Letter to our 2 Year 5 Month Old

Dear William,

Today, May 8, 2014, you turn 29 months old. You are 38 1/2 inches tall, maybe 38 3/4. It was hard to tell because amidst much laughter while I tried to measure you, you grabbed the yardstick I use to flatten your hair and were waving that around while you flexed your toes like a ballet dancer, up and down you went, and wouldn’t stand still. You weigh 36.1 pounds. You are in 3T bottoms, 4T shirts.

NURSING/FOOD:
You continue to enjoy nursing, as do I. We now like to nurse in our Tula carrier, and at the end of the night when we’re headed upstairs for your bath, as we walk past the carrier hanging on its hook you cry, “Wanna nurse in the carrier? Wanna nurse in the carrier, PLEEEEASE!!” It makes me laugh every time and I know you don’t mean for it to be funny, but it is.

You eat well for a toddler. One of your favorite things is to munch on my mixed nut mix that I take with me to work for snacking. You like to hold each nut up for identification and repeat the name of the nut back to me. Even funnier, I call it “Mommy’s Snackies.” You call it “Mommy’s Makies.”

We were in Michael’s the other day, and they had a bunch of figurines in a wire rack for purchasing. You wanted to look at them, so we did. You pulled out a pig and held it up and said, “She’s nursing her babies.” I also love that whenever you hear a baby crying in the store, you say, “That baby’s hungry! She needs to nurse!”

SLEEP & HEALTH:
Your sleep has been better this month than I can remember in a long time, if somewhat on the short end of things. We continue with our strict wake up from naps at 3:30pm, with a 6 hour wake time, that puts your bedtime at 9:30pm. Wake time is 6:30am and we try to get you down for your nap no later than 1pm. Despite the incredibly hot nights this past month, you’ve been sleeping well. If you do wake in the middle of the night, you usually go back to sleep on your own.

You’ve been waking regularly at 6:30am. Weekdays it works out well, because that’s when I normally go and get you. But on weekends, one of our favorite things we’ve started doing is to nurse and then snuggle and snooze in your bed until one of us wakes and says, “We should wake up and start the day!” Sometimes we doze until 8:15am! That late wake up time messes up your nap schedule for the day, but to me it’s totally worth it to have those snuggles with you.

You are completely potty trained 24/7, there were no accidents this month. I am astounded by your bladder control, you hold your pee longer than anyone I’ve ever known. You are also able to hold it if we ask you to, when you’ve said you need to go.  Usually it’s enough time for us to find a safe place to pull over so you can use your portable potty.  You’ve even awakened from your sleep and requested to go to the restroom. I have to say, though, that I’ve been very meticulous about making sure you go potty before your bath and before your bed. I even make sure, every single night, to warn you that once I offer that last potty of the day, I clearly articulate, “there’s no more potty after this!” And, 90% of the time, you get in your room, turn around and run back and sit on your little toilet.

I also felt you were ready this month to work on your nighttime “falling asleep” routine. Primarily, because I don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to nurse to sleep. More often than not, you are able to, but there are some nights when you just cannot fall asleep. It’s those nights that I’ve worked with you and gently reminded you that, “We’ve nursed. I’ve told you goodnight. I’ve told you that I love you. I’ve told you to sleep tight. Mommy cannot stay in your bed with you.” I stay with you just a couple minutes, and then leave the room. You have enough of an understanding of the English language and the rhythm of our home that this has worked for you, combined with the work that Grandma D. has done with you for your naps, you’ve been able to roll over and peacefully fall asleep.

THINGS YOU DID/PLACES YOU WENT:
Library time on Mondays and Wednesdays
Music Class with Miss Cheryl on Tuesday mornings
04/18 – Kidseum at Bowers Museum
04/20 – Easter egg hunt at Grandma & Grandpa H.’s house
04/30 – introductory swim class at Water Works
05/01 – Toddler Time at Scooter’s Jungle

 

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER:

How you love to kiss my “beldy” and I love to tell you that’s where you used to live. One of the days we had a nap fail this past month, I thought maybe I could lie next to you and you would sleep. All got quiet and then you scooched down and said, “I kiss your beldy, momma. I kiss your beldy.” There was no way I could be upset with you after that. We just said, “No nap today.”

Nothing gets past you, and it’s sometimes shocking the things you pick up… from watching Peter Rabbit you learned about spanking, and walked around the house with a Hot Wheels track tapping the cat’s butts, saying, “I’m doing lots of spanking!” I think I forgot to mention, back in January, you were shown some Bible pictures depicting the Old Testament, and from that you learned about “killing” with a stick. Thank you, Cain & Abel!  Your father and I were sadly remiss on the pick-up of using those as an immediate learning opportunity, we were too busy giving each other the “What the heck” face… seriously? THAT is what you learned from seemingly benign stories?

You love to sing songs to me, “Jesus Loves Me” is a top favorite. You sing stanzas of various songs, The Mack Song, as you call it, you sing, “Dop is a hallway, I wanna ride it all night long.” It’s actually, “Life is a Highway, I wanna ride it all night long.” haha You also sing (what you call) the Tow Mater song, it’s actually called Behind the Clouds, but you know the first line and last line of the hook — “Behind the clouds the sun is shi-i-ning, there’s a big blue sky, waiting right behind the clouds.”

The way you love to smell things… if we go to Bath & Body Works, you’re just as bad as we are, you want to smell EVERYTHING in the store.

How when we brush your teeth at night, you like to pick the toothpaste. You’ll say, “I want toothpaste, daddy! Please!” And then when he arrives, you say, “I want Cars toothpaste, please? No, no, I want Tinkerbell toothpaste, instead!” We also have some toothpaste in a blue container that I stuck a Red (firetruck from Cars) sticker on. You call it Red’s blue toothpaste, and everytime it makes me laugh when you say that.

 

 

How when we went to the park a couple weeks ago, you were somewhat reluctant to slide down a big slide all by yourself.  Your father started tickling you and was able to pull you out of the starting point.  You got half way down, giggling the whole way, and said big and loud, “DADDY PUSHED ME!!”  Push, pull, same thing in a toddler’s mind, I guess.

You’ve been struggling a lot this month with separation sadness in the mornings when your daddy and I leave for work. It’s terribly sad, and there’s lots of tears and crying and sobbing and begging. As a last ditch effort, as I drive my car out of the garage, you’ve started saying, “I want to go to work?” And you point at your car seat in my car.

There are a million and one things I could tell you, but instead what I do is I get out of my car and give you one last hug before I leave. You wrap your legs around my waist, like a tight rubber band (when did they get so long), and you wrap your arms around my neck, you lean your head on my shoulder where your tears seep into my shirt. You whisper, “I love you, mommy.” And I whisper back, “I love you, too, William.” And I think to myself, that’s really all you’re trying to say, every single time you reach for me, or you want to hold my hand, or you want me to lie down with you, or you want to show me something… I know, I will never be this loved again.

I love you, too, William

Momma