Newsletter: April & May 2008 (M)

My Beautiful M,

I realized a few weeks ago that I hadn't written the April Newsletter and we were already half-way through May, so I decided to wait and do a combined letter. I decided to do a combined one for M, then one for E.

M, in the last two months, you have become a whole new person it seems. I don't know how many times I've thought to myself, "when did you learn to do that? who taught you that?" You love jumping and hopping and are constantly making noise of some sort. I think you take it as a personal affront to have silence so you fill it with tapping, jumping, banging, etc. You've also taken to singing your thoughts to your sister. Most times, the gist of the song is about how much you love her, will always love her, and how you'll never leave her. Unfortunately, I don't have a constant microphone and recorder on you because the songs are so sweet.

April was the month where you stopped naps. Yes, a month shy of 5 is when you finally said No to naps. It's been pretty successful, especially since your bedtime was moved earlier. On warm days when we've been able to be outside or days you've been at school, you're a lot more tired and the 5:00 - 7:00 time period can be a little dicey. As I've mentioned previously,
I was warned that Five could be emotional and a couple times a week, you have a major meltdown. In fact, part of the reason I am able to get this Newsletter written is because you went to bed at 6:45 tonight. You become inconsolable about some issue - tonight it was "if I could just do the puzzle, I could stop crying - and no amount of reasoning or assurance makes it better.

In the last few months (I think since before April), you've ended playing the music that I think we've used since you were a few months old. Sometimes you substitute a CD of audio recordings of books that Nana read last year, but most times, it's just quiet now. I miss hearing the music and, sometimes when you're restless, will put the music on hoping that its familiarity will calm your sleep.

Did I mention that you also like to make funny faces? Especially when taking your picture? It's pretty standard now that for every lovely series, we have one or two that looks like this.

The last few months have been a bonanza of fun and gifts due to your birthday. Your gifts and how you play with them reminded me to tell you about how you seem incapable of putting things back into their original container. This isn't a bad thing necessarily as you take Polly Pockets and put them in makeup cases or stuff purses with all sorts of non-purse related items. A salt shaker because a receptacle for beads, pretend money now lives in a hair caddy, etc. I'll have to mark some examples down because they're quite funny sometimes. When I ask about why you don't return something to it's original (and in my mind, proper) container, you always have a good excuse.

Some recent conversations
4/7/08

M: Mom, how do bumblebees have babies?

*****************************
4/26/08

M: How do the ants die? (this in response to the exterminator coming to remove the ants that were infesting our kitchen)

Me: Remember the stuff the guy sprayed? It has stuff that makes the ants die.

M: Yeah, then the ants take the stuff back and they cook it up like ants do, put it on a plate for their family and they eat it then they die.

Me: Yep

*****************************

At the kindergartener's patriotic program, while standing during the National Anthem:

M: This is like when we saw the people (waving hands) who were singing the song about the king with the blue pee.

Me: Yep it is

[Note, the people we were watching was the high school choir and they sang the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. I told M the story about why people stand for the Hallelujah Cho rus and that King George II had blue pee due to porphyria. (Actually, it was George III who had porphyria).]

April and May have been hard for me. I've been struggling trying to find a balance with you girls and although you may not understand for many years, creating a new identify for myself as a stay-at-home mom. I also suspect some hormonal/adjusting to the realities of how our life will be now with Sissy. I know I've been short, impatient, easily frustrated, and forgetful. I realized the other night when I was giving you a bath and we had a squirters fight how much we haven't laughed together. It was such a good moment for us and I'm going to work harder to have more moments of laughing with you. This doesn't mean that I will stop with the mom stuff, but I think we can find a way to do it with a little more fun.

I hope too, that now and years from now, you know that most of Mommy's frustration has nothing to do with anything that you have ever done and that Mommy loves you beyond all measure. I love our family more than I can ever say, which is why I keep trying to be the best Mommy for you and E. You are my beautiful, funny, smart girl and I am so happy to be your Mommy.

Love,
Mom