Dear Ameli,
Happy 27 months my girl. I was putting you down for a nap this afternoon and lying there, watching you I thought, “this is a kind of magic”. You had your one arm under my neck and the other on my waist and as you were drifting off you whispered, “Don’t leave me, Mama.” I lay with you for a little while and stared at your face. This is a kind of magic.
With me being pregnant you’ve really received the raw end of the deal for a while now. I’m still trying to get you out of the house every day, but I must admit that I am finding it harder and harder. I would happily sit on the sofa all day, but that makes you go stir crazy, so we try to do something every day. Over Christmas that’s been harder as all our usual groups and things are shut for the month, so it’s been a quiet one and you’ve had to self-entertain a lot of the time.
You’re superbly cute though, when I’m not suffering extreme exhaustion with a short temper and an even shorter fuse.
The other day we were sitting in the bath and you asked me about the baby.
A: “Is the baby coming out your tummy?”
M: “Soon”
A:”Then I’m going to be a big sister?”
M: “Yes”
A:”Then Aunty D is going to come visit me!”
Well, yes. You have the important bits down, at least.
You’re growing up so fast, it’s amazing. Your vocabulary is out of this world, honestly. The way you put things together sometimes, and how you pick up insinuations, or inferences really amazes me.
I’d expect you to say “I’m cold”. That’s not hard. But to say, “I’m freezing cold”? That’s so clever! I think so, anyway. I don’t have many two year olds in my circle to compare to!
Your nursery closed for the holidays a few weeks ago and your teachers told me they loved having you there. They said you were well behaved, friendly and polite. They tried to warn me that you were strong willed and liked getting your own way, but I just laughed. Your great-granny told me that when you were eight months old, and Daddy and I experience it daily.
We don’t wish to ‘break’ your will, or even to ‘mold’ it. I’m quite happy for you to be strong and independent, so long as you’re able to balance it out with being kind and considerate and understanding that sometimes you simply can’t.
We’ve had to adapt some things to suit your, um… temperament, shall we call it. For example, I’ll ask you to pick up your toys from the afternoon’s playing before bed time and you’ll say no. Then I say okay, but anything that’s still on the floor when you’re asleep will have to go in the box for other children, because if you can’t look after your toys, you obviously don’t want it. So we’ll pick things up together:
M: “Toy box or bin?”
A: “Uhmmmm….. toy box”.
Without fail. Yet you think about it each time. It’s funny, and sweet, and it gets the job done. I’m hoping it also teaches you some responsibility.
I’ve also seen recently that you’ve begun enacting your experiences with your toys. Today for example, you asked your teddy bear to go and sit in the bathroom – while pointing towards the bathroom. I asked you why Teddy was going to the bathroom? “Because he was naughty” you told me. “What was he doing?” I asked. “Shouting,” you said. (I hate girly screams in any child. I hoped to not have a screamy child , so I always moan a bit when you screech.)
The downside to a talking toddler? They mimic your parenting. You’ve become a mirror to my good and bad traits. You shine a light on all the things I don’t like in our parenting. Fortunately you also shine a light on the good things about us too.
Next month will be my last letter to you as an only child. I’m terrified, but I’m excited too. How can you not bring the awesome into big sister, just the way you have into daughter? I’m afraid of how our relationship will change, and how you will change. Even more about how I will change. But I know there’s no stopping it now, and what you and I have can only continue growing. You are magical.
This is definitely a kind of magic.
I love you, beautiful, big girl.
Mama