to body slam Clio and I on the couch, I joked that you would be a wrestler, that you would grow up to join the WWF. I also see roller derby, summer camp director, little league coach, school crossing guard. Clio my darling, you could be a librarian, a dancer, a screenwriter, a gardener (you keep cutting the flowers in the yard, no matter how many times we tell you that after flowers are cut, they can't live). These are not predictions, they are simply impressions. I love that there are so many facets to both of you.
Sometimes, Eleri will pull your hair, Clio, and being the more sensitive of the two, it is unfortunate that this playful aggression runs in your direction--you are not the one who can take it. But Eleri is also a big hugger, and she will tackle you with her affections, and that seems to right the wrong, most of the time. We are working on it with her, trying to teach her appropriate behavior, though, Eleri, you often seem disinterested in these lessons, as you are disinterested in brushing your teeth. We are working on things with both of you, all the time. Eleri, you still tend to throw things when you're finished with them (though you are also an eager and helpful participant in clean up.) Clio, you have grown defiant at times, and we are wearing out the techniques we know to bring you around. Lately, I wonder if we just need patience, though you have worn that through, too.
It's funny: part of me wants to fast forward out of three; we keep hearing four is so much better. At the same time, I would pause Eleri right here if I could, right in this perfect moment of twenty-some months, which is just so delightful (the second time around, knowing the signposts of certain ages, I feel more of an urgency as my favorite stage passes). But this is the beauty of having the two of you: you will ebb and flow, and as Clio hits the calm waters of four, Eleri may hit the rocky shore of two, and so on and so forth. I will simply hope that you continue to be such good friends, even for the hair pulling and the mutual desire for whichever toy or object the other has. Ultimately, we can just hope that your generosity of spirit and your sense of humor and kindness prevail.
I think it's probably not possible to say enough how very much I love you.
Mom
I have so much to tell you lately, I find myself writing your birthday letters early, in my head, but if there's one piece of advice I can give you as a writer it is to use up all your words now, and you will discover more.
There is something magic about the two of you right now, something that makes me love you infinitely more together than each apart. I remember when Eleri was born and we realized we had two girls, your dad and I looked at each other and asked, "what are we going to do with sisters?" because neither of us has one. Its turning out not to matter: the two of you seem to know everything you need to about sisters, and I am learning.
Eleri, you copy everything Clio does, and you are constantly looking around and asking, "where did Clio go?" which you say with the absolute cutest pronunciation and an inflection that is simply not possible to capture in print. When your dad took Clio to a baseball game without you, you spent the afternoon crestfallen, not quite sure what to do with yourself without your constant companion.
Clio, you are blossoming into this amazing sister, always trying to help Eleri, to direct her. You are also willing to help us with her, like tonight when she did not want to take a bath and I asked you to go get in the tub, knowing that would make her want to go, too. And even though you usually resist the bath these days, you just said "okay, Mom" and skipped off to the bath, looking over your shoulder to say, "Eleri, come on." And come she did. I'll be honest: three-going-on-four is not the most generous of ages, but you are often generous with your sister. On Easter, she only found a few eggs in the hunt, so you gave her some of yours. The other day we were playing with the watering cans, watering the flowers in the yard, and because I am trying to teach you about resources, teach you not to waste, I would not refill the cans, so you gave Eleri some of your water. Even though you, too, had just asked for more.
Sometimes the sharing and the copying can get a little silly, and ours is a house filled with laughter. You have the exact same laugh, and I wonder if it will be like mine when you grow up, as mine is like my mothers. I love this idea: four women with just the same laugh, like the youtube video Clio used to love with the quadruplets laughing in unison over and over. Like the mom in that video, who says "do it agin," Eleri has recently learned "again" and "more" continues to be the word of the day.
Though your laugh is so alike, you are very different people, and it's fun to see how you continue to compliment each other. Eleri is the adventuress, inventing new games for the two of you to play, and this is when Clio is the copier. Clio I can only describe as my little liberal artist, with the books, the music, the art projects, the play-acting. Eleri, I'm willing to bet that you will get Clio playing sports, and Clio, you will keep your sister reading and developing her imagination. I once posted a litany of future professions for the two of you, one way to capture who you seem to be shaping up to be in the moment. Tonight, Eleri, as you tried to body slam Clio and I on the couch, I joked that you would be a wrestler, that you would grow up to join the WWF. I also see roller derby, summer camp director, little league coach, school crossing guard. Clio my darling, you could be a librarian, a dancer, a screenwriter, a gardener (you keep cutting the flowers in the yard, no matter how many times we tell you that after flowers are cut, they can't live). These are not predictions, they are simply impressions. I love that there are so many facets to both of you.
Sometimes, Eleri will pull your hair, Clio, and being the more sensitive of the two, it is unfortunate that this playful aggression runs in your direction--you are not the one who can take it. But Eleri is also a big hugger, and she will tackle you with her affections, and that seems to right the wrong, most of the time. We are working on it with her, trying to teach her appropriate behavior, though, Eleri, you often seem disinterested in these lessons, as you are disinterested in brushing your teeth. We are working on things with both of you, all the time. Eleri, you still tend to throw things when you're finished with them (though you are also an eager and helpful participant in clean up.) Clio, you have grown defiant at times, and we are wearing out the techniques we know to bring you around. Lately, I wonder if we just need patience, though you have worn that through, too.
It's funny: part of me wants to fast forward out of three; we keep hearing four is so much better. At the same time, I would pause Eleri right here if I could, right in this perfect moment of twenty-some months, which is just so delightful (the second time around, knowing the signposts of certain ages, I feel more of an urgency as my favorite stage passes). But this is the beauty of having the two of you: you will ebb and flow, and as Clio hits the calm waters of four, Eleri may hit the rocky shore of two, and so on and so forth. I will simply hope that you continue to be such good friends, even for the hair pulling and the mutual desire for whichever toy or object the other has. Ultimately, we can just hope that your generosity of spirit and your sense of humor and kindness prevail.
I think it's probably not possible to say enough how very much I love you.
Mom
Monday, July 13, 2009
A letter from your mother on the occasion of your first birthday
Dear Eleri,
Oh, my glorious second child. It's days after your birthday and I'm finally getting to this letter. There was a party to plan, and on your actual birthday, after we served you a wedge of Clio's birthday cake with your own candle stuck in it and put you to bed, I just wasn't feeling it. But there is something to be said for being a second child: you get in on the traditions earlier. I started these birthday letters with Clio's second, but here I am, commemorating your first.
You're a funny little girl. You like to drape things around your neck, scarf-like (the long handles of fabric totes, strings from Clio's lacing work). We got you a little bus for your birthday, and you have taken to hiding all of the people under one of the living room chairs. Lately, you love to climb the stairs; you get yourself onto the landing, rise up on your knees, then reach one hand out to whoever is near and make a noise that says, let's go? You crawl with tremendous speed. You have super-baby strength. (Clio gets upset when I marvel at this, says "I'm strong, too." But I will say here, you are strangely, powerfully strong; the rest of us, relatively speaking, cannot compare.) At Day Care, they all call you "Pretty Girl." At home, in one short year you have earned three totem-animal names. For your tendency to bend forward or throw yourself down, forehead to the floor, in any and all unhappy circumstances, we call you The Ostrich. For the alarming way that you chew through cardboard--boxes, book spines--and gnaw on wood--blocks, your crib rails--we call you The Beaver. And for your cutest-ever fatty thighs, we call you Chunky Monkey.
Monkey, too, for the way you shriek. Just the other night, you let out a howl (accompanied by flailing hands and shaking head) so loud and prolonged, your dad, sister, and I were all silenced over dinner. When we looked at you, agape, you showed your teeth and laughed. If it weren't for that laugh, and the fact that you seemed perfectly happy, I might have called what had transpired a tantrum. It's happened more and more often since then (we reacted too well, didn't we?); and perhaps it is, in fact, frustration. At your one-year checkup on Friday, the pediatrician asked about language. "No words yet, but she communicates with me," I said. "No words?" she asked, and I shook my head, unconcerned. "Usually by one they're at least saying Mama and Dada." And she gave us a prescription for reading aloud to you (tricky when you'd rather eat the book) and labeling things repeatedly. I was not concerned, but perhaps you are: last night, when I gave you a bottle (BOTTLE. BOTTLE. BOTTLE.), you smiled delightedly, pointed to it, and repeated something that passed for two syllables and seemed to start with the letter b. I guess I forgot that you're not just going to learn it all on your own. At day care they claim you say "ja ja ja," the Spanish expression for "enough!"
As I have written here, you are adventurous. You love to jump on the bed, and you tend to throw yourself backwards, without looking; sometimes this ends badly, but your tears don't last long. You give big bear hugs. You play peekabo with me, grabbing my long hair and pulling it, like a curtain, in front of my face. You are independent- yesterday, at your birthday party, you hung out on a blanket with a changing stream of babies and adults; you just scavenged for fallen crackers and took it all in.
Sometimes I worry that we are not serving your particular needs well enough, partly because you are completely undemanding (except for that outstretched hand asking us to take you upstairs again), and partly because you are a second child, with a sister more capable of voicing her desires. You get dragged along wherever we take Clio, even if it means you must ride in a stroller or carrier instead of participating. But you know what? You always seem happy in the stroller, swinging your legs, once again taking it all in. On your actual birthday, I finally took you to the tot lot, the little playground in Prospect Park built for little ones like you. Mostly, you just wanted to pull yourself up and stand at the rail of the slide platform, calling out to the rest of us, or crawl after someone else's ball, but somehow you seemed to think the whole thing was great.
You're a pretty easy baby. So far. Thanks goodness for that!
What do most want you to know at one? Your greatest gift is that you make people feel good. When I get you up in the morning or following a nap, you give me a big hug and we look at ourselves in the mirror, cheeks pressed together. There's lots of change ahead, and we'll do our best to tune in to you. For now, let's get you talking so you can tell us what's on your mind yourself.
We love you,
Mom.
Oh, my glorious second child. It's days after your birthday and I'm finally getting to this letter. There was a party to plan, and on your actual birthday, after we served you a wedge of Clio's birthday cake with your own candle stuck in it and put you to bed, I just wasn't feeling it. But there is something to be said for being a second child: you get in on the traditions earlier. I started these birthday letters with Clio's second, but here I am, commemorating your first.
You're a funny little girl. You like to drape things around your neck, scarf-like (the long handles of fabric totes, strings from Clio's lacing work). We got you a little bus for your birthday, and you have taken to hiding all of the people under one of the living room chairs. Lately, you love to climb the stairs; you get yourself onto the landing, rise up on your knees, then reach one hand out to whoever is near and make a noise that says, let's go? You crawl with tremendous speed. You have super-baby strength. (Clio gets upset when I marvel at this, says "I'm strong, too." But I will say here, you are strangely, powerfully strong; the rest of us, relatively speaking, cannot compare.) At Day Care, they all call you "Pretty Girl." At home, in one short year you have earned three totem-animal names. For your tendency to bend forward or throw yourself down, forehead to the floor, in any and all unhappy circumstances, we call you The Ostrich. For the alarming way that you chew through cardboard--boxes, book spines--and gnaw on wood--blocks, your crib rails--we call you The Beaver. And for your cutest-ever fatty thighs, we call you Chunky Monkey.
Monkey, too, for the way you shriek. Just the other night, you let out a howl (accompanied by flailing hands and shaking head) so loud and prolonged, your dad, sister, and I were all silenced over dinner. When we looked at you, agape, you showed your teeth and laughed. If it weren't for that laugh, and the fact that you seemed perfectly happy, I might have called what had transpired a tantrum. It's happened more and more often since then (we reacted too well, didn't we?); and perhaps it is, in fact, frustration. At your one-year checkup on Friday, the pediatrician asked about language. "No words yet, but she communicates with me," I said. "No words?" she asked, and I shook my head, unconcerned. "Usually by one they're at least saying Mama and Dada." And she gave us a prescription for reading aloud to you (tricky when you'd rather eat the book) and labeling things repeatedly. I was not concerned, but perhaps you are: last night, when I gave you a bottle (BOTTLE. BOTTLE. BOTTLE.), you smiled delightedly, pointed to it, and repeated something that passed for two syllables and seemed to start with the letter b. I guess I forgot that you're not just going to learn it all on your own. At day care they claim you say "ja ja ja," the Spanish expression for "enough!"
As I have written here, you are adventurous. You love to jump on the bed, and you tend to throw yourself backwards, without looking; sometimes this ends badly, but your tears don't last long. You give big bear hugs. You play peekabo with me, grabbing my long hair and pulling it, like a curtain, in front of my face. You are independent- yesterday, at your birthday party, you hung out on a blanket with a changing stream of babies and adults; you just scavenged for fallen crackers and took it all in.
Sometimes I worry that we are not serving your particular needs well enough, partly because you are completely undemanding (except for that outstretched hand asking us to take you upstairs again), and partly because you are a second child, with a sister more capable of voicing her desires. You get dragged along wherever we take Clio, even if it means you must ride in a stroller or carrier instead of participating. But you know what? You always seem happy in the stroller, swinging your legs, once again taking it all in. On your actual birthday, I finally took you to the tot lot, the little playground in Prospect Park built for little ones like you. Mostly, you just wanted to pull yourself up and stand at the rail of the slide platform, calling out to the rest of us, or crawl after someone else's ball, but somehow you seemed to think the whole thing was great.
You're a pretty easy baby. So far. Thanks goodness for that!
What do most want you to know at one? Your greatest gift is that you make people feel good. When I get you up in the morning or following a nap, you give me a big hug and we look at ourselves in the mirror, cheeks pressed together. There's lots of change ahead, and we'll do our best to tune in to you. For now, let's get you talking so you can tell us what's on your mind yourself.
We love you,
Mom.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
To Eleri, Adventuress
When Clio was just 2 months old, I brought her to Minnesota, where she met, among others, my childhood friends Lizzie and Carrie and their kids. Greta was about 18 months old at the time and very interested in the baby; I remember Carrie saying to her daughter to be careful, that Clio was not "the rough-and-tumble model" like her.
It's true, Clio is a more sensitive type; but you, Eleri, are our little brute, big and strong. From your sturdy beginnings and impatient entry to the world, you have had an appetite for adventure. Seeing what there is to see has been your siren call.
You are the one who rolled off the bed as a baby. You are constantly diving for things that interest you, away from whoever is doing their best to hold your squirming form. Our little world is not enough for you; I keep saying, maybe there's an age-appropriate developmental toy we can get to engage you, to distract you, to keep you out from underfoot for a while. Your sister, though not particularly cautious, does her exploring through books, always has; an armchair traveler like me. You think books are skateboards, snowboards, locomotives to get you where you're going. Perhaps this is why I'm so in love with you these days: you're like your father, eager for adventure, fearless, and delighted by what you find wherever you look. Clio and I will live in imagination and tell each other stories. Maybe you will be the one to notice all the details of the real world, like Dave examining the sunken beauty of rotting fruit with his camera, or jumping on the subway on September 11, 2001, pointing himself towards Ground Zero like a compass seeking north, while I sat in my living room in Brooklyn watching the events unfold on television, serving the neighbors chicken skewers and other appetizers prepared for a surprise 30th birthday party that would not happen that night, and disallowed my imagination from going to a place that may or may not have been worse than the reality of lower Manhattan.
We were just thinking that it would be fun--and telling--to predict your future careers at certain intervals. Right now, we think Clio will grow up to be a marine biologist, a vet, a day care provider, an actress. Maybe you will be a mountain climber. An engineer. A jock.
Because Clio and I are alike--tempermental, dramatic, stubborn--and because she reminds me of traits I may be sensitive of in myself, I imagine we will be at odds plenty. Right now, you are easier, and I think this sways me towards you; while I can simply pick you up and move you away from trouble, with Clio, everything is a debate, a practice in matching will for will, and I must tread softly. But later, if you continue on the path you have set in your short life so far, you may be the bigger challenge, harder to protect; how do you tread softly if your daughter is climbing mountains?
For now, I love the balance I see between the two of you, the joy you each take in the other, the harmony (or chaos) this will bring to our family. I love the idea of complements, both across-- between you and your sister, me and your father; and down- between Dad and Clio, you and me.
Yin and Yang. Sisters.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Eleri Ruth, 9 months old
Eleri, you're getting to be such a big girl. I mean this literally- you continue to be in the 70-95th percentile, and are currently clocking in at a whopping 19 1/2 pounds, 28 1/2 inches- but I also mean it like, whoa, how are you sitting-crawling-eating solids-playing peekaboo-clapping-and growing into your personality already?
You often get a touch overshadowed by your drama-queen sister, but lately I'm so in love with your happy demeanor, your contented head on my shoulder, and your exuberance: you clap delightedly at a diaper change, dive enthusiastically for your bottles, and when we lie you down you do these energetic aerobics, scissoring your arms to your legs and scrunching up your face to show us the gap between your two front teeth, which are about halfway in.
I remember struggling to teach Clio sign language at this age- partly because it was de rigeur, but mostly because I felt I needed to understand what she wanted; with you, I generally feel like I know just by looking at you. Maybe because I learned the language of baby signs from Clio, maybe because you and I simply understand one another. You light up when I enter a room and cry when I leave it; I thought this was simply your way, but Dave insists this behavior is just for me. What can I say? Particularly as Clio grows into her independence, it's nice to be needed, and I love this connection.
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