Three-year-old logic

Amelia is starting to hone her critical thinking skills.    The other night:

“Mommy, uhhh, I don’t think Santa is going to bring me any presents because I haven’t been making good choices.   So, can you and Daddy buy me some more presents?”

Move over, Iron Chef.

Due to Lily’s condition of being a devil baby, we’ve lately felt that Amelia wasn’t getting enough attention (mostly due to her condition of being a non-squeaky-wheel who self entertains very nicely).

We’ve decided to take turns going on Daddy-daughter and Mommy-daughter dates with her and the results have been fantastic.  Amelia has just absolutely loved having one-on-one time with us, so hopefully we’ll be able to keep this new tradition.  And don’t worry, Lil’ Lily gets plenty of love and attention – she is very good at demanding it approximately 28 hours per day.

Last week, Little A and I baked cookies.  You can tell that she’s Tim’s daughter by the amount of care and detail that she puts into her tasks.  You can tell that she’s my daughter because she sticks out her tongue when she’s concentrating:

With every step of this process, Amelia takes time to admire her work.  She also takes a lot of time to taste-test her work (quality assurance and whatnot…).  The cookie-dough consumption is further evidence of her maternal lineage.

She also tasted plenty of cinnamon hearts and sprinkles along the way.  Only the best for our customers (ourselves).  It cracks me up how she carefully places each candy piece, and even each single sprinkle.

We have an embarrassingly extensive array of cookie cutters (they are always on clearance after holidays), and Amelia likes to go through them and carefully consider options for our next baking adventure.

We’ve all really enjoyed our dates.  Now if only Tim and I could find time to go out…

Leaves

Amelia loves, loves, loves (her words) seasons.  We have been discussing autumn extensively ever since she spied the leaves changing colors, and she has waiting with GREAT anticipation the annual falling of the leaves.  We have a book called “Leaves are falling” that she can recite verbatim.  Needless to say, she was overjoyed when gravity took toll on our tree’s dead leaves; I did not have to coax or even prompt her to take this inaugural jump:

 

Lily was excited about the leaf pile until she couldn’t escape it:

Our landlord brought his 4-year old twins over to play while he worked on the yard.

And our neighbor came out to play.

The children squealed nonstop for hours as they jumped into, did flips in, and covered themselves with the leaves.   I astonished Amelia by doing a front handspring into the pile.   Joggers and neighbors stopped to smile and watch pure joy in action. 

The Great Halloween Post of 2013

My baby bumblebee:

And Izzy the Pirate (from Jake and the Never Land Pirates…  She refused to wear the bandana and wanted a bow instead, like a proper pirate):

We went Trick-or-Treating with Darin and Kim.  Amelia daintily walked to each house, timidly rang the doorbells, and whispered “Thank you” to her kind benefactors.  She then took time to study each new piece of candy and show it to everybody present before making her way to the next house.  In the meantime, her cousins (Matthew and Jacob and their friends) had knocked on 5 houses.   After a couple blocks, Amelia declared that she thought she had enough candy and wanted to go home.

Lily procured a lollypop (her first ever) at the first house, and spent the rest of the evening sucking happily in her stroller.

Portrait of a (Little) Lady

(Photo by Cami Dickey Jones)

A common scene:  I hear Amelia stirring in her bedroom in the early hours of morning.  I open the door, watch her lingering between asleep and awake as the sun kisses her hair through the window.  I walk over to her bed, and say, “Good morning, Sweetie.”  She sucks her thumb a few moments more, then suddenly springs to life.  “Mommy, did I growed up yet?”

She is fixated on growing up, and assesses everybody we meet by whether they are more or less grown than she.  Her determination to become big breaks my heart, as you must know.

But the girl is growing up.  She has changed so much, even in the last month.  Gone are the frequent tantrums. Gone are the constant power struggles that so recently plagued us night and day.  She is, for the most part, reasonable.  She listens.  She considers.  She comes up with solutions to problems, and talks about the process in those terms.  She knows the difference between real and pretend.  She suddenly knows that animals don’t talk and that houses don’t fly.  She is getting so much braver when it comes to, well, everything.  Oh, it grieves my soul.  Truly, it is the end of an era, of her toddlerhood, and toddlerhood is my very favorite stage of human-ness.

But she is blossoming, and it is magical to watch.  She paints.  She sculpts.  She sings and dances and “whistles.”  She spins magical tales of monsters and monkeys and little girls and boys.  She watches Curious George and Caillou and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood with a concentration of which I am incapable of mustering.  She reads stories, and studies every last detail of the pages.  She remembers everything.  She knows the words to songs after listening to them twice. (Her favorites are What does the Fox Say, Roar, Cups, and All the Single Ladies.) 

She is sweet and sensitive and shy.  She watches everybody and hears everything.  Everything.  Everything.

We go for walks and play games like “I spy” and “Be on the Lookout for Halloween-y Things.”   We go on hiking exploration expeditions, and hunt for treasures like rocks and leaves and shells.

We explore zoos and botanical gardens and parks.  We roll down hills, play, “You’ll never catch me,” and lie on the grass to watch the trees rain leaves or the clouds moving across the sky or birds and airplanes flying.

 

I treasure every second that I get to spend with my girls.  I know how transient this phase of my life is, so in the same moment I kiss Amelia’s hair and breathe in its apple-flavored deliciousness, my heart breaks because I know this child is leaving me a little every day.  She has been leaving me her whole life, really, since the moment she slipped out of my body three and a half years ago. 

Occasionally when she is having a rough day she reverts to baby talk.  I gather her in my arms and start saying “Goochy goochy goo!” and the likes.  She giggles but then solemnly asserts, in her sweet, sing-songy voice, “Mom, I’m not a baby anymore!  I growed up.”

Grow on, baby girl.  I’m behind you every step of the way, wiping my eyes just a little bit as we go.

(Photo by Melanie Isaak Photography)

Preservation

My super-talented cousin Melanie (of Melanie Isaak Photography, highly recommended) took some family photos for us.  Because I’ve been anxious about Tim’s blood clot, my emotions have been a bit raw the last couple weeks.  As a result, I’ve tried to make the happy moments with my family last as long as possible.  Just up to my old antics, trying to freeze time and such, except with increased fervor.   So when Melanie sent the CD with our photos, I may have cried a little.

Photos are important to me – documenting memories, capturing developmental stages, recording happiness.  Photos help me do the impossible – they freeze time. 

Thank you Melanie!

Blood and snuggle parties

It’s been several hours and five days since Tim texted me with the news that his doctors found a very large blood clot in his leg – the same leg that was shattered earlier this summer and required major surgery.

We knew this was a post-surgery risk, and he took all the usual precautions: elevating his leg, walking around frequently, doing heel-toe stretches, etc.  We’re so surprised he developed a clot at all because he has a tendency to bruise very easily; in fact, we thought he might have a clotting-deficiency disorder. 

And now this.

Deep vein thrombosis is scary.   If a part of the clot breaks off and travels to his lungs, it could be fatal.  My sister-in-law Jill lost her best friend earlier this year to a pulmonary embolism.  The statistics are in our favor (especially now that he’s being treated with blood thinners), but I am still terrified.  Like, I can’t sleep.   I can’t really write about it without my chest tightening and feeling like I’m going to choke.

I need my Tim.  There is nothing like a crisis to make you appreciate the mundane.  Tonight at dinner I  felt like I just never wanted to stop eating potato and leek soup together.

Here are Tim’s legs – one is quite swollen due to the clot preventing optimal venous return:

Tim thinks the swelling has actually gone down, so hopefully he is on the mend.   Thank you for your thoughts and prayers and calls and texts – they mean so much.

In the meantime, I’m trying to take things one moment at a time.   Luckily, there are a lot of good moments, like spontaneous snuggle / tickle-fight parties.