Snapshots of a three-year-old

I just realized we've hardly taken any pictures of Amelia since she turned three! I am going to try to take some today.

We're very busy these days. Also, I have become better at living in the moment. This results in more peace overall but also a dirty house and an un-updated blog. I almost decided to shut this whole blog down, replacing it with a photo website of some kind. There are a few other writing projects I have been trying to focus on, and I felt bad about how little I write here.

But I decided not to. For one thing, as much as I admire people who record a sentence a day or a photo of their child a day,  this is the only place I have consistently recorded Amelia's life. It would be sad to end it.

Plus, in retrospect, I suppose the silence will be telling. There is a book I found in a used bookstore in DC (Amelia in her Ergo carrier) called "The Seven Stages of Motherhood." I like its personal stories and the way it presents motherhood as a knowable path. The chapter on mothering a preschooler (age 3-5) is called "Trying to Do It All."

That sums things up pretty well. Since Amelia started school, I have had more time to fill, and sometimes I try to fill it with EVERYTHING: cleaning, cooking, yoga, writing, shopping, errands. Yet Amelia is only in school a few days a week, and I also started a teaching job. (!) I haven't written about it here, but it started back in the fall. Officially, I am a "Young Writers Outreach Instructor" for Denver's Lighthouse Writers. It's an amazing job--basically I am a visiting writer going into schools to teach craft--and it fell into my lap with absolutely no work on my part (other than the fact that I joined Lighthouse Writers, the best writers' group ever). I took a session teaching 9th and 10th graders for 3 days a week in the fall, and then took another 7-week session of pretty much the same gig. I also taught a 6-week course back in the spring and worked for a week at their Summer Writing Camp. I love being a "writer in the schools"--it has been a dream of mine to teach writing as a visiting writer since I was a high school teacher. I love the job.

At the same time, the job has created some stress. For one thing, the teaching ends midday, around the time the half day program for Amelia's school ends. Amelia's teacher said I could pick her up late, but in the meantime, Amelia began--drumroll--NAPPING AT SCHOOL. So I usually pick her up around 2 or 3, after the kids wake up, have a snack, and go outside to play. It's cute to come pick her up and see "all the friends" in their coats and hats and sunglasses (required) playing. One day they were barking like puppies and I could hear them a block away. Still, it's more school than I had planned for Amelia this year.

Also, teaching always ends up taking time away from writing. During my first fall teaching session, I hardly wrote my own stuff at all. For this second session, I started out with a stricter schedule for myself, and I was doing well with it--for one week. The second week of the session, Amelia got the flu (EVEN THOUGH SHE GOT A FLU SHOT). So I stayed home to be with her. I am very thankful I have the kind of life that allows me to stop everything to be with my baby when she needs me, so this is not meant to be a complaint, but it does seem like every time I get on a roll with writing, something happens--we go on a trip, someone gets sick, etc.

On the other hand, after three years of motherhood, I've learned that "all things pass." So I will get back on the roll again soon. This week, I am just glad for a healthy child. And the fact that I don't have the flu.

Anyway, here are some "snaphots" of our three-year-old. Real snapshots to come later today!

Amelia visits Santa: She was annoyed that she had to wait in line. She was the only kid not dressed up in fancy Christmas clothes. Between kids, the elves furtively shielded Santa while he used hand sanitizer. When it was her turn, Amelia said she was "nervous" and I told her she didn't have to see Santa, but she bolstered her courage, sat in his lap, and asked for a robot. He kept prompting her "what else?," which I thought was unnecessary. Just a robot, Santa!

Amelia and the "scary room:" A couple of weeks ago, I woke up around 11 pm to Amelia calling me into her room. She said "something's scary!" and pointed vaguely to the corner of her room. I held her hand while she fell asleep again, but she woke up 3 more times that night. According to The Happiest Toddler on the Block, a book I cannot recommend enough, it's normal for kids develop fears around this age. Using the ideas in the book, I rallied the next day, and we rearranged Amelia's room. It did sort of look scary in the corner: the combination of the nightlight in the corner plus a bookshelf that has a tree branch on it made strange shadows, plus we had her humidifier over there, emitting a spooky mist. So I moved all that around and put her night light right beside her bed. Also, we gave her a flashlight and made some special spray (water and lavender oil) to spray at scary things. And, we remover her bed rail and told her she could get out of bed and turn on her light if she wanted to see her room.

This marks the major parenting victory of my life so far: all this worked! Amelia loved having her night light closer, being a "big girl" with no bed rail, and getting out of bed to turn on her light. The first night at bedtime, we heard her light turn on and off about 10 times. In the meantime, to tempt her back into her own bed after 4-5 days of sleeping with Mama while being sick, we put Christmas lights up beside her bed. The first night those were up, she played in her bed for over an hour and a half before finally dropping off to sleep.

What else? I can't think of the other stories I wanted to tell, so here are a few fun facts. Amelia can spell her name and I think she can spell "Daddy" (she and Dean play with foam bathtub letters in the bath a lot). She can count up to 30 or so sometimes--I have heard her do it, but other times she refuses or does it wrong as a joke. She knows the sounds for most of the letters (I made up a song with letter sounds one day in desperation, trying to lull her to sleep, and it took). She loves the "Jennifer stories" I tell her sometimes to distract her while brushing her hair or the like--Jennifer is a girl just Amelia's age, again made up by me in desperation one day--I was trying to use Jennifer as an example of something, like a little story with a moral--"Jennifer didn't want her Mama to brush her hair, but her hair got so tangled she had to cut it all off!" But it turns out Amelia LOVES stories where Jennifer is "naughty:" Jennifer squeezes all of toothpaste out of the tube, refuses to share with her baby brother, dumps her food on the floor, much to Amelia's delight. I am not sure what this means, but in any case, Amelia loves stories and songs. She sometimes even makes up her own stories and songs, something I should try harder to get on tape.

I am sure there is a lot I am missing, but that's a peek into life here lately. Check back later for some real "snapshots" of Amelia!

Letter to my daughter

Dear Amelia,

For your first two birthdays, I wrote you a letter on your birthday. They began, "Today you are one," and the next year, "Today, you are two."

12 days ago, you turned three.

This year, you have taught me about time. Time is funny--as the saying goes, the days are long but the years are short. Sometimes, when you were two, the days did seem long. But now that your second year is over, it seems to have passed in a flash.

I already miss your two-year-old self, and you are already changing into a three-year-old. You say amazingly smart, knowledgeable things. You are, shall we say, a little bossy, and sometimes even outright defiant. Your brain seems to go a million miles a minute. You are changing into a wonderful, brilliant, hilarious little kid, almost before our eyes.

Looking back, though, I think I did my best to savor the time you were two. Here is what you taught me about time. You were so much fun that I finally learned to stop, really stop, everything else to play with you--as you learned to play pretend, and do crafts, and do puzzles, and make up your own games with dolls and "small things" and books and a million kitchen utensils. I (again, finally) learned that you can only get so much done in a day, and to let the rest (mainly the housework) go. (It's true! Our house is really pretty dirty. I am proud.) I learned that a good day does not and never will include marking everything off of my to-do list.

Still, I am a little sad about how few blog posts I wrote while you were two. I know some happy moments and some milestones and many, many funny things you said have slipped away unrecorded. But I also know that while they were happening, I was present for them. I'll never be perfect at living in the moment, but this year, with my funny, sweet, fun-loving, fascinating two year old, I think I got a lot better.

Looking back over the past year, I especially remember all the fun times we spent with friends and family. One day in particular stands out--on a lovely spring day, we were at the Botanic Gardens with our friends Sarah and Navi, and you and Navi were busy being two, making a huge mess of our lunch, bringing tiny rocks to the picnic blanket, talking and negotiating with each other, and alternately climbing on your Mamas like baby koalas and running so far from the picnic blanket that it made me and Sarah nervous. And I thought how much I loved having a toddler, and how insanely lucky I was to be able to spend the days with you doing such wonderful things. You have given me countless similarly beautiful days--thank you.

Amelia, you are a joyful girl, especially when there is "something new." The year you were two was the year you learned about Halloween, about balloons, about birthday parties, about amusement park rides, about packages in the mail. "I'm exciting!" you said when you were excited, and you were excited about so much, including your first day of preschool. As I picked you up the first day, the phone rang in the school, and I could hear you exclaiming with delight, "All the kids said, THAT SCARED ME!" You are delighted in the world, and I hope that never changes. And you have given me more joy than I ever could have imagined. I love you, whatever age you are, and I always will.

Love,

Your Mama

The Big Three

 On October 5, we woke up to snow.

Dean told Amelia the sky gave her snow for her birthday.

The Small Snowman

Snow on tomatoes

I was very proud of my cupcakes.

The land animals have green icing, and the sea animals have blue.

We had planned to have Amelia's party on Saturday, the day after her birthday, but because of the weather we changed it to Sunday. Sunday morning was chilly but by the time of the party, it was warmer and sunny. It was nice to be outside after the two days of cold. It was a small, last minute and simple party--no presents, no favors (other than the animals on the cupcakes)--just coffee, bagels, cupcakes and a few friends from the neighborhood. I had worried about Amelia asking about presents but she did not notice the lack of presents at all, and I think it made the party more fun. She was not worried about when she could open presents, and the kids had a great time playing with the basket of sand toys we brought.

The big three

Blowing out candles

The last time we all had our picture taken together was Amelia's second birthday party.

Our sweet 3-year-old.

In Honor of Months

For the first 12 weeks of your baby's life, you count her age in weeks. Around 12 weeks, most people move to counting in months and count that way for almost 2 years. After 24 months, it's more rare to hear kids' ages being given in months, although many parents still keep track (and I have definitely heard my share of moms discussing their "28-month-old" or even "34-month-old." In any case, on her last day as a 23-month-old, here is a journey back through the months of Amelia's life, so far.




Birth



Newborn, a few days old



1 Month



2 Months



3 Months



4 Months



5 Months



6 Months



7 Months



8 Months



9 Months



10 Months



11 Months



12 Months



13 Months



14 Months



15 Months



16 Months



17 Months



18 Months



19 Months



20 Months



21 Months



22 Months



23 Months

Amelia at Almost 2...

loves shoes,



is a playground daredevil,



stays busy with zookeeping duties,



is a seasoned traveler.



might be a hippie,



just got her first braid,



and eats ice cream cones from both ends.

Two Years Ago Today

This Is Your Brain on Toddlerhood

There have been a couple of times in Amelia's life that I have felt I could almost see her brain developing. The past week or two has been one of those times. From the moment she wakes up, she goes a mile a minute, talking, playing, reading, singing, moving toys and pens and buttons and who knows what all to the places they clearly need to be, and generally directing things around the house.

Her language development has been the most obvious--when she isn't cruise directing, she has been stating or describing what she is doing or what is happening around her in alarmingly complex sentences. I have been calling her "the narrator." When you go in her bedroom to get her when she wakes up, she will inform you "Mia sanding in her cib." In fact, now she might also say "I sanding in my cib"--she is getting more and more pronouns right. She says things like "Mia go with Daddy to pick tomatoes," or last night at dinner when she happened to glance up and out the window, "I'm looking out the window." Sometimes when she speaks she falls into a kind of "uh, uh, uh" noise and you can tell the wheels are turning in her mind as she looks for the right word or maybe the sentence structure, but more and more she just talks. She talks all day long. And she still prefers that you repeat back what she says. I don't miss not the quiet, exactly, but our days our... full.

Another reason our days are full, and this is perhaps related to the brain development spurt, is that Amelia's naps have suddenly and substantially shortened themselves. She was napping from around 12-2, and now she doesn't seem ready to go down for a nap till 1 or 1:30, if then. Then, she naps for about 45 minutes. She has a hard time settling down, and when she wakes up, after a period of initial fussiness, she is ready to go for the afternoon. She has been sleeping at night, though, for 11-12 hour stretches, from 7:30 or 8 to around 7 in the morning, so I am thinking since she is sleeping so long at night she just doesn't need a long nap. It's not the best news for me, break-wise, but it's not terrible. I am trying to take advantage of being able to have longer morning outings, and drastically decrease the number of things I try to do during her nap. (In fact, one of the things I have been doing during her nap is sitting down and watching "Friends," which conveniently reruns every day at 2:00.) Since I have less time during the day and more time during the mornings, I have been trying to get up a little earlier and enjoy the quiet. The early mornings have always been the best poem-writing times for me anyway, so maybe this is a good development for me, writing-wise.

Another note about toddlerhood--Amelia has had some real live tantrums lately. These are sometimes times when she is tired or maybe related to not feeling well, with the cold, for example, or last week she also tested positive for strep--one of the best tips I got about toddler behavior is that when they are acting SUPER terrible, they are probably sick. But there have been a couple of tantrums that seem mostly just about Amelia not getting what she wants, which I suppose is normal for almost two. Last week, we stopped by the "dinosaur bone museum" to play for awhile, and when we were leaving, not feeling well myself, I forgot to do my usual "in a few minutes, we have to say bye-bye to the museum" thing to prep Amelia for our departure (which usually works really well). We were walking toward the door, and Amelia seemed to realize we were leaving, and she just lost it. She was crouching and clenching her fists and screaming "dinosaur bones!" She was in fact standing directly underneath dinosaur bones, but no attempt of mine to point that out to her, or to calm her down in any way other way, worked, so I finally had to pick her up and carry her screaming to the car. She cried most of the 20-minute drive home, and what finally made her stop was a tip I read in The Happiest Toddler on the Block: "gossip." The author recommends that you "gossip" with your toddler's stuffed animals (or other family members, if they are around), both to discuss bad behavior and praise good behavior. The idea is that toddlers like to overhear stuff and sometimes you can get more across if they think you are not talking to them. So I talked to Elmo, who Amelia had carried around the museum all morning. "Hey Elmo! Listen! Amelia had a tantrum at the museum, and Amelia is so angry! Amelia wanted to stay at the dinosaur bones! But Momma doesn't understand tantrums. Momma understands big girl words! And Amelia is so good at big girl words!" And etc. Every time Amelia would start crying again I would say "Hey, Elmo! Listen!" And she would listen. By the time we got home, she was calm. I had asked Elmo if he thought Amelia would rather play with buttons or bracelets when she got home, and as we pulled into the garage, I heard a tiny, tired voice: "buttons."

We played with buttons, then had lunch. Toddlers are tiring. Lovable, but tiring.

The interesting thing is that Amelia still remembers this vividly. "Mia cied at the dinosaur bones. Elmo had to listen! Momma doesn't unersand tanums."

On a side note, with all these sicknesses and tantrums, sometimes I really miss breastfeeding. I just know it would calm her down so easily. I can pick Amelia up and snuggle her, and carry her around, and goodness knows I do, but it's not the same. Just saying, for the record: I don't regret weaning when we did, but I do miss the closeness, the calming nature of breastfeeding.

What else? We went to the zoo, and it was one of the first times Amelia was actually excited about the animals. She liked the elephants and hippos the best



and enjoyed peering over the wall at "Monkey Island."



She also fed some lorakeets



and rode the train with her friend Pigit,



and on another visit to the zoo with (L)u(l)i, she rode the merry-go-round.





We canceled a camping trip we had planned for this weekend because we all got colds, but we did go to a baseball game Sunday afternoon. The Rockies have a section called "The Rockpile" that features $4.50 bleacher seats, a good price for people who might only last a few innings. This was our view from our seats



and Amelia and Dean watching the game.



We had a good time--the day worked out well, since Amelia napped early and the sun went behind the clouds just time for the game. Amelia liked watching the people and even some of the game ("That man running!") She danced when music played and clapped when the other fans clapped, and the enjoyed her first experience with Dippin' Dots (which cost the same price as our seats). We lasted until about the 6th inning.

Our garden is thriving in the summer heat. We have piles of tomatoes, squash and zucchini, so much that I have just been planning our meals about what could include those things. We have a good amount of peppers, tomatillos, and cucumbers, too, and just picked some very pretty tri-color corn. This is our garden a couple of weeks ago; things are even taller and bushier now.





Finally, we are battling out an attempt to grow out Amelia's bangs. I really want to grow them out, since they grow fast and they are hard to trim, and our favorite hairdresser lives really far away. But Amelia is not a fan of hairclips ("Cips out!) so she looks pretty shaggy a lot of the time. Here is a picture of her with cips, just to prove she doesn't always look like a sheep dog.



We had some success with using a rubber band for a "ponytail" yesterday, and I made a big deal about how "now you can see!" So we'll see.