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