My neighbor, a hip, urban Mom of two young boys, recently pointed me to dooce.com, a weblog by Heather Armstrong, another hip Mom who is not afraid to tell the world about the tribulations as well as the joys of parenting a three-year-old. Every month, Armstrong writes to her daughter, Leta, about what it’s been like to live with her. It seems like a great gift to her daughter, and I’m going to try to follow suit. Be aware that, if you decide to visit, dooce.com is frequently a little risqué and always completely candid.
The MPAA rates the following letter R for mild nudity.
Dear Sylvan-
Early this morning, you awoke at four a.m., calling for me. Your thesis-exhausted Dad asked if I’d like him to go in and try to calm you with a sip of water and Jamberry. That meant I could stay in bed. I love you, but I’m not dumb, so of course I said yes. But you didn’t calm, not at all, as he read to you and asked you to lie down. “Mom” {sob} “mee,” “Mom” {sob} “mee.” I felt like you were pulling my heart through my belly button. I gave you three minutes more of sobbing after your Dad came back to bed, then went in to see you, standing in your crib with tears rolling off your chin.
Now, we’ve had two days of seventy-degree weather in Eugene, so our conveniently uninsulated roof has made our bedrooms quite warm. I had just taken off my shirt in bed, and I walked into your room in my underwear. You stopped crying, looked at me, with your milk supply in plain view, and said, “duht,” which, as I’ve come to understand your vocabulary, means “shirt.” I took you out of the crib and stood you on the floor, where you pointed to the door and said, “Out. Duht.” Not until we walked into my bedroom and I put on my shirt did you want milk. Thank you for protecting my integrity.
This is probably your last few days of breastfeeding, although you don’t know that yet. I need to have surgery within the next month and a half, and I’ll be on some anticoagulant drugs afterward that we don’t want in your little body. Since I’ll be away for four days next weekend, you, with your Dad’s help, will be going cold turkey. It seems unfair that, just as breastfeeding has become something I really enjoy, we have to stop. You were a bit of a parasite as a baby, wanting milk every 1.5-2 hours; it was, um, tiresome. Now that you don’t need my milk for nutrition, you just ask for it for comfort. You’ll just have to learn to cuddle.
Two months ago, you started going to childcare two mornings a week, where you play with all manner of cool toys and run around for four hours. You couldn’t be bothered with something as banal as sleeping when so much cool stuff is going on, so you’ve largely transitioned to one nap a day. Sometimes those naps are three or four hours long! Hallelujah, hallelujah.
The one thing about you, Sylvan, that consistently amazes us is your mastery of language. A number of friends and acquaintances have noticed your vocabulary and your ability to string words together. As your Dad pointed out, though, you actually clam up in front of other folks, so they don’t know the half of it. They don’t know that when you were climbing over logs as we walked through the snow, you found one that was cantilevered perfectly, so you rode it like a horse and said “bounce.” Your Dad said you know that word because Sarah, Percy, and Bill, the owl babies, bounce up and down on their branch in your board book. HOW did you make that conceptual leap? Or this one: You’ve pointed out a paper clip, a five-inch long toothed hair clip, and nail clippers, saying “clip” to each one. I’m sure all parents are astonished by their brilliant children at one point or another, so you, Sir, are just keeping up your end of the bargain.
Everyone tells me that parenting keeps getting easier — well, at least until you’re eleven — and better. I am really enjoying you now, though, and I hope our relationship isn’t peaking. But if the past fourteen months are any indication, you will continue to be more fun and interesting every day. The four months before that, well, let’s just say that you were lucky we have a covered porch when I left you on the doorstep.
Love-
Mommy