Dear Jacob: July 2011

Dear Jacob,

    I didn't actually plan to be writing a letter to you right now.  I planned to be in a crazy cycle of nursing a baby, changing diapers and sleeping.  But we are still baby-waiting here so I find myself with a lot of time and a tiny bit of motivation to do this thing, so I'm going to try to pop it out because you really deserve some recognition.

    I looked back to see when the last time I even wrote a letter to you was, and surprisingly it was just this past January; that's not so bad considering our crazy year.  But remember when I diligently wrote these letters each month?  That is going to have to be a thing of the past now that I'm going to have three kids.

    Anyway, the reason I'm saying you deserve this is because the last time I wrote, it was all about how much you were driving me crazy.  And now, six months later, we have returned to having a spectacular relationship.  Snuggling, hugs, kisses, hand-holding. A lot of that is because of the baby.  You love babies, and you love the idea that we're going to have a baby in our family again and you're constantly wanting to 'hug' the baby or 'kiss' the baby.  We've been having less fights about your clothes, and you've been a little more open to help in deciding which shirt matches which pants.  You still make annoying noises, but you're better about calming down when I prompt you.  We've been getting to spend a certain amount of one-on-one time with each other lately and it's been awesome.

    You are an awesome big brother.  Not always perfect, but lately you've been the best big brother I think I've ever seen.  Tonight at dinner Sabine stubbed her toe and started to cry, but before I could make it over to her, you'd scooped her up, put her on your lap and held her to you, rubbing her back.  You talked to her in a soothing voice and then helped her finish her dinner.  Sometimes I can't believe I'm witnessing a seven year old.  Also at dinner tonight, we had swiss chard from the garden, and you said, "Yes, swiss chard!  I love swiss chard!"  I think it's so cool that you like to eat things like that.  Each night for dinner we've had at least three or four things from the garden, isn't that awesome?  Cucumber, squash, zucchini, lettuce, snap peas, bush beans, garlic, broccoli, peppers.  One night everything we had for dinner, except for one ingredient, came from the garden.

    Last week in Sabine's letter I wrote about how I'm learning that I like you guys better when just one of you is around.  Something else I've been realizing is that just like in any relationship, my relationships with my kids come in waves.  Sometimes we have a rougher go of things, and then times passes and suddenly things are swell again.  Experienced mothers are always saying how you don't love one child better than another, just differently, and I'm totally getting to the point in my mothering experience where I can grasp that.  I'm also realizing that these waves in our relationship are natural, and sometimes one child's wave is up, while the other's is down.  So that while I may not love one of you better than the other, I certainly find that at any given time one of you is more in my favor.  And I'm ok with admitting that.

    Another thing we've been doing a lot of lately is weeding the gardens together.  It's just something that we both find very cathartic; maybe in your case the word is 'fun' or whatever.  But either way we sit together in nature and get to chit chat.  It's a very peaceful time for us.  We've baked together lately, which is something you've always loved to do.  Basically anything that involves housekeeping is right up your alley; laundry, dishes, vacuuming.

    These days I've been so anxious and antsy about waiting out these last days of pregnancy, that I've been dragging you and Sabine around from park to park and constantly running errands, that when we are home you are so happy to just veg out and play pretend things with Beanie.  Right away when school ended it was Play-Doh you were both really into.  Crafts are always a favorite.  Then one day you asked to bring the train set up from the basement (where it spent this whole past year ever since Daddy re-did the hardwood floors).  It had to be cleaned and disinfected (mice in the basement this winter) so you spent a couple of mornings doing that before playing with it, and ever since you've been sooo into building train tracks all around the house.  You guys like to paint out on the deck some mornings.  And you're into building giant block cities and furnishing them with a variety of Schleich animals.


    And baseball.  Still one of your favorite things.  You played little league again this spring, but what you really love are the Yankees.  We don't have cable so you either watch the live coverage one the computer, or listen to John Sterling on the radio.  You love to talk anything baseball with Daddy, and I'm amazed at the amount of facts you retain about the sport.  In the spring we went to visit Steve and Danielle and while we were there you and Daddy took a day trip to Sky Dome in Toronto to see the Yankees play.  I'd say your current number 1 activity is playing wiffle ball with Daddy in the backyard.  You and Sabine fight over who's going to get Daddy's attention when in the backyard.  She wants him for pushing on the swings and you want him for pitching balls.

    So right now it's summer and we're having a great time.  I'm so happy to have you back to myself after a long year at school.  You really enjoyed school, and I think it did wonders for you, but I'm still holding on to the hope that some day you can homeschool again, at least for one more  year.  You had ten kids in your class, in the one-room schoolhouse you attended.  I came in to your class a lot to help out, and I got a lot of experience in terms of being an involved parent in the school system.  I had to be persistent, and a little pushy at times, in order to be able to come in and get my time in your classroom.  So I feel like it was a really good learning year for both of us.  I feel like so much happened this year, so much growth took place and so much change.

    This coming school year is going to be something.  The new baby will bring lots of change.  I wonder if you're going to have trouble going back to school because you'll miss the baby too much.  But either way, things are going to be good because you're going to get another chance to show what an awesome brother you are.  I'm worried how the dynamic will change with you and Sabine though.  I know our relationship will change and takes on new shapes, but I hope we can still return to these times of calm and peacefulness, at least for a little bit.

Love,

Mommy

 

  

  

Dear Sabine: 3 Years

Dear Sabine,

      You are three years old!  I can't believe it!  And I'm writing this letter just one short month since you've turned three.  Last year it took me two months after your birthday to take official '2 year old' photos, so I think this is an improvement.  Plus we've got a lot going on in our family life right now.  We are, of course, about the become a party of five.  This baby waiting period has been a very long wait for you because you are just so super excited about the "baby coming over."  That is how you put it and how you've been saying ever since you found out.  It literally will be any day now, so it's hard to think about anything in our lives without thinking of it in terms of the baby, but I'll try.

So you are three, and three is proving to be harder than two was.  You love to have you some major tantrums these days.  Major Tantrums.  They last and they are mean.  And then you are done and you apologize and things are back to normal.  I'm finding it easier to ride them out than I may have if you were my first child.  I know a little more about what I'm doing this time.

This past year has been very full.  You started gymnastics in September and you really hit the ground running with that.  You absolutely love it and have always been happy to go to class.  And you are absolutely talented in the sport.  Miss Beth has taken you on as her class pet, and other people sometimes joke that they'll look for you in the Olympics in a decade or so.  At home you're constantly practicing handstands and cartwheels, or showing your various jumps on our bed.

Another thing you spend a lot of time doing is swinging on the swings in the backyard.  You like your daddy to push you on the swings whenever he is home.  He says that you could spend hours just swinging away without wanting to stop.  I tried to take photos of you swinging with him one day, and I found that I could not capture the essence of this activity.  It's a silent, serene activity, with only the creek of the swing making noise, and it is so peaceful to watch you guys out there in your spots.  Daddy's spent so much time in his position behind your swing that he's worn foot marks into the lawn.

Then there's the talking.  The Talking and the Asking of Questions.  It doesn't stop.  You don't stop talking - until we're out of the house and around other people.  They don't believe you can even talk.  One little girl at Playschool asked me at the end of the school year if you speak Spanish.  I asked her why she wanted to know that and she explained that she didn't think you spoke our language since she'd never heard you talk!  

I'm all for having kids ask questions to learn things, and I'm a big believer in the philosophy that there are no dumb questions, but I believe with you, in one year, I have reached my lifetime quota of answering questions.  You always want to know what time it is.  I don't think the time on a clock is even a thing to a three year old yet, but for some reason you always want to know what time it is.  So I've taken to using these as teaching moments, "Well, it's dark out and we're getting ready for bed," or, "You know that number right there, and this one is a seven, so what time do you think it is?" or, "Since you just asked that question 30 seconds ago and I told you it was 8:32, then what time do you think it is now?"

You also want to know how things got their names.  I don't mean proper names, I just mean words of things.  "Why's it called a broom?", "Why's it called grass?"  Etc, etc, etc.  I tell you I don't know and suggest that when you grow up you should become a linguist.  I feel very bad that I can't answer these questions.

In addition to asking questions, you love to talk about what you'll do for the new baby when it comes over.  You'll let it wear this, you'll help it do that, you'll love it so much.  

You tell 'tall tales' already.  How does this happen?  How does a three year old know how to lie already?  It makes it very hard for me when you are Jacob are each telling me something different.  Now that both of you know how to fabricate stories and play around with words, I can never figure out who to believe.  I know I should just let the two of you duke it out yourselves, but I feel like there's still too much of an age difference to leave you to fend for yourselves when it comes to sibling rivalry.  Jacob is too much bigger than you that he could really do some damage, and you're young enough that you're still learning the rules of sharing and other forms of proper behavior.

It's hard to talk or think about you or Jacob, without including the other because you are so close with each other that there's really no aspects of your lives that the other isn't intimately involved with or at least effected by.  I like it this way, I like that you are so close to each other.  Though I have to admit that it has been very hard these past few weeks since Jacob's been out of school because you always want to be right there with each other.  It's not often that you can be found doing separate activities.  And you play so much together that the fights just don't seem to end.  So I find that I've learned something very valuable about myself as a mother recently:  I realize that I experience boundless highs by observing you two interact and be loving to each other, but I think I like you better when I'm spending one-on-one time with either you or your brother.  This is an ironic revelation to have as we're about to add a third child to our family because now it will be even harder to get this one-on-one time, but I guess it is important to know and will also help as our family grows.

Oh, Sabine, Sabine...it seems I have hardly touched the surface of who you are.  I haven't gotten into any specifics of how we spend our days, or what your favorites are, or funny things you've said, but I guess I'm going to have to start trusting that these things that make up the essence of you won't disappear just because I haven't put them in writing.  I'll have to start trusting more people to remember these things for me, and hope that all the pictures I take have captured our day-to-day goings on sufficiently. There are some pictures I'm putting in here, in no particular order (because I don't have the time to mess around with it), which are some of my favorites of you this past year.  You are beautiful - a 23 lb ball of hilarious, compassionate energy.  You're very good at observing people and anticipating their needs.  You love to go get stuff for us and you know what you like.  Your favorites still seem to be orange juice and yogurt, along with anything sweet like cotton candy and ice cream.  And I love you to death.

Love, 

Mommy