Dear Carolyn,
Today you are three years and eight months old. You really are too cute for words sometimes. Lately you’ve been cracking me up on a daily basis…and driving me up a wall on a daily basis too!
So what’s been going on this month? Not much! School ended, and with it any pretense we had of a daily schedule. You’ve become mightily addicted to TV, as I’ve been trying to keep my feet up and my blood pressure down. We have daily battles over turning the TV off, but once we do you have no problems filling your time up with other fun things. I do feel badly, because you beg to go to the park or out in the pool on a daily basis, and I just don’t have the energy to do those things with you without another adult around to lend a hand right now.
On the other hand, you’re intensely into books right now. There was a stretch of a week or so where if Daddy or I sat down you’d hold us hostage with book after book after book after book…pretty much until we couldn’t possibly read one more thing without completely losing any voice we had. And then you’d switch to the other one of us. As a result, you either have all your books memorized, or you’ve finally connected all the pieces to actually read fluently. (And given that you can read new books pretty much on your own, I’m guessing it’s more the latter.)
I think you might be headed for a growth spurt, because you’ve actually been eating lately. Not just your standard cereal, yogurt, fruit, veggies, pb&j kind of diet, but actual meat, pasta, and even scrambled eggs. The other day you even ate rice and beans – granted, they were in separate bowls (god forbid anything touch – you get that from me, apparently I did that as a kid too), but the point is, you ate them. You’d still live on olives and blueberries alone if I let you, but I’m glad to see you actually do like food, and will eat it when your body needs it. That’s really all I can ask. (Of course, it’s never been a problem getting you to eat ice cream.)
I just realized that if all goes according to plan, this might be the last update I write to you as an only child. (If your sister is a bit late, you might get one more letter all to yourself!) I have really mixed feelings about this. I know you’re going to love your new baby sister, and at the same time I’m worried that you’re going to think we destroyed your life. Change is really hard, even for someone as “old” as I am, and we’re going to be asking you to handle a very, very big change. I hope that all the dire predictions about this that we’ve gotten from (assuredly well-meaning) others are wrong, and that even though your life is going to be very, very different, you won’t really hate us for it, or feel that you’ve been displaced or replaced. Nobody, ever, could take your place in my heart. You are my very special baby girl, and you always will be.
Love, Mommy