The Little Spitfire at Three

Maggie, 

I just want to say that I love you. I love you and your poofy hair, big smile and sweaty little hands so much. These past couple days have been some my most favorite and frustrating. You are so full of life, zest and good intentions. You are also amazingly smart, have a memory like a steel trap and full of questions. Today was a long day for us – long and tiring – and you were so helpful, patient and independent. 

A couple days ago you ‘spritzed’ your little sister with a concoction of water and hair conditioner while she was in her car seat….in the living room. By the time I walked into the room, she was covered from head to toe in the mixture and you were standing guiltily  over her with the spray bottle. She’s still pretty bald, so I’m not sure that your reasoning of having to spritz her hair was a good one. I had to suppress my laughter.

Your memory has always been stellar and I’m learning that you remember things that happened long, long ago. Like today you started talking about meeting one of my former co-workers and he let you play with a balloon and paddle ~ that was over a year ago and lasted for all but 15 minutes. And yesterday you were really concerned about Daddy’s old stand up paddle board. Turns out, you’d remembered his kite board and us giving it to a friend six months ago. You were able to tell us that it had two fins on it and was orange, otherwise we wouldn’t have remembered. There are countless stories like this: you remember something from long ago and we have to be reminded by you about it.  

You like to hear stories about when your daddy or I was little and have our extended family tree pretty much figured out. Today, after we had a long conversation about hitting, you came to me and checked to see if I ever hit when I was a little ‘goi,’ I answered truthfully and shared that I got in BIG trouble. Stories that we tell you and stories that we read to you help make up the fabric of your life and the connections you make to both shock us at times. Even though your bookshelf is full and we frequent the library, Fancy Nancy continues to be your favorite character, probably because you look and act like her sometimes. 

I have tried and tried to put your rainbow tutu in the dress up box, but you keep pulling it out and wearing it. You wear it EVERYWHERE. But you pair it with rain boots that make your feet sweat and stink, which I love. (not the stinky part). You hate to wear jeans (“too tight, mama!!”) and most often choose dresses over stretch pants. It’s clear you enjoy color by everything in your life. Your room is a blaze of colors – from your bedding to the pictures you draw at your desk.

You feel big emotions quite frequently – hugging tight hugs and smooching big smooches often. Lately you’ve been giving what I call ‘hits’ to me when you’re tired, but they’re more like little shoves, but never to your sister or friends. You direct most of your frustrations and whining to me, which I suppose I should be thankful for. Tonight you ‘hit’  me because I asked you to not shake the highchair while Audrey was in it – it’s hard to correct you when she’s cracking up, but we’d all feel horrible if the high chair came crashing down. You have gotten better at verbalizing when you get upset, “I’m angry. I’m frustrated” but, like any other three year old, you are susceptible  to a melt down from time to time.  And let’s be clear: you aren’t quiet when you’re upset. 

You still don’t like to fall asleep on your own, but you’ve been talking to us about it more and more. The other day, out of the blue, you announced to us that you were going to fall asleep that night all alone. You didn’t, in fact you didn’t even want to try when the time came, and I’m mostly fine with that. You like to snuggle close right up to the moment your eyes close, you’ve been like that since you were a teeny-weeny (your favorite way to describe something small these days) baby. You’ll finally fall asleep with your daddy – something you had to learn once Audrey arrived. On the nights that I do get to put you to bed, you hug and kiss me before we start reading, always complimenting me ‘You’re such a good mama. Always taking care of me. I love you’ is usually how it goes.

You almost always end up in our bed – sometimes in the middle of the night and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning. We can hear your not-so-quiet feet go padding down the hall in the morning to the fridge to get your cup of milk and your sprint coming back down the hall to our room. You drink your milk, pass the cup, and snuggle as close as possible before falling back asleep. 

We started doing something called Special Time every night after dinner – and it has really changed our little family. It’s 10 minutes that you get to spend with either me or your dad each night doing something special. We take turns picking, set the timer and have an all-out crazy time. Your favorite game to play with your dad is RunTickle. Here’s the rule: you run & you tickle. Your favorite game to play with me right now is Lion Girl. This means you run around the yard, with your hair going wild, and I commentate what you’re doing. “Here comes Lion Girl running up the hill. She’s so fast I can hardly see her!!” I hope that we always do Special Time in one form or another, but right now you wake up in the morning and start planning what you’re going to do for Special Time if it is your day to choose. It’s just ten minutes, but with Audrey being a baby and our days so fractured, I understand why you love that time….I love it too, Lion Girl. 

On the days that you fall asleep and your dad and I get some time to talk – without you our Audrey nestled between us – we tell each other anecdotes about things you said or did, often laughing at what we missed. More than once you have introduced Audrey to people as if she was just born and isn’t 6 months old. You elaborate on how the doctor took her out of my tummy and so on and so forth. You want everybody to know her…you are so proud of her. Even to the point of including her, as much as you can, in your games that you play, giving her fake names and toys that are big enough for her to play with. I don’t worry about you with her, but it’d be nice if you learned not to hug her too much…or spritz her until she gets some hair worth spritzing. 

Well, little girl, there are so many things about your personality and spirit that I could write about. You’re going to start preschool in September and you keep announcing, every time we drive by a nearby elementary school, ‘That’s the school I’ll go to when I’m five. I’ll ride my bike there and put it up against the wall!” It’s like you think you’re ready for Kindergarten – or at least riding your bike there. I think we’ll stick with preschool this Fall and I think Papa has plans to help you ride your bike there (driving and parking a few blocks away) since it’s about a 5 minute drive that isn’t bike friendly. I know you are ready to start school, and you are really going to love it, but this is all going too fast for me. 

I want to slow it down. These are the days I want to savor. Hearing you playing with your toys – you have hilarious voices for all of them or listening to your made-up songs (“I love myself. I love my tutu. I love my mama. I love when she puts me to sleep. I love my daddy….)” and just having you close.  There are moments from your life that I know you won’t remember, but I will never forget. I guess that’s what being a mama is all about. We have a couple jokes that we say to each other. One is about taking hug breaks (we take a ton of hug and smooch breaks around here) and that there should be ‘NO HUGGING DURING MY SMOOCH BREAK’ or vise versa. It’s really just a way to get some hugs and smooches in. But the other joke is that you like me to ask you to stop growing. I ask you to stop growing and you like to tell me that you’re still growing and want to grow up to be a big girl, just like me. You tell me not to be sad about it. Then you check to see if I’m done growing, if Papa is done growing and Audrey is done growing. I always end the joke by telling you that even though you’re growing, you’ll still be my baby. This joke makes you smile one of those smiles that lights up the whole world. 

Keep shining bright, my girl. 

I love you so. 

Mama