You are three. Dear God, how on earth did you become three? I'm sure every one of these letters will begin this way, with my stunning realization that the reason fourteen million women told me while I'd wander unassumingly through the grocery store, bouncing you on my hip that first year, "enjoy this. They grow so quickly." is because you grow SO quickly. I refuse to be one of those women who say it though. Besides, who would believe me? A woman with her first child will never understand how quickly it happens, and a woman with her second doesn't need to hear it.
In honor of this incredible milestone, we bought you a dog. He's a little Yorkshire Terrier who you promptly named Henry. He didn't like you for the first month or so, but lately, I wake up to find him curled up on the end of your bed, and it makes me smile. You love him to pieces, and sobbed when your Nana and Papa came to take him for the day of your birthday because we were going to be gone the entire day. You love to hug him and boss him around endlessly.
How do I describe you right now? You are funny. You are imaginative and smart, you are determined and confident. You love to cuddle, and to make me laugh. You love to dance, and even though all babies go through their little dancing phase, I'm glad you've never grown out of yours. I enrolled you in your first ballet class a couple of weeks ago. You start in a few weeks, and that makes my chest tight, makes the air fly from my lungs as I realize you're old enough to do things like this. Take a class at the community center. Climb the monkey bars at the park, memorize a bible verse - so far you know three! Everyone is asking when I'm enrolling you in preschool and the short answer is I'm not. I can't yet, not this year. Surely you're too small for me to take somewhere and drop off with complete strangers and drive away. To me it sounds as plausible as enlisting you in the army, but then I've always been a little dramatic that way. Besides, with your daddy's and my schedules right now, neither of us is willing to allow those strangers time with you that we still want for ourselves. Maybe next year. Maybe we'll keep up the ballet thing and give you your social interaction that way. I'm learning to let myself parent you in a way that I'm comfortable with, even if it's different sometimes then what is normal right now.
You're a hard child to parent, do you know that? I'll tell you now, since you wont read this for many years, but you scare me to death sometimes. You're so completely confident in everything you do, and I'm so NOT like that. I worry about all those moms that ask me what preschool you're going to. The other day at the park I was asked twice and I was so nervous about answering. When a little girl ran up to you and asked what preschool you went to you happily told her you didn't go to preschool. When she didn't understand and persisted, listing preschool names like the Yellow Pages, you said flatly, "I told you already. I. Don't. Go. To. Preschool." You offended her, which made me smile guiltily, and she ran off and it didn't phase you one bit. You ran off to go down the slide and play. If I'd had an altercation like that it would have caused me severe stress. I'd have needed to come home and talk to your daddy about how unsure I feel sometimes, how strange around other moms. You just ran off to play. I find it hard some days to parent a child I want to be like. You're so completely comfortable in your own skin and I so often feel at odds with mine. In this way, I hope you never become like me, and I hope I learn to become more and more like you. I've learned so much from you already, and that's a strange and wonderful thing for me.
You've managed to find a totally adorable balance between being that independent, that devil-may-care, and being so completely loving. You hug for no reason, you ask me how I'm doing, if I'm happy, and what kind of things I like. Your daddy works most evenings and we almost always go to bed together. We get on our jammies and either grab our respective books, or our respective iPods (those imaginary moms are shaking their heads again) and we snuggle. Every night. You still drink "milkniceandwarm" every night, and again, it's a habit that you're probably too old for that I can't seem to ask you to give up, because it's cute, and you love it, and lets face it, you're not the best eater, and I figure the extra calories are good for you.
I kid you not, while I was typing this you just waged war on bath time - something you LOVE by the way. You climbed out for the first time ever (you're short, if nobody has told you yet) and ran shrieking, naked, into the living room and I, laughing, followed and tossed you back in the bath with your sixteen toys. And then suddenly you were mad, and refused to get back in. I find so much of parenting like this. One minute we're enjoying things, laughing, and then the next you're asserting some dormant bit of your personality. "Look, I've never been tall enough to decide when my bath is over, so move over woman. I'm done." I was bewildered and told you you had to get back in so we could wash your hair. You said you were done. You're not rebellious, or bratty, which would be easier. You're logical. I finally threatened something overly dramatic, sure you'd pick the bath you love over something you hate and you called my bluff. Said you'd pick anything but the bath, and then you burst into tears. And there I am. Stuck, and so obviously flying so blind that even a three year old can call me out on it. Eventually, I agreed with you, said you could have the awful thing you'd hate instead of the bath, but in a mad stroke of last ditch effort, I explained about good choices and bad choices. I was sure it was way over your head but now I was cornered, about to carry out some ridiculous punishment I had no intention of ever doing. You looked at me, standing naked in the kitchen, big tears on your beautiful little face and said, "so taking a bath is the good choice?" and I was startled as I realized you got it, this weird spur of the moment lecture about making good decisions, the kind that moms give their adolescent daughters the first time they go to the mall alone with their friends.
You climbed back in on your own, resigned that the bath was the better thing to do, even if you didn't like it, and I told you I was proud of you. And then accidentally dunked you "under the sea" and made you cough and sputter and burst into tears anew, and this time I could have kicked myself for my awful timing and I wrapped you in a towel, and cuddled you hard. In a moment you asked me to hold you "like a tiny baby" up to the mirror and ask "whose pretty little girl is that?" (something I've done since the day you were born) so I did and you giggled and I thanked God that your memory is so short, that you forgive and forget nearly instantly and so generously.
You're a really, really good little girl. We're still just as crazy about you as we were the day we had you, more crazy even. I'm going to go throw you in your jammies and toss you into bed and tell you a "Princess Bella Story" and fall asleep snuggled into you, as you kick my blankets everywhere and I smell your soft curls.
Beautiful darling little one, your Mama loves you so incredibly that it leaves me breathless, makes me crazy, and is the most powerful, overwhelming feeling. You are amazing to me in every way, and I can't imagine a life without your laughter and cuddles.
"I love you much"
Mama.
