Scattered around me are remnants of you: A sparkly Tinker Bell hairbrush. Pink Dora slippers. Your Disney Princess place mat that you demand to eat on every. single. meal. Teeny cherished Little People and hair clips you stuffed into the remote holder to hide from your sister. Your art folder and sticker collection which you splay across the kitchen table multiple times a day.
This morning, like every morning, you asked if it was a Daycare Day or a Mummy Lucy House Day (you always conveniently leave out Alice and Spencer until prompted). When I told you it was a Monday and indeed your day away from home, you replied with predictability: “But I want to stay home with YOU” and jabbed me in the chest with your finger before collapsing on my lap and burrowing into your Snuggle Spot under my chin.
Oh, my Baby Goose. The love and affection radiates from you like I never imagined. You are truly my girl, and I love every single moment of your world revolving around me, because I know that’s going to change before I know it. Every day we play a game: “Mumma, I love you bigger than an elephant.” Or, “I love you bigger than a mountain.” Or, “I love you bigger than the sky. And the sky is very big, Mumma,” you say, holding your arms out wide and cocking an eyebrow at me like a professor — teaching me a fact, you see.
This year you have met huge milestones: You go the bathroom by yourself. You are fully potty trained and no longer sleep in a pull-up. You can write your name. You climb things. You talk on the phone. You initiate conversation. You can turn the television on and off, type on the computer and turn on lights.
While large indoor structures still make you nervous, you are no longer afraid of going on the playground or slide by yourself. I’m sure that the confidence you’ve built at daycare has a lot to do with this. You also say hello to everyone you meet.
I often spy on you as you’re playing in your room. You make up stories with your “guys” (stuffed animals) and Barbies, and twirl around the room with Cold Blankie. For your birthday you received a Tag Reader, and will spend hours — literally! — going through your books.
Every day we craft. If we’re busy or forget, you will suddenly remember with a panicked face at dinner that we did not create something together. I love your artsy side, and encourage it as often as I can. Not too long ago you drew your first family portrait, and I actually cried I was so very proud of you. It will never come down from our fridge.
You’ll call yourself Little Mommy and help me around the house: Wiping Alice’s nose, stealing baby wipes and “cleaning” the floor and television, feeding Spencer Dog. You talk about being a grown up all the time, and all the things you’ll do: Eat pickles. Get your nose “pinned” like me. Drive a van. Sleep in our bed. Be an animal doctor. Have two babies — a girl named Alex, and a boy named Rocket.
While shoveling the driveway last week you told me next year you’ll be five. Honey, Mumma would like to get used to four first, please, mmkay?
“Lucy. How many times do I have to tell you to stop growing?”
“Iiiiii won’t! I’m going to be a grown up, and you can’t stop me!”
It’s a game was play involving cradling you like a baby, but it’s oh-so true. And really hit home when I registered you for junior kindergarten.
You are a thoughtful and kind big sister. You like to teach Alice things like how to blow your nose, hop or colour. You love to chase her and make her giggle — and there is no bigger reward for this hard parenting gig than hearing that. Nothing. I think Alice’s early crawling and walking was just so she could keep up with you, her idol. You have handled the transition into sisterhood very well. Alice can feel your wrath if she’s playing with a favourite toy or is sitting with one of us and you want to, too, but other than the occasional, “I don’t want to get Alice up!” when she wakes from her nap, you are great with her (and LOVE matching!).
Favourite foods include grilled cheese sandwiches (your request for dinner each night), cheese and crackers, tuna noodle casserole, spaghetti and meatballs, and any candy and chocolate. You are a super eater, although it can take you a while to finish dinner (the solution? Putting the timer on or threatening no dessert!).
You are tall for your age, and easily fit size 5 clothes and weigh close to 45 lbs.
I am often confused by your relationship with your Daddy. All day long when you’re home with me, you will ask when he’ll be back from work. But so often you only want me, or say, “I don’t LIKE Daddy.” Are you punishing him for some reason because you see me more? It’s perplexing and can be hurtful for all of us. But when times are good with the two of you? I might as well not exist. He is your favourite playmate and wrestler — roles I could never fill.
But just as you can light up the room with your laughter, equally can you tilt the world’s axis with your anger. To see your temper tantrum is enough to cause terror in the heart’s of every pregnant woman. “They” don’t talk about this when you’re having a baby. Last week you absolutely refused to get dressed, and punctuated the sentiment with a red-faced, tear-streaked, “No MUMMA!” that I’m positive set our van’s alarm off. I had to drag you, kicking and screaming, to the stairs for a time out (for both of us).
You did something similar to your Nana over the weekend, and she actually had to call me to ask what to do. I have to admit a small part of me was pleased when this happened, and I snickered when I hung up the phone after listening to your wailing sobs of not wanting to go pee. Your Nana has always prized herself on “not letting Lucy get away with things,” and it was comforting to see you testing boundaries with other people, to let someone else see what four can be like (and give true vision to why I’ve been threatening to leave you at the end of the driveway for the past four years).
I know it’s frustrating, this in between time when you so seek independence, but are still so young. I remind myself of this every day.
I wasn’t told mood swings, drama and defiance could start so early. We are so similarly stubborn, Lucy, that god help all of us when you turn 13. Your Daddy already has plans to permanently move into the basement and just let us women fend against ourselves like feral kitties.
But I could never appreciate all the sweet in you without some salty tears. So we work together and test each other out, and at the end of each day I walk around the house and pick up the scattered remnants of you with a heart heavy with responsibility and love. To give you space to grow, and the shelter, comfort and encouragement to do so.
I love you, my Goose, my first baby, bigger than anything in the world. Happy 4th birthday.
Among the chaos of 20 chattering people, crinkling tissue paper, music from the stereo beside us, you twirled in a circle clutching a cascade of ribbon. “Ahh-ahhh,” you sang, the biggest grin on your face. Eyes popping out of your head. Dancing. Smiling. Clapping.
You are one.
You came into the world in less than eight hours, a week late, on the one day (Halloween 2008) I did not want you to come. I can’t say this stubborn streak has continued, because you are now the most laid back, happy, adaptable baby.
You are your father.
You eat voraciously. We can’t fill up your tray fast enough. You eat everything, and share the rest with Spencer Dog by dangling your fingers down the side of your booster seat into his waiting snout, giggling.
You are smart.
Your first word is da — not for your father, but for dog. Remarkably, this was also your sister’s first word, except she said gog. I absolutely love this about the two of you, and it will be one of my favourite memories of both your babyhoods.
You are on the go.
You took your first steps at 10 months, and have not stopped since. You rarely crawl now. Last week you learned to stand up in that baby way of sticking your puffy diapered bum up in the air and pushing off the ground with your hands. Currently your favourite thing to do is climb up one stair, turn around, and lounge. You dangle a foot up and down, leaning on one arm. We love to strip you down and laugh at your nekkid babyness — teeny hips, chubby legs, giant belly, curved spine. Ironically, you look like a pregnant woman.
You are mischievous.
You are always in my tea pots. In drawers. In cupboards. The toilet. The laundry. The garbage can. The central vacuum cover. The dog’s water dish. I love to sneak up on you and bark, “Ah-liss!” and watch the look of surprise/terror/deer-in-headlights/busted look come across your face — it’s especially hilarious when your chubby fingers instinctively pop open and you drop said object and try to run. Have you seen a pregnant woman try to run?
You are a shoe lover.
You are in the shoe basket all. the. time. If you are out of my sight, I can almost guarantee I’ll hear the sound of velcro ripping within seconds. What’s up with this? You open and close them, carry them, bang them on the ground, hold them over your head like a frat boy who won a kegger contest, proud and drunk looking.
You are a boy lover.
This morning at the walk-in clinic you toddled over to a chair, laid your head on it, and looked up at the elderly man sitting beside you, batting your eye lashes with a dopey grin. Seriously, child. You don’t dislike women, but you most certainly love the opposite sex.
You are the harbourer of few fears.
I can run the vacuum, the hair dryer, the beaters and you will investigate. While your sister bolts upstairs at the first mention of baking, you love when the hot air from the dyer blows your fine dark hair across your face. I can’t say I’ve ever really seen you scared before.
You are a little sister.
Oh, how you love Lucy. You watch every. single. move. she makes. You want everything she does. Your eyes light up whenever she walks in the room. She can make you giggle with a silly face, and make you cry just as fast by ripping a cherished toy out of her hand. This is an evolving relationship, one that requires diligence, patience and perseverance on all our parts. But seeing you two playing pop-up animals and bonking heads with peals of laughter makes it all worth it. That is the reason there are two of you.
You are making up for lost time.
Our first few months together were hard, little one. You hated, well, everyone. You had an undiagnosed milk allergy for some weeks, and pooped and cried and pooped and cried, repeat. I almost lost it once during that dark time. I had to get help. The recent time change and afternoon darkness takes me back to that time a year ago and makes me very anxious. But now your unwavering smile, your giggles at being tossed in the air, your outstretched arms to come up are the difference between now and then. The difference between despair and delight.
You are my last baby.
When your sister was the same age, I was always so excited to see what was next, and did not take enough time to enjoy the stage she was in; I think subconsciously I knew there would be you, too, to relive all these firsts. While I’m not at all sad to know there will be no more babies, I am sad to see you leaving your babyness behind. At the same time, I don’t want to go back. I want to see you continue to grow and learn and explore, to watch your unique personality develop.
You sit (often surrounding yourself with shoes. A girl after my own heart).
You reach for everything. All day long I move things out of your inquisitive hands.
You dance on command (“Boogie, Alice!). You hop a little, or if you’re sitting, bop your noggin in a slow nod like a head banger.
You walk-run with help. And hit animals. And crash into walls. (Godhelpus when you’re 16.)
Every. single. time. I put your hat on, it ends up like this.
Each morning, I get you out of bed first, and place you in the hall. You crawl as fast as your stubby legs will take you, throw your palm in the air, and smack open Lucy’s door. Then you sit and stare and giggle at your big sister. You want to be and be with her all the time.
But no one makes your legs kick faster than Daddy.
You are fearless. One day a girlfriend’s son brought over this battery-operated dinosaur with glowing red eyes that roared. Lucy took one look at it and bolted across the room. You stuck your hand in its mouth.
You mastered a sippy cup at seven months. Purees are for suckers. You’re happiest with pieces of food you can pick up and feed yourself.
You may look like a McDougall…
…and each day fly further away from me…
…but you’ll always be mine.
Happy 10 month birthday, our Doo-Doo Pumpkin.
Love Mumma
You are now seven months old, officially on the other side of the hill towards a year. At which point, I will never be able to say I have a baby (in the literal sense, although you and your sister will ALWAYS be my babies).
In other words, stop growing, Missy Poops.
This has been an exciting month. Look at the seven new things you can do now!
This month marks the one where everything seems settled. I can’t say predictable, because life with a baby (& toddler) surely is not, but there is finally a general ebb and flow to our days that comforts everyone.
(This is a polite way of saying you cry less, sleep more, smile with abandon and interact with glee. Goodbye newborn days!)
You suddenly love your exersaucer, jumper and toys.
Diaper changes are the highlight of the day. You’ve loved them since you were born, and now that you can excitedly flail all your appendages, you show us your glee each time we lay you down. I’m not sure if this is because you’re so close to our faces and we tickle your belly and toes, or you’re a nudist in the making.
Sister love continues to grow, both ways.
You are a texture lover, especially fabrics. If the arms of your shirt are too long, you immediately start sucking on them. Ditto for facecloths, tea towels and soft toys.
Oh, the spit. And the happy.
You can roll from back to belly, but — frustratingly for everyone — not belly to back. Two teeth grace your bottom gums, and the matching top ones are close behind. You are practically begging for food, grabbing our utensils and cups and staring us down while we eat. Spencer Dog is a source of never-ending entertainment. We know now that you are allergic to milk, and while your Mummy spends each day pining for the taste of dirty old cheese, buckets of cereal and cookies n’ cream ice cream, you are no longer Angry Baby. The night before you turned 5 months old, we were up from midnight-7 a.m., helping you learn that sleep can be sought outside a swaddle blanket and our arms. With the dawn came a brand new, happier, longer-sleeping baby that lives to give her family gummy smiles.
This morning I had to run downstairs for a minute, and when I returned, you were jumping on our bed with just a pink tank top on. When I appeared in the door, you squealed in anticipation and delight, knowing you were breaking the rules. Do you know how hard it was to sternly tell you to get down from there, that it was dangerous and you might fall, yadda yadda Safety Mom, without laughing?
Not only at the grin and giggles that spread into your eyes that are identical to mine, but because, my love, years from now you will be mortified to know that each jump you took exposed your plump nekkid bum to the world out the window behind you.
The other day I pulled our covers back to make our bed, and found a purple My Little Pony, a plastic ball, two stuffed dogs and one of your socks.
How did those get there? I asked you.
“I was havin’ a picnic, Mumma,” you said, holding your hands in the air and tilting your head. Like, duh, woman.
These so represent you at 3 years old. Full of surprises and oddities, with healthy dose of laughter and exasperation.
Your two biggest achievements this year were confidence and imagination.
Someone would just glance in your direction at the grocery store a year ago, and you’d burst into tears. Other kids — not even older ones — would come to the playground, and you’d shy up, letting them go first and watching them warily.
Now you answer questions when sweet ladies talk to you, and proudly hold up three fingers when they ask how old you are. “I’m almost three. And this is my sister!” You are so proud of Baby Alice and love to show her off when we are out. I see you with other kids, and you speak up when they take things from you. By the end of this summer, you were waiting your turn on the slide alongside other children, grinning down at us.
I love to listen to you play by yourself — something you have always been great at — and chat to yourself over the monitor at night. You make up stories — “C’mon everybody! Let’s go to the market!” — put your favourite people into songs — “No more Daddies jumpin’ on the bed!” — and crack jokes — “I am going to eat your knees….that’s silly!” You will sit and play Little People house forever, taking the family on grand adventures like bombing out the front door being chased by the doggie, or eating pancakes for dinner.
For Christmas you got these flat wooden animals with holes around the edges to practice lacing. You had them open not 10 minutes and were dragging them around the floor and dropping them off arm chairs by the string — “Goin’ fishing,” you said.
You love pink. You love Dora. You love stomping in puddles and playing outside. You still love lift-the-flap books, but will easily sit through longer, more detailed stories such as Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy (you memorized it in days! I was blown away). You love television, too: Busytown Mysteries, Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends and Zoboomafoo. You do puzzles daily. You are very creative and love to make crafts with me, colour and do playdough.
Whether it’s making dinner, bathing Alice, cleaning or some other grown-up task, the first words out of your mouth are always, “Can I help?” And “help” you do, in your own clumsy, 3-year-old way of learning and messing. You make tasks take 10 times longer. But you are so proud when the cookie dough comes together, or you carefully stir soup on the stove.
“I did it!” you proclaim.
We hear this, too, when you do things “all by myself.” Which is everything: Undoing buttons, putting on your underwear, doing the buckles on your booster seat, snapping puzzles pieces into place. It is an exercise in patience for us to let you do it by yourself, when we know we can do it 8,000 times faster. But this is how we both learn. And there is nothing more gratifying and sad to a parent then when their child learns something new, and takes yet another step towards independence.
Of course, the times when we need you to do things all by yourself — get your boots on as we flail about to leave the house — then we have to do it. And helpus if we get it wrong. Bring on the scream.
You love to wrestle with Daddy. As dinner is ending you ask if it’s bath night. Almost every night you ask for a cuddle, and just light up when one of us is able to climb into bed with you. It’s such a treat to be snuggled in the covers as you pat our faces and whisper our names and giggle.
Four months into being a big sister, you are still equally interested and ambivalent about Alice. One second you want to help and kiss and play with her, the next you ignore her cries and drooly smiles. You tell us you are going to share your toys with her. I keep meaning to get a recording of that.
Feeding Spencer is your chore. “I have to feed my dog!” you yell when you get home from daycare, barreling into the kitchen with him hot on your heels. “I fed my dog. He’s so cute! I love him. But sometimes he’s stinky,” you say.
You adore your extended family, and beg to go on sleepovers to other people’s houses. You love your friends Eirinn and Pearl, and playdates and new toys and scenery. “I want to go to someone’s house,” you tell me on the days you’re home with me, while simultaneously fighting to stay in your sleeper all day.
You really are a good kid, Lucy. You are kind and empathetic and generous and sensitive. You listen really well and respect us. You may try things you know are bad, just to see what happens, but rarely repeat them. The older you get, the more affectionate you become.
Oh, Goose. I’m having a much harder time with you turning 3 than me turning 30. Because from here on in, you really are a little girl.
Each day I tell you to stop growing. And each day you eyes crinkle up in a knowing smile older than your age, and you throw your hands in the air, stand on your tip toes and reach for the sky.
Keep growing, my sweet girl. I am so proud of you every day.
When you were sitting on my chest this morning, your mouth opened wide in a huge grin that spread into your eyes and ears and hair, the reset button was pushed yet again.
I should know better than to count on any sort of consistency with babies (especially the second time around), but I tell you — Daddy and I were quite liking you waking up just once in the night to feed, then going back to sleep until 8 or 9 a.m. So these past two nights when you’ve woken a second time at 5:30…let’s just say you are on a path to the end of the driveway with a “Free Baby!” sign taped to your chest.
(You will learn that I’ve been making this threat for almost three years to your sister, and she’s still kicking around.)
(Sorry. Just this once, to get it over with. I promise.)
(We’ll leave the camel jokes for later, mmkay?)
But once you have eaten and are content once again, and you look up with those giant eyes and hair that sticks up and smile and say, “Haaaah!” (I swear you are saying hi), every ounce of grumbling anger and resentment is forgotten in an instant.
It’s the same in the middle of the night, when I am pacing the downstairs jostling you back to sleep, and you are wide awake in my arms. Grinning. Do you know how hard it is not to smile back at you, you adorable little fart? I bite my cheeks and look outside at the freezing blue night, trying to ignore your attempts at luring me in, not wanting to encourage play.
You are a beautiful baby.
You have your father’s hair line, the McDougall chin — we like to poke it, then wiggle the numerous chubby chins that surround it — and my eyes. You have really filled out now, and I have to remember to clean my spit off the the fatty folds covering your legs because every diaper change I eat them. Nom nom nom. Delicious.
Your dark hair is falling out, just like your sister’s did. Your Nana is so sad about this. She says you look exactly like me as a baby, mostly because of the thick dark hair you have. We’re so curious (and hopeful) to see if it comes back in the same colour. You sport that telltale bald spot at the back of your head of infants your age, and tufts of hair below that I love to play with while you nurse. Your eyes have really lightened the past two weeks, and look like they will be greenish-blue like Lucy and I’s.
At the doctor’s recently, you were 25.5″ and 12 lbs. 8 oz. You are not big, but you are tall.
This month you discovered your hands. It is hilarious to watch you catch a glimpse of them: Your eyes widen to show the whites all around, and go cross-eyed as you slowwwwly bring them to your mouth. There they are joyously gnawed on, goober everywhere, making your face glisten.
This also means you are starting to reach out and grab things. We attached the line of bugs to the bouncy chair, and you delight in holding them. You love when Lucy sits on the floor beside you, making the bugs dance and vibrate and fall over. She starts off doing this for you — “She’s smiling at me, Mama!” — but ends up engrossed in them for her own entertainment. It doesn’t matter to you, though. Anytime your sister is in view, you have eyes and grins only for her.
And like your sister before you, you love the boob and are a great nurser. You currently feed 5-6 times a day. For a few weeks you loudly told us that bottles were coated in tongue-burning acid — exhausting your father on Wednesday nights — but you seem to be reluctantly accepting your fate of one a day, whether you like it or not. This is likely due to a new technique we discovered: Jamming the nipple in your mouth so there’s no room to complain about it. I’m sure if you were capable of rolling your eyes and dramatically sighing, you would.
You love to practice standing up. You hate tummy time. We fly you though the air like a plane, dive-bombing your sister and Spencer Dog. You talk — whaa, haaa, owww, buuwaa — a lot. You like it when I munch your chubbster cheeks and blow into your mouth.
Also? You give kisses already! We ask for them, and you open wide and smear spit on our cheeks.
Yesterday you laughed for the first time: Lucy was jumping in her bed, and Daddy made you jump, too. Suddenly you inhaled sharply and spit out a squeal. Oh, what a sweet sound.
Sometimes you have to have to squawk for attention, the unfortunate side effect of a second child. If we are eating dinner and have to deal with Lucy eating/smearing/dropping/spitting food, you will bleat from your perch in the bouncy chair on the floor (“Baby Alice is squawkin’!”), then break into heart-melting grins when we look down.
“Hi! Remember me? I’m little and lonely!” you say.
Brought up to sit on a lap, you are overjoyed.
Thankfully we have three whole days together each week, just you and me. I am incredibly grateful for this, as I miss so much of you (and Lucy, for that matter) when it’s the three of us. I adore our little tripod of mother-daughterness, but cherish the one-on-one time. I think you do, too.
My sweet girl, turning three months means you are no longer a newborn. You are in size 2 diapers. You are holding your head up.
Too fast, my love, too fast.
When your sister was a baby, I was always so excited for next milestone, wanting her to grow, grow, grow. You are our last, and will always be Baby Alice, and I’m quite content to enjoy your littleness and dependence.
Do I wish I had my own reset button, to back up and replay your newborn days? Not a chance. For each day brings bigger smiles and bigger squawks from you, and a bigger heart from me, as you grow and take up more room in our world.
Alice is suddenly more…baby-like instead of blob-like.
She’s awake for longer stretches at a time now, and she’s not so damn squawky during them. But she still follows the same pattern: Sleep, poop, wake, feed, poop, awake/play/happy, sleep.
At night, she is going down for the night between 9 and 10, and sleeping for long chunks of time: Last night until 7 a.m. (!), the night before until 5:30 a.m. and then back to sleep until 8.
The only downfall with all of this is still how unpredictable the timing of her schedule is. Sometimes she sleeps through dinner so I can cook and we can eat in peace; others she is cranky and crying. Some mornings she sleeps for an hour; today just 20 minutes.
I’m trying hard to get her to sleep in her basinette during the day, as opposed to some moving object such as her carseat or swing or the sling. I’m not sure if these keep her artificially asleep for longer, or what, but she won’t rest for more than 45 mins. in her bed before waking. I know Alice is still so little, and is sleeping well in there at night, so I’m not worried. It can just be frustrating when I’m trying to do house stuff or play with Lucy.
When she’s happy, ohmy is she happy. The chubber face smiles that light up her face just melt your heart. Her eyes widen, and her cheeks fold. Her McDougall chin disappears into the double chin below.
She’s got great vocabulary, too: Ha-oh, eye, ah. Not even 10 weeks old, and she’ll talk back to you.
Feeding: 6-8 times a day. Recently started nuzzling into the side of your neck when hungry. Great head control. She likes to sit face forward on our laps and listen to books.
She has the softest nose. I love to kiss it when rocking her to sleep.
At her crankiest moments, Alice will instantly calm when she sees Lucy. She’ll sit on our laps and stare in awe at her. Follow Lucy around the room with her eyes. Watch her eat or play house. You can tell she’s just aching to join in, to chase and play. If Alice is in the bouncy chair and Lucy comes to say hi or play with the dangling toys, Alice’s arms pump up and down, her feet thump like a jack rabbit, and her eyes widen as far as they can go.
I never, ever thought Alice would be so into her sister at such a young age. It’s amazing.
This morning I had to run downstairs for a minute, and when I returned, you were jumping on our bed with just a pink tank top on. When I appeared in the door, you squealed in anticipation and delight, knowing you were breaking the rules. Do you know how hard it was to sternly tell you to get down from there, that it was dangerous and you might fall, yadda yadda Safety Mom, without laughing?
climb into bed with you. It’s such a treat to be snuggled in the covers as you pat our faces and whisper our names and giggle.
