Three at Two

The cheerfullest birthday girl on the block

Today, my littlest little turns two years old.

I could tell you how time has flown, how much she's grown, but I don't want to focus for one second on the past. Right now, it's all about now.

On Saturday, we had her birthday party. It was planned and essentially thrown by DD and SI. One day, about two months ago, we had this conversation:

Me: "I should figure out what kind of party to throw RH!"
DD: "I know! It should be a Care Bears party!"
Me: "You guys had a Care Bears party. This is RH's party. It should have to do with what she likes. What does RH like?"
SI: "Green!"
Me: "Yup. What else?"
SI: "Green! It should be a green party!"
Me: "That's it? Green? How do you throw a green party?"
DD: "With green food and a green cake and green decorations!"
SI: "Green ICE CREAM cake!"
Me: "...that sounds like a pretty good party, actually."
DD: "Me and SI will throw the party, Mommy. You just make sure RH's diaper isn't stinky."

I could handle that.

And plan the party they did. I tried to tell them that people would rather eat apples and grapes than broccoli, but they proved me wrong.

I taught them to make bunting, and they made enough to decorate a full half the yard. And I tended to my job- sending invitations, and making sure all the food was to SI and DD's specifications.

Honeydew, grapes, apples, mini cucumbers, celery, broccoli, guacamole, green tortilla chips, green juice
And green flowers. I was told that was important.
Plus more of SI and DD's bunting!

Of course, no matter how clean her butt, RH was a bit of a pill. I'd just come home from five days away- and she was punishing me for it.

The first day back was a dream, she lay back in her chair and just stared at me, occasionally whispering, "Kiss!" or "Hug!" Mostly just looking at me like I was an angel who had descended from heaven to rescue her from the torments of going to the aquarium daily to see jellyfish with my parents.

She spent the next four days attached to me at the hip, screaming for no reason and demanding amounts of my attention she hasn't commanded since she weaned. She spent a lot of her party crying, as despite DD and SI's planning, I was still essentially on hostess duty.

But like I said, I want to focus on now.

I want to remember what she's like right now.

I want to remember the way she says, "I yike a hair! I yike a face! I yike a pwetty dwess!" every morning when I change her diaper, regardless of what I'm wearing or how I look. I want to remember the way she flails her legs while she's running, but keeps her head steady.

I want to remember how fearless she is. How she crawls under bushes or through the mud without blinking an eye. How she tries every new food. How she jumps into the water without hesitating, much to my terror, or how she leaps off chairs, or stairs, now that she's finally mastered the art of getting both feet off the ground at once.



I want to remember how she puckers her lips into a full on fish face whenever she wants to give a kiss, and how sweet and soft her little kisses are. I want to remember how despite being a monster truck, rolling over everything in her path, she is still gentle with animals, other children, and her toys. Most of the time.

I want to remember how she participates in conversations without having a clue what's happening. How she shouts, "Me too!" about anything and everything, and will not be distracted from being included. How she insists on what she wants, when she wants it, and I find myself acquiescing because I have no real reason not to in the face of her determination.

I want to remember how until two weeks ago, whenever she said, "I lub you!" she followed it immediately by saying, "Good night!"

I want to remember the way she sings, "Shoo fly, don't bother me," or the alphabet song, or "Ring Around the Rosie," with better pitch and timing than her older sisters, even if half the words are incoherent.

I want to remember how sassy she is. How much attitude she's got. How sure of herself, and determined to do whatever her sisters do, and to be part of any joke the adults are enjoying. I want to remember the way she laughs a sound like clinking china and announces, "I laughing!" as though it weren't impossible to notice.

I want to remember the unbearable softness of her skin, and the way her hair smells, and the way that her curls flatten against the top of her head when she's filthy. I want to remember how tidy she is, and how she refuses to eat with her hands if they might get messy. I want to remember being perplexed by how she could get scrambled eggs in her nose, and at the same time how she can finish a bowl of ice cream without spilling a drop.

I want to remember how she asks for something indirectly, like, "Mommy, ponies?" And you try to fill in the blanks, "You want to watch ponies?" And she acts like it was your idea. "Okay!"

I want to remember the way she counts. "One, two, fee, four, five, six, seben, eight, nine, tan, eleben, twelf, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, eighteen, twenny fee!"

I want to remember how if you sing, "Na na na na na," she yells, "Batman!"

I want to remember how serious she often is, focusing on on a task until it is complete to her satisfaction. I want to remember how she seems to study the world with fierceness and determination, cataloging causes and effects and storing them away. I want to remember how much she cares.

I want to remember how unfathomably cheerful she can be.

I want to remember how she sings the theme song to "My Little Ponies," how she dances happily, distracting herself from all else in the world for ages, spinning in circles and hopping, gesturing wildly. I want to remember how she sings, "Tomorrow." I want to remember that she'll go around the room, approaching everybody one at a time, saying, "I gonna eat choo!" until they say, "Oh no! Please don't eat me!" and moves on to the next person.

I want to remember that her favorite movie is "Wreck It Ralph," and I love that sometimes she tells me, "Mommy, I a bad guy!" with an angelic grin and dimples for miles.

I want to remember how her smile lights up like sun when she's happy, even if she's covered head to toe in green frosting and ice cream. Even if five minutes earlier she was sobbing her eyes out.

I want to remember how she curls up on my lap, how she pulls me to the floor to sit on me for no reason. How she calls out, "I lub you, Mommy!" from the back seat of the car, for no reason. How she wants to help me brush my hair, and my teeth, and god help me, how she wants to tear off toilet paper for me in the bathroom.

I want to remember the way her little hand feels in mine.

But I know I'm going to forget.

I look at her big sisters, not that much bigger, and no matter how I wrack my brain it feels as though their nearly-two-ness is already gone. I can't remember them. I've forgotten my own children.

Of course, I know if the two year old version of DD or SI ran up to me, I would know them. But it's not the same.

It wasn't intentional. I was just so busy, and so tired. When DD and SI had their second birthday party, I was already pregnant with RH. When they were two years old I was finishing my degree and running through the day with M gone from before dawn until late an night.

I can watch a video and go, "Oh, yeah, that's how it was." But it's still just not the same.

I didn't have the energy to really hold onto all the moments with my twins. And knowing that, running through milestones and chubby legs and baby curls a second time... it makes it so much harder to know how soon it's gone. And so much sweeter to see it happening.

I truly am enjoying things more this time around.

I don't ever want to forget this little girl.

Happy Birthday, my littlest favorite person.

Let's not get to the next one too fast.

Grover's Guessing Game About the Apocalypse

I can't believe I forgot to post it here! Last week's Blogger Idol post- the Apocalypse strikes!

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Grover's Guessing Game About the Apocalypse

Five days ago the dead began rising from the earth and consuming the living, and since then I've read Grover's Guessing Game About Animals more times than I can possibly count.

"Now I am thinking of an animal with soft fur! Do you know what it is?"

I don't even need to look at the pages by now. I always kept a book in the diaper bag, in case of emergencies. Well we've been in emergency mode since Friday, and even the four year olds are tired of Grover and the lion with the monkey on his head. But it keeps the toddler quiet, and quiet is essential.

"It is a kitty cat! You are so smart!"
"She's not smart!" One of my four year olds shouted. "She goes poop in her diaper!"
"Don't yell!"
"Sorry, mommy. I don't want to see any more dead people."
"Me either. Now I am thinking of an animal with a hard shell!"

We're only a few hours away from my parents' house. This was the plan- you've got to have a plan. When the Zombie Apocalypse comes, you don't want to be caught unprepared.

I used to make my husband run through the steps with me, despite his eye rolls and complaints. I've said "I told you so" about once an hour since we hit the road.

Step One: Confirm there are zombies walking among us.

Step Two: I grab the hatchet, he grabs a baseball bat, we strap on half a dozen knives and get into the car. I drop him at the pawn shop to steal guns, and I take the kids around the corner to rob the pharmacy. If the world is ending, we'll need all the anti-seizure drugs we can get. Also antibiotics, albuterol inhalers, and of COURSE antacids. The apocalypse is stressful.

Step Three: We call my in-laws in Minnesota to tell them how to reach us- if possible. Then we drive to Guppy Lake.

Guppy Lake is the perfect safe haven. Dad got paranoid about Y2K and prepped for the end of the world. Hand crank flashlights and radios. Water purification tablets. First aid supplies. There are probably still cans of beans and dehydrated orange juice from the last millennium.

The pond is fed by freshwater spring, and there's a greenhouse with date trees. The cabin is heated by wood stove and has a room full of board games. The windows are tiny, so it's easy to barricade. If things get ugly we can pile into the paddle boat and drift on the pond, shooting zombies on the shore.

Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan. By the time my husband hit the pawn shop there were no guns. At the pharmacy the only thing left was a box of Kleenex. I took it, of course, but had to leave my hatchet inside a zombie on the way back to the van.

It took an entire day to make the typically one hour journey to Michigan, but once we got off I-94 the traffic vanished. Who'd have thought nobody would head to Flint when the world ended? They have plenty of experience with end-of-days working conditions.

The "Post Apocalyptic Hellscape" theme is not new to Flint.
(From "Roger and Me"

As we got off the freeway, a zombie stumbled up to the car. The twins were playing with the digital camera in the back seat and took its picture. It wandered off, disoriented. Turns out the flash blinds the dead worse than the living. The next time we passed a Walgreen's I grabbed the camera and headed in for medicine.

I had been looking forward to smashing in some Walgreen's pharmacy technicians' heads for years, since the first time we filled my husband's chemo prescription. During the year he was in treatment they only got it right once, and I lost count of the number of pathetic excuses they had for withholding his lifesaving medication. Feasting on their customers' brains was just the latest, and I couldn't wait to finally give them a piece of my mind. I ran into the pharmacy, screaming.

"You forgot to call the prescription in to the manufacturer? He'll have to take five 200mg doses in 5mg pills? You dispensed his chemotherapy to the wrong person by mistake? DIE, YOU BRAINLESS, REANIMATED PIECES OF SHIT! DIE!"

102 snapshots of zombies in white coats and name tags with their skulls
crushed is more effective than four years of therapy.
(From the Flickr Creative Commons)

It's taken us the better part of a week, siphoning gas from abandoned cars and clearing the road of debris so we can crawl along in our minivan, but we're close. Soon we can kick back, relax, and enjoy the end of the world in peace.

At night he'll wrap his arms around me and whisper in my ear, "You were right, you're always right, you know everything..."

The zombie apocalypse might end up being better than our honeymoon.

I Am Batman

"Batman!"

It's not often that a child has a personal hero before they're two.

Or maybe it's commonplace, I guess I'm not sure. But I can tell you this- RH has one.

It's been the same person since she was seven months old.

No, it's not me. And it's not Daddy. And it's not a grandparent or even a sister. It's... well...

It's Batman.

She's obsessed. Completely, utterly, absolutely.



There is no such thing as "enough" Batman for this kid. The above video was taken a month ago. It took me an entire month to get it on camera, but there was something critical missing from it. And that was...



She barely walks, but she knows Batman when she sees him. And she sees him everywhere.

She spends a fair amount of time watching me use the internet, and every time she sees a picture of Sir Patrick Stewart, she points and shouts, "Batman!"

Every time she sees a superhero logo- Superman, The Green Lantern, Wonder Woman... she starts yelling. "Batman! Batman! Batman!"

And it doesn't stop there.

When she's playing with the food on her tray, she'll push it around until it resembled the Batman logo.

She sings the Batman song in the car.

And she sees the inner Batman in everyone.

I can't tell you how many of my days have been improved by having her look at me, her eyes full of wonder, before pointing at my face and calling me Batman.

On Halloween, DD was Batman, and gave RH the thrill of her life by waking her up from her nap in costume.

DD as Batman, RH as the Flash, and SI as Supergirl

But the thing that really gets me is how much it makes me feel like Batman. Like a hero- an invincible, benevolent force of nature. Not a tragic, Christian Bale Batman, but a campy, doo-gooder, daylight and spandex Adam West.

I believe it. I actually do. When she picks up a drawing Deborah made at school of an egg-shaped me, points at it and then my face and shouts "Batman!" with delight, I buy it.

I am Batman.

Okay. so maybe I'm wonder Woman.

So until Sir Patrick Stewart comes clean, you can shine the Bat Signal this way.

RH and I will be happy to answer it.




PS: In case you've stopped by from NaBloPoMo and you're noticing a missing post or two... I've got them scheduled on another blog, but didn't have the energy for TWO posts every day. I promise- there will be makeup posts!

Happy Halloween!

Seriously.

My kids are too darn cute.

Batman, The Flash, and Supergirl get ready to get some candy

Sisterly super-love

Candy!

Happy Halloween, from all of us to all of you.




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A little reminder- voting is still open until midnight! Vote for me for Blogger Idol!!!

Third's First

Three days shy of one year old

Today, my littlest little one is one year old.

One whole year old.

Day one, and the light of my life

And I feel sadness, along with all my pride and joy and shock.

I'm sad because I know I haven't given my little girl as much of me as I gave her big sisters.

One month old and enamored with her sisters

I worried about that during the pregnancy- I knew that she would never experience having me to herself. SI and DD never really had that either- they always had to share me.

But with RH, it's different.

During the girls' first year, I took about 8,000 pictures of them.

Two months old and already full of smiles

That is not an exaggeration.

I haven't even taken a third as many of ALL THREE of my kids in the past year. Because I don't have the luxury of snapping photos of every amazing moment, of every outfit, every smile, every new food, every first.

I haven't even blogged the majority of those things.

Three months old, fat and sleepy

RH is amazing. She might not walk, but she talks up a storm. At one day shy of her first birthday, she learned a new word. She could already say, "mama," and "dada," but she can also garble DD's name... which she uses for both sisters indiscriminately. She says "baby" to her reflection, to baby dolls, to pictures of babies on boxes of diapers. She says, "Hi," "Hello," and "Buh-bye" while waving. She says "banana." And now? "Book!"

Four months old and full of wonder

She blows kisses. She gives sweet, tender little kisses with an adorable little "mwah!" sound. Every few minutes, when she's playing, she'll see me and crawl over as fast as she can, and bury her face against my skin. Like she's checking in, making sure I'm still there. Still warm and snuggly, ready to pick her up and rock her and sing to her if she wants me to.

Five months old and sweet as anything

At the table, she's a riot. When you're feeding her, she puts her fists up and bobs around in her chair like a boxer in the ring, bob and weave, bob and weave, bob and weave... as though she's going to get the plastic spoon of squash with a mean right hook. She LOVES to dance, which she does while sitting or in anybody's arms. She's incredibly social, and friendly, and curious.

Six months old and already loves books

She studies things. She watches and mimics. She is a remarkably serious baby.

Seven month old and growing teeth

But when she's on the changing table, and I give her loud, wet kisses under her chin, she laughs with a belly laugh that you just want never to end.

Eight months old and a lover of the great outdoors

Whenever the front door opens, she makes a break for it. She loves being outside and going for walks, or playing in the grass, more than almost anything.

Just like her sisters, she is absolutely and inseparably attached to her frog lovey. She holds it so tight, tighter that I think anyone has ever held a lovey, and then faceplants into it on the floor.

Nine months old and learning to share

Sometimes, when I rock her and sing to her, and feel her small body pressed between my arms and my chest, it's all I can do not to cry. Because I can't believe that this has happened- that she has grown to this wonderful little person who looks so much like me and bizarrely so much like my father-in-law.

Ten months old with a mind of her own

And I can't believe how soon it will be that she has the strange, hard feet of a three year old, stomping through my house, and the long, curly locks of the little girl I haven't yet met. Who I long to meet, and can't bear the thought of replacing this sweet, sweet baby.

Eleven months old and on the move

One year ago, I spent the night in agony as she tried her best to rip her way out of my abdomen, alien style. After I saw the incredibly long, chubby infant with ancient eyes who stared and me as though I had somehow insulted her by forcing her into the world, I became a mother all over again. Everything changed again. Everything was amazing again.

One year old and the life of the party

Today, RH is a whole year old.

At a wedding on Saturday, she and the bride became BFFs

I still haven't taken good pictures of her nursery, all the work I put into it to show you.

I still haven't finished it.

My three favorite girls

I don't play favorites with my kids, not intentionally. I don't give RH the attention her sisters got when they were her age.

But I love her just as intensely as I have ever loved another person. I revel in her babyhood in a way that I never did with DD and SI. I long for it to somehow last long enough for me to drag out the same number of perfect moments that I had with her sisters, when they were infants. But it can't be, and it won't be, because my family is different now than it was a year ago.

The SuperMommy clan

Now, we are a family of five.

Happy Birthday, littlest one.

We're crazy for that baby

I love you more than I can say.

What Happened to the Man Who Got Everything He Ever Wanted?

The three happiest people I know

I complain a lot.

I could tell you that it's because I have ample things to complain about, but that isn't it. It's that I am finely attuned to the minutia that has any potential to bother me.

I complain about my busy life, my occasionally thoughtless or absent minded husband, my neurotic family, an ingrown toenail... anything. Everything. I complain.

DD "sweeping" in opera gloves and SI... planking

But recently, not quite so much.

Something magical happened to me a few days ago. I was watching RH pulling toys out of the toy kitchen, with DD and SI coloring on their easel. They were carefully picking up every dropped crayon, thanks to a neat little ditty I made up for them. "If there's a crayon/on the floor/RH will find it/and put it in her mouth." It's catchy. And they were singing it, picking up their crayons, and occasionally looking over at their baby sister to grin and coo, "Isn't that right, RH? You silly baby!" She laughed and laughed, and returned to her minor destructions.

I drank a cold pop and breathed slowly, committing the scene to memory.

DD hanging out with RH

When I was DD and RH's age, I knew I wanted to be a mommy someday. I knew I wanted to grow up and take care of little kids.

As I got older, I had other things I wanted to do. I still have other things I want to do. But whenever I contemplated parenthood, I imagined having a house full of little girls, about three or four years old. Playing dress up, singing songs, dancing in their pretty little dresses.

I imagined bigger kids looking out for their little siblings, and hugs, and kisses, and everybody happy.

And so, here I am. I find myself at the bottom of "hug piles," or the recipient of wet, giggly baby kisses at no notice. I am the eternal supervisor of the three happiest children I have ever known.

SI monster and DD robot

Yes, it's occasionally chaos. There are days I just want to hide, days when I have a headache or feel overwhelmed or just can't arbitrate disputes over crappy cheap plastic jewelry any more. But more and more often, I find myself simply observing the three of them and feeling... happy.

Not just happy, though. It's a different feeling. It's pride and success and something more.

I don't feel like I deserve to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with just watching my children play. But it's there. Each time RH moves another foot forward instead of rolling side to side, every time DD tells me she's "girl Superman" and that she's fighting a monster, every time that SI "fixes" her toy sink with M's Mjölnir, and every time one of them tells me how she wants to be like me...

DD and SI washing RH in the tub

It's narcissistic, but it fills me with intense joy. With pride beyond words.

Watching them play, standing back and letting them just... be kids together...

It's incredible. It's magical.

Watching RH watch her big sisters and mimic them, and then when she catches my eye and just grins at me...

Motherhood has never felt so gratifying.

Life has never felt so perfect.

M chasing SI and DD through the snow

And life is not perfect. There are still serious problems around here. Money problems, employment problems, health problems...

But life in general? It's amazing.

This is what it's all about. This is why I had kids. Watching them lose their heads with delight because their sunflower seeds are sprouting, because they sounded out a written word, because you walked into a room at just the right moment.

I don't know if I will ever be as happy as I am now.

I have everything I ever truly wanted from life. I am utterly, completely, and constantly enveloped in love.

It's always something over here...

It's an incredible feeling. Knowing that I am living in what I will probably look back on at the end of my life as the happiest I have ever been. The happiest I will ever be. The years when my life was pretty much perfect.

No matter what happens, no matter what changes... my life will forever be better because of this. Because of this incredible, magical, perfect time.

My three girls, playing together