Dear Sabine: January 28, 2011

Dear Sabine,

You are something else these days.  You still won't talk much around people who aren't in your immediate circle, yet at home you won't shut up.  You long ago had the phase where you picked up a new word each day.  Now you're repeating everything you hear, and as soon as you've heard a word once, that's all it takes for it to become part of your vocabulary.

A while back, maybe six months ago or so, we joked about you having a few catch phrases so that if you were once of those dolls who had a pull cord, you'd go through a cycle of about four or five phrases each time the string was pulled.  You said, "Red, stop!  Green, bo!"; When you pulled your shirt over your head you'd says, "I con't seeeee."  If you were eating something and one of the dogs came near you, you claimed that, "A puppy tried a eat my ood."

These days one of my favorite things to get you to say is "Hallo Thomas" in a British accent.  And since you're repeating a lot of things you hear us say, you've taken to using the exclamation, "Oh my od!" replacing God with od.  You love learning different signs (ASL) from me.  Currently turtle is your favorite, as well as the 'I love you' sign.  You love telling all your people that you love them as you sign it.

You're starting to really enjoy coloring in your coloring book.  You love naming the different colors and pointing them out as you see them in the world.  Right now you get very excited about green, and then go on to list "red and orange and white and black," as your favorite colors.  You like to point out when you see ABC's anywhere, and you're beginning to recognize numbers too.

You act like such a little mommy sometimes, going upstairs to 'check on Jeje' if he's been up there for too long without hearing from him.  If I tell Jacob to do something, you'll follow him around repeating what I said for him to do until he does it.  And you always make sure each of the animals has been fed or let out.

You have a deep need to make sense of things, to know why, to know the process of things.  You always want to know what each and every noise was; of passing cars, of any knocking noise that you hear.  Many things in your world are categorized into 'baby' or 'big'.  You have a baby (pinky) finger, there are baby (small) puppies (dogs).  Basically anything small is baby and anything not small is big.

Your favorite foods are still orange juice and yogurt.  You pretend a lot now, talking to yourself when you line up the Bob the Builder machines.  Lining those machines up is the activity you engage in the most.  And of course you love watching Bob videos.  You still carry Little Baby around, but just in the last couple weeks I've realized that you're asking for her a little less when she's missing.  Three or so days will go by before finding her becomes critical.  

In June you'll turn three; you're looking forward to being able to chew gum and recently you announced you want to ride a horse, so we've told you for your birthday you can ride a horse.  You're also looking forward to becoming a big sister in July.  I know you'll be an awesome helper and a great big sister.  I hope you'll always be my little girl though.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Jacob: January 24, 2011

Dear Jacob,

I wish I could jump ahead into the future so that I could establish if all that nagging I did back when you were seven was really necessary.  Because it seems that's all I do right now, and I feel very badly about it.  You see, sometimes it's just so hard to be in the same room, scratch that, the same house as you.  You are so annoying these days.  I don't know how long it's been like this, a year?  It definitely became unbearable when you started school last fall.  The way Beckie puts it is that you (little boys in general) spend so much of the day 'toeing the line' in school, that when you come home, you just have to let out all that pent-up energy.

But why does that energy have to be in the form of the World's Most Irritating Sounds?  In order of frequency, here are the things you do:  Repeat random syllables in a high-pitched sing-song voice, clap your hands (loudly) in a random pattern (is random pattern an oxymoron?), laugh in a maniacal way that makes me have to stop what I'm doing to go investigate what you've gotten into, make gun-shooting noises, stomp your feet.  The list goes on.

For entire minutes in our house the only thing that can be heard is me going, "Jacob, pllllease!"  Followed by your continuation of said random phrases, followed by my going, "Jacob, pllllease!" again, and on and on and on.  If I were to actually leave the room I'm in to look you in the eye and tell you to stop every time you do sometime like that, I would never get anything done.  As it is I can hardly get any stuff done because I spend so much time with my blood pressure sky high that I can't focus on my task at hand.

Just in case I am being too vague in my description of the annoying stuff, as I type this you're getting so far under my skin that I can't think of a good metaphor for how far under my skin you are.  Here is what you are doing:  Creeping around the corner of the doorway to peer in at me, for what reason, I'm not sure.  But without taking my eyes from the screen I can see that you have put on your coat, with the hood pulled up and the little neck tabs pulled across your chin, and also, you have your little goggles on.  You are giggling because then you creep past the doorway and you don't think I have seen you, and perhaps you think you are getting away with something because I would not approve of you wearing your coat in the house?  How many times have I told you about peripheral vision?  I don't have to be looking at you to see what you're doing.

I won't even get started on your interactions with Sabine.

Also, it's like you're testing the power of words or something.  You say stuff sometimes that doesn't mean anything, I can figure out why you'd be saying it, it's not true.  Today, "Sabine, I have a razor, I could cut you."

WHY?

Is it because you are on your way to becoming a psychopath?  Or do I not need to worry about that?  Because if I knew that threatening to kill your little sister is a normal thing, then I would have a lot less nights where I lie awake in bed.  Is it because you are bored?  If so, that sort of sucks, but at least I would know the reason and I could assure myself that when it is not zero degrees outside, your cabin fever would wear off.  Is it that you are testing the power of your words?

All these things I could understand, but maybe there is some reason only a seven year old boy can internalize, yet not be able to come up with the words to express why it is a necessary part of development.  Maybe there is a purpose, and if someone, or if Future You could tell me, then maybe I could live with it without really understanding it.  Right now all the crazy behavior seems so meaningless.  If some expert could tell me to have faith, that there is a reason, I will take that.

Also, I'd like to know if I am damaging you in some way when I stand there above you screaming, "Why are you doing this?"  Because in these moments I truly expect you to give me an answer; when people tell me that you're seven and you don't know why, I just can't accept that.  When I tell you that you are acting crazy, am I negatively influencing your self-esteem in a way that can't be repaired?  If it can be repaired, is it enough that I apologize when I need to and that I can admit when I was wrong?

I really just wish that you could give me an answer as to why you do these things.  That would be the best thing for our relationship; if you could just tell me why.  I could be so much more understanding.  If I have a reason for something, I can deal with it.

All my complaining makes it sound like I don't enjoy having kids.  But then I go upstairs to get into bed, only to find my two cherubs asleep in my spot, snuggled in with their arms wrapped around each other and it all sort of seems worth it.

Love,
Mommy