Dear Charlotte, this phase has to take the cake for making me have the strongest desire to freeze time. Something about you at this time almost makes me sad because I know it’ll be gone before I know it. EEWWWEE you’re just so stinking cute and loveable. It’s something to do with your pursed-lip smile when you’re being coy, you curls that now form into the most delicious little pig tails, and those big brown eyes. I think part of your loveableness comes from the fact that your heart is just a little closer to the surface than everyone else’ in the world. It allows us to see our love through you. What a beautiful thing. Unfortunately it also means that your tenderness is exposed. You sweet little thing. Your feelings get hurt with every harsh tone, “no” or, time I can’t pick you up. Your hurt feelings cry is very distinct and consequently breaks my heart! I know this will always be a blessing and a curse in your life because I’m the same way. Just remember that your mama loves you and NEVER wants to hurt that tender heart of yours. I don’t know if it’s because you look like I did as a child or what but there’s just something about you that’s healing. It makes me think I must’ve done something right in my life to be trusted with your precious soul. I always say this but you have a peaceful little soul. It’s very quietly gracious. You take things in stride and make things easy. You are always along for the ride. You might be squawking along the way but along you are. Gosh I just love you. I think often these days about the woman that you’ll be. I hope wherever life takes you it’s of your choosing. I hope that when you experience trials you choose to be faithful and not let despair win. I hope that when you choose someone to spend your life with your decision is based purely on love and good sense, and never out of loneliness or compromise. I hope that if you’re big like me that you see the gift that being different affords you. I hope that you choose to be a mother. I hope that you choose to have another career if you want to. I hope you let me experience all of these things with you. I love you. The end.
-Lyla goes to Joy School every Wednesday. Poor little sister! You get so sad when I drop her off and usually walk around saying “Lyla?”.
-Excuse my french but you have THE BEST “eat shit and die looks”. Just like your mama
-You’ve mastered the 3 word sentences!!! Go babe! You can say “I want that” or “I wanna go”
-You have THE MOST random interpretation of the word airplane. It’s Dau-da. You get so excited everytime you see one in the air and say “da-dah!” over and over. It has the same cadence of airplane I guess.
-The tantrums are in full swing. I see you exerting your will more and more often and have a love/hate relationship with it all.
-You have this big board book that you got for your birthday that just has collages of various pictures. You are obsessed with it and carry it around all the time. It’s the only book you’ll every read and just love it. You can pick out and point to most of the pictures and get so excited at the “whoa whoas”.
-This is the funniest story ever. So one day you found a Binkie in the toy bin. You started sucking on it and at first thought it was funny and that you were playing. I didn’t worry too much about you liking it since you NEVER took a binkie as a baby. Well. I was wrong. You acted like you’ve always had a binkie and insisted on having it FOR DAYS. I kept hiding them and you kept finding them. You brought them with you everywhere you went and wanted them to go to bed. I was freaking thinking that of course you wouldn’t take it as a baby but would during the hard part of binkies. Luckily you let it go after a week or so.
-You know the words “yea” and “poop”
-You’re very interested in the bathroom. You insist on going potty when Lyla does. You also fight wearing a diaper and want to wear panties. It results in lots of pee’d on clothing but I try to go with it when I can.
-You are my little alarm clock. I used to think people were crazy when they said their child put themselves on a schedule but you proved them right. You really do best with a pretty fix schedule that you go like this: 8am: wake-up, nurse, play (LOVE mornings), 10am: snack. 12pm: Lunch 1pm: Nap 3pm: wake-up and be held for awhile and then play. 5pm: WALK 6pm: dinner and play 8pm: bath. 9pm bed time. You wake up at the same time every morning come rain or shine. No matter what time you go to bed, so it’s gotten me on a good schedule. You’re grumpy and clingy if you don’t stay on your schedule so we do our very best to honor it. If we don’t get you down for a nap in time, you sleep short periods and cry a lot.
-You have the cutest curly hair
-You love to tease
-Your new thing is pretending to be a puppy or Kitty. It’s hilarious. You crawl around a “mew”.
-You say Noooo! when you don’t want something. It’s funny.
-You knows most animal of the sounds
-You went through this month-long screaming phase. Like anytime you didn’t get what you wanted or got to do where you wanted you would scream a BLOOD curdling scream. Luckily you’ve kind of outgrown it already. You definitely are still a very vocal child, but less screaming now and back to serious whining!
-You can be so silly sometimes! It cracks me up. You’ll put your plate on your head or hide things from us.
-You love to pretend to know on the wall or door. You also do it at the right time during our nursery rhymes. You get so proud of yourself and say “knock knock knock!”
-You LOVE to do the monkey sound and itch your pits. It is killer
-You’ve gone through this hitting phase that I’m afraid you learned from your big sis. You hit anybody who doesn’t do what you want but luckily it’s not that often.
-I think you’ve started to have an emotional reaction to Dad leaving each week. I can barely talk about it because it puts a pitch in my stomach and makes my heart ache. You haven’t really cried when he leaves but if you don’t get to watch you physically drive away you go around saying “Dada?” off and on for a day or two. IT breaks me. I know that it’s mostly just an issue of knowing he’s coming back because Lyla had to make the same adjustment. but I’m sorry that your daddy can’t always be there physically. He is always there for you though and LOVES you something fierce.
-You went through an obsession with “pop pops” or popsicles. You would ask for them first thing in the morning and wouldn’t quit! Luckily we just ran out and I stopped buying them and you just sort of got over it.
-You love that we can Facetime dad anywhere now. (iphones don’t need wifi anymore to Facetime so Dad can do it anywhere he has decent service). You get so excited when you see his face and say “dada over and over”. You also call him on your play phone.
-You’re rocking the 12-18 month clothing and size 4 shoe.
Dear Lyla,
You turned THREE this month!! HOW?!?! How have you been my baby for three years. That’s 1,095 days of waking up to you. 1,095 of you drifting off to sleep on my arm. 36 of the best months of my life. I just love the little girl that you have become. So fun. SO beautiful. So precious. So joyful. You are becoming such a big big girl I don’t even know what to think of it. You even go to school now. Your fearlessness floors me. On the first time joy school was at another person’s house I prepped you all morning and when I went to take you you said, “mom. You can just wait in the car okay? ? Be still my soul. I think I’ve said this before but it’s like most of the day I go around thinking you are still my baby or even toddler and then catch glimpses of what the world must see which is a little girl! It’s bittersweet in that I’ll always mourn the baby that you were, but sweet in the way a mom might feel if they got a momentary fast-forward to peek in on their child and see nothing but pride and joy. Oh baby baby baby. Gosh I’m proud of the little girl you’ve become. You listen well (most of the time), you’re so kind, you love life and life confidently. You live for fun and are always game for whatever. I hope this sticks. I hope you always find the positive in life and always find a way to have fun. I have loved spending the summer with you and Charlotte. I cannot wait to to wake up each day and see what it unfolds. Usually lots of play, discoveries and snuggles. Thank you for giving me this life. Please always know that even if I make mistakes and say mean things or yell. I love you. You’re enough. I ‘m proud of you. And you are my everything.
-You’ve always been a lover of people and friends, but have been especially attached to Aunt Shauna’s house. You always ask if we can go to Aunt Shauna’s and play in hog heaven the whole time we are there.
-You say “Ugh” when you are frustrated. I’m afraid you got that from me. Ooops.
-You definitely still struggle with patience. You say want things now now now and struggle if you have to wait for ANYTHING
-I’ve begun the counting system when I say you get to 3 to do something. You get made now and say “I don’t want you to count mom!”
-You have a crazy good memory. You recall things from even a year ago like the book Grandma gave you last valentines day. It shocks me the things you remember.
-You can most count to 10 sometimes a 60 gets added in there but who’s counting. LOL
-You’re learning your colors. You know red, pink, black and white.
-The other day you were painting and said “it’s perfect!”. Yes it is little lady.
-You’ve done really well with joy school overall. There was one or two times you wanted me to stay as I was driving you to the home but once you get inside with all the kids you’re happy to say goodbye. I think you like a little independent time because you always confirm that it’s just for you and not Lottie. Poor girl.
-When you’re doing something that needs intervening I try to give you choices. Like, “Lyla, you can hit the couch with that stick but you cannot hit the the TV or Charlotte”. You now cut me off every time with “MOM! I don’t want choices!”. LOL
-You get frustrated with my. You’ll say “Moooommmmm” all exasperated like
-You love glee. You dance and watch intently.
-Okay so we had a stressful incident in which you put a little black bean from the sensory bin. You told me right away and started to snot black stuff. I tried to pull it out or have you sniff it out but you couldn’t. I got a light and tried to find it but I couldn’t’ see anything. If you hadn’t told me and I hadn’t see the black snot I’d have had no clue. So I called Aunt Jenny who happened to be sitting right next to a doctor at work. He instructed me to go baby CPR but leave the plugged nostril open. I took a deep breath and told you I was going to give you a BIG kiss! The first time I must’ve done something wrong because you cried and said your chest hurt. SO I tried again and with the force of a 1,000 elephants it flew out and hit off the ground, covering my face in black snot. Oh my babe. Always an adventure. Lottie has since done the same thing and you instructed me to give her a BIG kiss. LOL
-When Char gets hurt you say “Oh sweety”. LOL
-You get breathless when excited and trying to tell me something. You stumble over your words and pant. LOL
-The other day Char was crying and you said “mom, give Char your nipple.” LOL
-You have moments when you really show me your independence…and TUDE! One day you said to me, “Mom, get uut of my room”. You’ve also said “mom, I don’t want to talk about it”.
-You really like to play Doctor and get very hard core. Last week we went to the Doctor for Charlotte and you watched intently. When we got home you used your stethescope on my back and told me to breath in. LOL
-You tell everyone you “got this in hawaii”
-Anytime I do anything you think I’m doing it for your birthday. It’s true I DO!
-You ask to go to the Shauna’s or Hawaii every day.
-We rented this big Disney collection book from the library and you are obsessed. You love it and want to read it every day.
-When Charlotte goes down for a nap you get to watch a show or two. You look forward to it everyday and snuggle up in my bed. You love to play as must as you love to lounge.
-You love to go go go and always ask to go here or there
-You love to play hide and seek and giggle so excitedly anytime we find you.
-You have become very big sistery. My puppy or my baby to char. Bossy
-When you want attention you say “mom! can I tell you something??”.
-The other day I said I had a frog in my throat and you listened and pondered on that. A few days later you coughed and said “I think I have a cow in my throat”. LOL
-When we go somewhere now you say “I need to get my makeup on”. LOL
