Skipping Town

Dear Littlest One, You are funnier and cuter every single day. You have taken your place as an autonomous, opinionated member of the family, as likely to snuggle up with a bottle of milk as you are to hurl yourself from one end of the couch to the other, screaming and laughing. You've discovered that your cache of animals is there to be carried around and cuddled, and you've even started feeding your animals bites of play food and letting them drink from doll bottles. You have the things you like to do, and you know what books you'd like to hear, and when you want something, you go for it--you can't always tell us what you want yet in words, but you make your wants known by, say, banging on the refrigerator (milk). You have the funniest, cutest smile, with a little row of teeth on top and bottom and a few shocking molars peeking out in back. You like to give kisses, coming at us suddenly with an open mouth; you like to hand Lucia her Bibi. You and your sister have f...

Last Thursday, around 3:30pm, I loaded the girls into the car and off we went to a playdate. We were listening to music and Lucia was snacking on Goldfish and then CRUNCH. I’d crashed into another car, smashing up my hood and the other car’s front passenger-side door. Shocked, I sat there for a moment. The car had come out of nowhere. I’d seen it in time to try to brake, but there wasn’t enough time even to screech. Just…CRUNCH. Lucia gave a brief whimper from the loud sound; the girls were otherwise unaffected, as was I. Thank goodness for our Volvo. Seriously, we barely felt it. The other car continued across my path and pulled to a stop. I pulled in behind and called the police. The driver of the other car was an elderly woman, with a passenger who was maybe her son. They weren’t hurt either. (They were also in a Volvo.) It happened at a tricky intersection: the road I was on has no stop sign; the road she was on has a stop sign with a flashing light and big yellow signs w...

Dear Little One, Three is fun. We’ve reached an even-keeled period, and suddenly you’re the easy one—your little sister, with her inability to go grocery shopping without screaming, has become the weak link in day-to-day placidity (or what passes for placidity with two kids, anyway). You sleep to a decent 7:30, you play, you sit for long stretches to read books, you play with Greta. We have moments when you dig in your heels—slipping out of your winter coat just when it’s time to leave the house is among the more maddening sticking points—but for the most part we have fun. You have come to love, and look forward to, your Quiet Time. Your favorite thing to do is strew about your room hundreds of tiny beads I bought at a garage sale and gave to you on a whim; you sort them, set aside your favorites, gather them in different vessels. They are all over the place, all the time, and every night I curse quietly as I crawl around picking them up (you help, but there are a ton of ...

You. Yes, you. Think I'm cute? Today I mysteriously got past the baby gate and made it to the landing before my older sister screamed "GRETA'S CLIMBING THE STAIRS!!!" (It will be a mystery forever whether or not Lucia opened the gate for me.) Today I also learned how to get onto the couch by myself, and my favorite thing to do is jump and run from end to end, getting precariously close to the edge and bringing to an end the relieved exhalation Mama has been feeling when she can turn on Dora and go into the kitchen to cook dinner. I dare you to look away for one second. I dare you.

Thursday, needing a good activity to kill some time before lunch, I decided the girls should finger-paint together. They’d done a tiny bit of fingerpainting once before and loved it, and this time I went all out—preparing a seat for Greta at the table, spreading out a huge sheet of paper, pouring paints into Tupperware lids. The girls loved it. Greta just liked grabbing handfuls of paint and squeezing the paint in her fingers. Lucia did some actual fingerpainting, but she, too, was more interested in getting as much paint on her hands as possible. It quickly became about as messy as I’d expected it to be, but then I realized I had no exit strategy—a paint-covered table, paint-covered chairs, paint-covered girls, their paint-covered clothes, and just me, trying to figure out how on earth to get us back to zero and get lunch made before, oh, six o’clock. I ended up wiping them down as best I could with a cloth and then taking them upstairs for a bath. There is still paint...

Today on the way to preschool, Lucia, as she always does, asked if I was going to be the “helping mommy” today. I told her no, but that I’d be the helping mommy next week. “Are you the leaving mommy today?” she replied. Oof. The leaving mommy. Even though I leave this child for a total of five hours per week—at preschool, which she loves and looks forward to—I still felt a good dose of mommy guilt. (“I’m so glad you’re here!” Lucia exclaimed when I returned to pick her up. “Brr! It’s a good thing we’re wearing coats!” After preschool, everything is usually an excited exclamation.) I also felt guilty because I left Greta with a new sitter for the first time today, and I was sure she’d be scared and upset. But it went fine—the sitter is wonderful, and when I came home she’d gotten out all the drums and was engaging Greta in a lively song, Greta smiling on her pink chair. The sitter said Greta didn't cry at all and took a one-hour nap. This afternoon the girls had on their fa...

Over the past month or so, I’ve read The Night Before Christmas to Lucia and Greta probably a hundred times. Both of them took to the story, and it was a relief to me to have this framework—the descriptions, the illustrations—to help me explain the whole idea of Santa. I’d been talking about Santa for a while, and Lucia watched a Dora episode about Santa a bunch of times, so she definitely understood the concept. But I felt like every time I brought it up, I had to add a new, perplexing detail—he flies in a sleigh pulled by reindeer; he visits when you’re sleeping; he lands on the roof; he comes down the chimney. It is bizarre to piece it apart this way, each element more incredible than the last. But somehow it all added up coherently for Lucia, who, throughout December, eagerly talked about what she wanted Santa to bring her (a wand and a pillow). On Christmas Eve, we went to the annual Orlando Christmas Eve party, the climax of which is “Santa’s” appearance to dole out joke ...

Dear Grets, This letter is slightly late, but in a way that’s good, since it gives me the chance to remark on the vast changes you’ve undergone in just the past couple of weeks. I feel like I blinked and you morphed from a cuddly, docile baby to a toddler with a mind of your own—you are as cute as ever but are now at the receiving end of my “No!” just as often as Lucia. Your big thing right now is stairs—all you want to do is go up. You’re pretty deft at this, but since you have absolutely no idea how to climb down (you think you can simply step off the top like we do), this is ridiculously dangerous. Just before we left for Christmas, I spent an insane afternoon chasing you as you ran for the steps again and again, screaming when I peeled you off and sometimes grabbing the railing and refusing to let go. I blocked the steps with the piano bench, but you climbed under it. Needless to say, I’m counting the seconds until our new baby gate arrives. In the meantime, we’ve manag...