Letter to Lucia: 46 Months; Letter to Greta: 22 Months
Dear Little Ones,
Once again, a joint letter, my excuse this time my ten-day
trip to Bread Loaf. This was a milestone for everyone:
my first time away from you two (excepting my hospital stay), and Daddy’s first
time looking after you on his own for an extended period. By all accounts, you
all thrived, and Daddy’s now dropping hints that he may want to switch roles
and stay home with you girls all the time. (This is hilarious, and impossible,
for reasons you’re too young to understand.) Greta, you took my return in
stride; Lucia, you seemed miffed for a day or so to go back to normal, but we’ve
reached equilibrium once more.
For both of you, this month we’ve witnessed your great love for
our community pool, as well as endless fun at home on our porch and yard with
chalk, balls, hula hoops. Lucia, you’ve taken a renewed interest in your
stuffed animals. At odd moments you’ll suddenly squeak, “Eee! Eee! Eee!” and it’ll
be one of your animals crying for you. Of course Greta follows suit and also
makes her animals cry for various reasons.
Greta, you’ve become quite the noisy little one. Why speak
when you can shout? Each morning when I go in to retrieve you, I tell you we
have to be quiet since Lucia and Daddy are still sleeping. “OKAY!!” you yell. You
give a silent wave at Lucia’s closed door as we walk to the stairs, but when you
catch sight of Daddy through our bedroom doorway you scream “DA!!!!” You yell
your assent, you yell your observations, you yell your demands. You are loud,
loud, loud. You’ve found your voice, to be sure, but you haven’t quite found
your two-syllable words, sticking instead to either the first or last syllable.
You’re putting those single syllables together now and then into two-word
sentences, and I trust the enunciation will come.
Lucia, you continue to chatter more or less constantly
throughout the day. You still love making up songs and dancing, and part of me
fears you’ll pursue a path of interpretive dance when you’re older. Yesterday
at the pool, you found a maraca, and you spent most of our time there crooning
a nonsensical song and dancing dreamily in the water, shaking the maraca.
Greta, you spent yesterday’s pool time walking around the
pool in a crouch, so you were submerged up to your shoulders. Your little baby
thighs must have been burning.
Two cuties. That’s what we have. I missed you when I was
gone, little ones.
Favorite books: we’re going through great stacks of books
these days; not really any clear favorites. Olivia, Lowly Worm, princess
anything, Max & Ruby.
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