New routine

"Mia, what is your name?"

"Sasha."

"I think your name is Mimi."

Mia points to me. "Mama."

"That's right."

Mia points to Daddy. "Dada."

"Very good!"

Mia points to Sasha. "Sasha."

"Yes!"

Mia walks away.

"But Mia, what is your name?"

"Sasha."

Ugh.

Milestone

Dear Mimi,
You said "shoe" perfectly this morning. From your perspective this must be a major milestone considering shoes are your favorite objects in the universe (in a close race with breakfast bars).
Love,
Your Mama, who looks forward to many shoe-hunting trips

Dear Mimi, Month 16

My little wild monkey,

I'm very late on this one, I know. It's just that you and your big sister hatched a plan to drive me nuts: never nap at the same time. Along with a load of planning for the upcoming semester, your scheme has left me with very little free time to write. But there were so many moments this month when I wished I had a pen - you are growing so incredibly fast.

You constantly insist on going outside. For a while you just grabbed my hand (or the hand of whomever you believed to be most likely to take you for a walk in 95-degrees and 95% humidity) and dragged me to the front door. Then you started screeching, "Wah! Wah!" (Walk! Walk!) Now, you say one of  your first two-syllable words, "Outside...peas." It's adorable. Unless it's pouring or we're about to get in the car, I open the door and let you out into the world.

We go to a free play gymnastics center every Friday morning. I let the two of you loose and you just go nuts. You follow Sasha wherever she goes - atop balance beams perched high in the air, into the middle of a gaggle of five-year-olds jumping on a giant trampoline - anywhere. Or you run clear to the far corner of the place - and it is a vast place - just to see if I will freak out. Sometimes you position yourself at the ball pit and won't budge, hypnotized by all of the brightly colored balls and how easy it is to throw them at unsuspecting toddlers as they walk by. 

By no means do you believe yourself to be one of those toddlers. You point to them and say, "baby!" You adore babies and always want to give them kisses and hugs. When I ask what that makes you, you run off to hang with the preschoolers - just to prove your point, I think. You love to dance and stomp and kick and jump and slide and run every which way like a wild monkey.

Sasha and I have taken to calling you that, our wild monkey. When you escape at the gymnastics center or the mall play place or a store, I hoist Sasha up onto my hip and we go on a wild monkey chase. "There goes our wild baby!" Sasha yells. All three of us enjoy it, I think - but you the most. You just love slipping out of a busy room, hoping that I'll notice and come running after you so you can make cute faces at me and see how fast I can run with a preschooler on my hip. 

You make a one funny face that you're particularly proud of. You squint your eyes shut, scrunch up your cheeks and look to the side. Then you crack up. If everyone else in the room bursts into giggles, you laugh harder and do it again. 

This month I feel like we're starting to talk. You have said a few choice words for a while but now you're practicing your verbal skills every chance you get. If we pass a picture in the hallway, you stop to identify the people you see. We have little laminated photo cards of your cousins and sister and you point out the babies and then hold the picture of Sasha above your head and yell, "Sasha! Sasha!" 

You say sock (sah), shoe (shh), Sasha (perfectly!), book (buk), bed (beh), bow, go, walk, read, thank you, please, okay, car, ball, chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo, tickle, done, chair, cookie, cracker, dog, cat, Gimel (Gee! your uncle's dog), tweet tweet, water (wawa), night night - I could go on and on. When I ask you a question, I usually get some sort of response, even if that response is a tantrum of discontent. 

You are learning to share. I'll take part of the credit and leave the rest to you and your sister. I give you a few minutes to work out whatever sharing issue you're having or else I take the toy away. It works like magic - now you also like to share with your friends, offering them bites of your snack or pieces of your puzzle. 

Your favorite toys are balls, trucks, cars, babies and pretend food (to feed yourself, me and the babies) and your favorite books are, "What Does Baby Say?" and anything with the subject matter of daddies, like "Daddy Kisses" and "I Love My Daddy Because..." You are very particular about your stories, wanting certain pages to be read first and then over and over again. For example, in one of your Animal Baby's, you always start with a page where the baby says Yum while eating dinner. You say, "Mmm, mmm," while searching for the page. Then you want to read the page where the little girl reaches high into the air. You hold one arm into the air while searching for the page. Your favorite song is, "Wheels on the Bus." We sing it and you go wild with the motions and squeal, "Beep! Beep!" You also know the motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider and many other songs - and you'll dance to anything. The moment the radio comes on, you're bouncing to the music. 

Another favorite is riding on the back of my bicycle. You try to climb into your bicycle seat every chance you get. We love to go on family adventures to different playgrounds, you in your bike seat and Sasha in hers - all of us sweaty under our helmets. You're trying so hard to ride a tricycle but your legs don't quite reach. 

Our days are wonderful - museum mornings and play dates and splashing in the pool, popsicles dripping, visits from Nana and Papa, and now my brother (D!), so much good food to test out (you have very sophisticated taste), library time and cookies at the grocery store. Everywhere we go, you point and want to know what this or that is, preferring to touch and find out for yourself I'll let you. 

My little Mimi, you are becoming such a little girl. You won't let me rock you to sleep - you swat my hand away as I try to rub your back and sing, but I know the time will come when you want nothing more than a snuggle with me before bedtime. I'm waiting for that time to return. For now, it's like you have an on-off switch - you're either up and moving, babbling and climbing and  careening, or you're down on your belly with your eyes shut, recharging and resting. 

I can't wait to see what you do with all of your energy as you grow up. 

I love every bit of you so very much.

Love,

Mama

 

Dear Mimi, Month 15 (And, two years ago)

Note: I wrote last month's letter by hand while we were on vacation and haven't had time to type it in yet. I will!

Dear Mia Mia Bumblebia -

Some moments I look up from working a puzzle or fixing a quesadilla to see our world through clearer lenses. I'm shocked to see the way you have shaped it.



Imagination makes castles and farm houses out of blocks, tumbling down, tears and screeching and me handling it calmly and Sasha recovering and you moving gleefully on to the toy drum - or not - and the three of us ending it with a hug. The couch is a jungle gym and the bed is a jungle gym and I am a jungle gym and once I found you standing on top of the toilet with Sasha washing her hands next to you. The pool is a wet wonderland for you to splash and climb and clamor and Sasha to ponder and test. Shoes (you call them "sshhhh") are precious to all involved. Likewise cooking is a great, messy adventure for three. Play-Doh is something for Sasha to meticulously manipulate and you to throw around and smear in your hair and me to clean up, wishing I'd never allowed it.

Everything is three different things.



You have opened up a whole new world to us - a world of mischief and smiles made of pure sunshine and dive-right-in sass. Your favorite activity is attempting to give me a panic attack. Danger magnetizes you. You sprint away from me on the pool deck and head for the edge, timing is just right so I will rescue you before you drown or hit your head on the side. I yell, "STOP"; you giggle wildly for so long that I start to think it's funny, too.

You have your first child and obviously that's incredible; you expect the surreal. Then you have your second baby and for a while you think, "Hey, this is old hat. I know what I'm doing here. No surprises." So many things aren't quite as amazing or wonderful or terrible. Taking you to urgent care for the first time last week, for example, wasn't so tragic - it just had to be done. Watching you roll over, crawl and take your first step were delightful but expected.

More magical are the little things that are just so...Mia.



Your way of growing increasingly lovable as bedtime approaches in hopes that more smiles, kisses or peek-a-boo will ward off the inevitable. Your love of songs involving motions such as The Wheels on the Bus and the Itsy Bitsy Spider. The way you walk backwards saying "Bee bee bee," (Beep, Beep, Beep) and maneuver yourself into my lap. When I say say good-bye and turn to leave and you head for the front door instead, eager to go with me or head out into the world on your own. You stand on tip toes and reach for the door knob; you wave and say, "Bah bah!" (On a rough day last week, I had Nana come pick you up while I gave Sasha some much needed one-on-one attention. It was the first time I'd let you leave me - I always had Nana or Carli come to our house - and I didn't know how you'd take it.) You reached your arms up, hugged Nana and went right out the door, waving and smiling. When you came back a few hours later, you were just as happy.)



I am amazed at way you've recreated our world. Still, I was looking through some old posts a while back and came upon this one, and it made me realize that I knew - even when you were in my belly - that you would do this. When I wrote this, Sasha was about your age and we had recently found out about you. Here it is (I used to alternate between calling you a girl and a boy):

September 2006

It was not instant. It took a few days after S. was born to feel the vast connection that comes with motherhood. To her, to myself, to my mother and then all mothers. To blades of grass and shiny beetles and laughing college kids at the coffee shop. To death. To the ocean. Delicate, circuitous connections spinning outward from me like a web, lifting me up from myself as I fed her and pinning my feet to the floor as I wafted through the motions of caring for a baby at night.

The world still stops when I look at her, incredulous at her existence nearly every minute. It is a different world altogether than before her.

When the feeling took root, I began to mourn S's journey from my belly. I touched my stomach, still able to feel her floating and kicking in there, remembering easily the warmth she created when we were two people sharing the same body. Every moment was bittersweet, her needing me less and less. I cheered, I took pride, and I mourned.

Right now there is a baby swimming in my belly. A baby closer to me than S. It is hard, so early, to summon a feeling of connection. Perhaps it was that way with S., too, but it was more difficult to express. I could not understand what was happening to me, to us, then. She felt like an alien, a parasite invasion. I felt alien, too, my body transformed into its anatomy and its function: a boat for the voyage of this creature.

Now that feeling is familiar. What is my body besides a mother and a wife, a device wielded by my heart for the good of the people I love?

On Wednesday we had our first ultrasound. The baby was as big as a walnut. She has a head, a perfectly curved back, two legs, two arms. And kicking! Oh, S. never kicked like that for her pictures. Her movements were watery and wide, as if through a filter. For the first time, as C. squeezed my hand, I realized that this is a different baby. This baby is fiesty - a dancer or a fighter. He is a part of me now. But he is himself already.

This baby enters a whole different world, too - one colored more brightly, more simply than the world his sister was born to. This world offers a wiser mother and practiced father, days less busy but more full, moments longer, laughter clearer.

And, the part I can't predict or understand: this baby will make that world his own.

I love you, Miss Mimi, in a bigger, sweeter, fuller way than you can imagine. In a way you will never know until you have your own second chid. I hope you do.

Forever,

Your Mama

Five Years

I remember having trouble sleeping, getting out of bed to write a letter to C. the night before our wedding, wanting to let him know how incredibly lucky I felt to marry him. I felt the same way just before our big date last night - I just hope he knows how much I adore him. It's easy, every day, to let him know how much I appreciate and respect him, how much I rely on him and feel protected by him. But after five years, it is comforting to know that - through all of our life's transformations and a lot of growing up - I really do love him more than on our wedding day. That I still feel like I'm the luckiest. 

Dear Mia, Month 13

Mimi Bean,

This weekend the four of us tromped down the wooded path to a festival celebrating Florida's farm and forest life in the 1800's. The bonneted lady at the welcome table said nearly the same thing she did last year, "Oh! They're adorable! How old are they?"

Last year, you burrowed into my chest and sighed and Sasha whined, "Mommy tell, mommy tell."

This year, Sasha held up two fingers and announced that she was two and you are Mia, her baby sister, you are adorable and you are one. You squealed in agreement and we proceeded on to the animal area where to attempted to abandon our party and join the chickens in their coop. 

I love annual events because they jog my memory - and this was your first one (aside from your birthday, of course). I looked at your sticky hands gripping a squashed banana in the stroller and clearly remembered your milky fresh breath as we nursed in the woods behind the outhouse last year.  

This year, I carried my signature diaper backpack and nothing else. Last year I had a mass of diapers, wipes, extra outfits and pacifiers in the pack, you in the Bjorn and your big sister on my hip. Its not that Daddy wouldn't help - you girls wouldn't let him. This year, both of you clamored for him with arms out.

It is awesome - in both senses, the totally cool and the inspiring - that you have blossomed from a soft and tiny secret into a little girl pointing the way to cows and running around looking for danger (Blacksmith's shop! Ooh!)

At home, you're obsessed with things that move - your favorite toy (for months now) is the "princess ride," which is a pink and purple car type vehicle that you can ride or push but also features many musical buttons and dancing Disney princesses. You seem to enjoy every element of this toy. The first thing you do upon entering the playroom after breakfast each day is climb on the ride and just sit there surveying the scene. 

 All of the things I worried myself over as I wrote your birthday letter - you didn't like to read, you couldn't name the animals in the toy barn like your sister could at your age (actually I had never tried this with you) -- have proved wrong, of course. 

A few weeks ago, I picked up a sheep and a pig and said, "Mia, which one is the pig?" 

You grabbed the pig and said, "Pppuh!" 

You identified the sheep, the cow and the lion and but screeched out loud and grabbed both the zebra and gator at the same time - don't push it mama! You point out sheep in one of your picture books, which you now allow me to read to you before each nap and bed time. Most of the time, though, you'd rather not point. When I instruct you to point to the cat or the baby or the boat, you search and find it, and then dive down to give it a kiss. Pointing is just not as much fun.

Lately you're obsessed with B sounds. "Baaah" seems to mean everything. 

"Baaah," you say, and point to the window. 

"That's right, Mia, a bird," I reply, guessing. I draw open the blinds and pointing out the trees, the dew-covered lawn, the neighbors' car pulling out of their driveway.

"Baaah! Baaah!" you squeal, leaning toward the kitchen.

"You want breakfast?"

"Ba," you say, smiling. 

Okay, then. I plunk you in the high chair with a breakfast bar.

"Ba ba, Mama."

"You're welcome, Mimi."

(You think it is hilarious when Sasha or I break out into "Ba ba blacksheep.")

Other things you've discovered this month include coloring with markers, giving hugs on demand (sometimes), hide-and-seek (you much prefer to seek), and sitting in chairs. 

You run straight into the melee when Sasha and Daddy wrestle on the floor and emerge from the pile with a huge smile on your face. 

When I give you a choice of books to read at nap time - The Belly Button Book or Daddy Kisses, say - you're always certain of your choice, lunging after and hugging the book you want. You also choose your food, and you like to tell me when it is time for bed, by leaning toward the crib and saying, "Beh." If you've done this - as opposed to me forcing you into bed before you'd like - you always roll over and go straight to sleep without so much as a peep. 

Sasha came down with a bad stomach flu and it was heartwarming to watch you walk up and pat her head as she laid on the couch. You knew something was wrong, so you kept your eye on her, offering your snuggles and pats every ten or twenty minutes. You are such a kind girl, Mimi. I love you. 

Forever,

Mama

Dear Mia, Month 12

My Tiny Mia,

Early sunlight filtered through the blinds, its gauzy rays spreading over the thin hospital sheets in the wallpapered room. The masked doctor held you up – a slick, pink baby, your legs kicking, trying to cry.

That sunlight has followed you for the last year, casting a fizzy brilliance over our lives. 

I sing you a lullaby: “You’re a slice of heaven, you’re a bit of a dream, and everyone who sees you knows just what I mean.”

They all say, “Look at those eyes,” and start to look away. Then you scrunch your nose and open up a smile and they can’t turn from you, wanting to stay near your bubbly warmth. On two occasions, shoppers followed us through the grocery store for several aisles.

You are a delight – a good-natured, independent baby who can’t get enough of this wonderful world. We visited our friends’ farm last week, a blue on green expanse of horses, cows, fences and clouds, and you had little interest in anything but the gravel road.

You picked up the chalky rocks two at a time, banged them together and threw them, then turned them over in your hands and put the smallest ones to your lips.

“Ah, ah, baby girl,” I said, warning you. You squinted your eyes, your in-trouble expression, and lowered the gravel into your lap.

Give you a room in a new house to explore, a park to ramble or anything non-edible to chew on, and you’re happy.

You also like danger; barbed wire fences and dark, crowded garages entice you. You would love to dive into the neighborhood pool and start swimming right now (you’re not so thrilled about sitting on Mama’s hip in the water).

At 23 and pregnant, I thought I was young. At 25 and pregnant, I thought I was crazy. Two babies under age two?

I wasn’t terrified of you so much as the two of you: sisters. And you are a formidable force, particularly now that you’ve started holding hands and actually sharing a toy on occasion.

Yesterday Sasha announced to me that you were her best baby, her tiny little sister who was “so soft and fantastic.” And then she said, “Mia is my best friend.” She patted your head. You looked up at her, grinned and hurried away – half-waddling, half-running.

I can feel nothing but joy.

The first time the two of you ask for something (i.e. gang up on me), I believe I may physically turn to Play-Doh.

Roundly pregnant with you last spring, I tried in vain to rely on my usual refuge: research. Nothing seemed appropriate. The books I loved during my first pregnancy – Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions and Dr. Sears’ Attachment Parenting Book – seemed to make sense only for one child. Books about siblings applied to school-age children or teenagers.

Instead, I relied on instinct. I rubbed my belly, giggled at your kicks and said, “Que sera sera.”

It has been my mantra. I repeated it as you writhed and screamed through the first four months of life. I repeated it as you busted through all of my expectations of how a baby should act (all erroneously based on Sasha’s actions) and made your own way, refusing to read books, running toward – not away from – pets, and sharing smiles and snuggles with anyone in the room. And I repeated it this morning as you howled to be lifted from the high chair while Sasha tantrumed on the bathroom floor.

There are lots of things that make me want to cry about your first year: I left you in your crib five minutes longer so that I could get dressed, or did puzzle after puzzle with Sasha in my lap while you entertained yourself with a teething toy next to us. The play-by-play narration of our lives usually revolved around your sister’s actions – or didn’t happen at all when I felt exhausted. I handed you off to Daddy, Nana, Papa or Carli so I could work a few hours every week.

But the same things make me happy: I was brave enough to trust that you’d take what you needed out of our daily narrative and I watched as you glommed onto the silly and the textured, chased the challenging and sought out the loud. You climbed stairs before you could walk, sifted sand through your fingers and ran after puppies. Instead of forever leading and holding on, I often followed you – or let you roam as I watched over you. I was secure enough in our love to allow you to love other people, and to know that the ways they loved you weren’t worse than my own, and could only benefit you.

I will always teach and protect you. More than that, Mia, I will be strong enough to let you protect yourself and learn in your own way.

Three years ago, it would have seemed strange to me that a baby could teach herself things but now it seems obvious. You jump on the trampoline, clap along with music and kiss yourself in the mirror. You point at birds, climb up slides and race through sprinklers. Heaven is being naked and digging in the backyard dirt or having whatever toy you sister just had.

As you rustled and punched inside me, I worried my heart could not fit something so immense as another person. I fretted that life would never be the same.

The latter is true.

My heart bulged and stretched, metamorphosing like a tadpole to a frog, but everything else is different.

I learned to play zone, strapping you to my chest and hoisting your sister in the shopping cart and handing a cracker to each of you simultaneously while driving. Daddy learned to bathe two.

I dream of the fast pitter-patter of your tiny feet chasing the weighty bu-bump of your sisters' around the couch.

You have made me another kind of mother, transformed Sasha into a sister, turned our trio into a crew and cast the world in your own brand of sunlight.

I am forever thankful to be your mother.

Love you as bright as the morning,

Mama

A note on words

Mimi -

I'll admit I have worried that you wouldn't learn to talk in a timely fashion because:

a. You don't pay any attention to books, and

b. I don't point out objects to you and repeat their names over and over all day long.

Instead, you hear running conversation, dozens of songs and the constant exclamations of a two-year-old. How would you sort out specific words from that muddled soup, let alone associate them with particular things?

Despite all that, I have for about a month suspected you of irregularly saying a few words: Mama, Dada, Mimi, Saah (Sasha, or maybe sister), mine and bye-bye.

Today you decided to join in on all of the conversation. No matter who is talking, you're chiming in with a constant stream of babble: "Da da na nu na tha tha nu ma ma."

At the park, you pointed to a giant fuzzy dog and said, "Dag."
"What?!... Mia, what is that?... Mia, say dog."
But you wouldn't repeat yourself. Then a collie bounded onto the playground ahead of his owner.
"Dag!" you said, and pointed.

Then my friend showed up with her tiny nine-month-old twins and you walked over to the baby girl and said, "Bay bay."

A few hours later, Daddy came running into the bedroom where I was working.
"Watch this," he said as you rounded the corner in pursuit. He held up a rubber duck.
"Duck!" you said. "Duck!"

I guess that one runs in the family.

I love you, Mimster, and all of the words running around in your smart little head.

Mama