3

Three years ago today I was laying in Beema’s bathtub giving birth to you.

 Now you are tall, speak in full sentences and are the life of the party.

We all laugh more because you are here. Sometimes so much that I wish you would cut it out, but that’s mostly at bed time when you whip your older brother and sister into a frenzy of excitement trying to get them to play some more when they ought to be brushing their teeth.

You color, meticulously, keeping it all within the lines. You don’t want to play with puzzles and blocks during school time. You instead squeeze yourself a space at the table and scribble on one of the old work books that I kept for you. Every 5 minutes or so you yell, “Teach me mommy. Teach me what to do next.”

My favorite of your many distinctive phrases is the way you say, “Oh, I DO wike dat mommy.” It sounds so old fashioned and formal that I laugh to myself every time.

You are firmly in the middle of, “No, I do it! I do it by mysewf!” It’s most funny when you insist like that and then a minute later hand me the offending item and say, “I need you to do it mommy.”

You are flirtatious and coy in that unselfconscious way of many toddler girls. You make eyes at people all the time. I don’t think you intend to do it. You just have such big eyes, and one slow blink of those lashes is so dramatic that you can’t help but be noticed when you stare at someone. I love your smile too.

You still love to nurse. I sometimes despair of ever weaning you. But you were so brave and big when I told you no more during the night. You frowned a little and nodded your head seriously and went to sleep holding my hand. The next day you reminded me several times. “I big, I don’t need to nurse at night any more.”

I like how you grin when I lay close to you, press your forehead to mine, wrap you arm as far around my neck as it will go and pat my back. You sneak your eyes open to see if I am looking at you and if you catch me you smile big and keep smiling as your eyes close and you go to sleep.

Tomorrow we will throw you the party you have been planning ever since this summer. We will have “a pwincess cake at da pwaygound wif all my, my, fwends. I don’t eat it all. I share it wif dem.”

I will make you a cake with a doll in it like my mom made for me probably every year ’til I was 10. I hope the good weather holds.

I love you,
Your mama