Letter to Lucia (56 Months) & Greta (31 Months)

Little Ones,

Another joint letter. I’ll get my act together soon, I promise. But once again it’s fitting to write to both of you, since so much of what you do, you now do together. Now that it’s summer, all of us are happier, and we spend our days on the porch or in the backyard: bubbles, chalk, climbing the rhododendrons, coloring the rhododendrons with chalk, running around, digging, reading. We’ve set up the water table and sand table, as well as a kid-size table with chairs for snacks, lunch, dinner. It’s all just purely fun.

You both have lost interest in television: though you have your favorite shows (Doc McStuffins, Sofia the First, Bubble Guppies, Dinosaur Train), you’d much rather be outside, or playing with whatever you’re into that day. I never know for sure what you’ll be involved with when I come out of the kitchen to check on you while I’m cooking dinner: today you were both building towers and structures with the wooden lacing beads that haven’t seen the light of day in months.

Lucia, your independence comes through more and more these days, and you’re acting more like a little girl who’s close to becoming five. You’ve begun coloring intricately, precisely, and you prefer colored pencils and ballpoint pens so you can carefully color in the tiny illustrations in the Rainbow Fairies chapter books you continue to love. You enjoy “playing family” with all your Hello Kitty and cat stuffed animals (a crew of nearly ten), which mostly involves the mommy and daddy kissing the baby kitties good morning and giving them toast for breakfast. You love, love, love preschool and have actually started getting genuinely angry when I arrive to take you home. Lately you’ve been asking to “do yoga,” and I lead you and Greta through some yoga poses in “yoga class.” You really try to do them, while Greta usually winds up dramatically rolling across the floor, or somersaulting.

Greta, most of the tantrums and obstinacy that made the winter such a challenge are gone (most of the time), and in their place is silliness and free-spiritedness that is hilarious to watch. You dance at any opportunity, then throw up your hands and wait for applause and cheers. You deliver lively, unintelligible monologues from Frozen, complete with gestures. You run at top speed at all times on your little barefeet. You notice and comment on other people’s shoes and nail polish. You declare every color your favorite color, with great excitement, in the Greta-speak that I know and hope will mature but still is, for now, also so cute. Upon noticing a yellow flower: “Yo! Fay coer!!” (hands clasped to heart). You are pink-cheeked and rosy and your hair is a wild, eye-blocking, overgrown nest of blond quasi-curls. You have firm opinions on what you wear these days, including pajamas. It’s a tough bedtime when your favorite whale-print pjs are in the wash.

You both continue to revere your collection of Magiclip princesses, and anything Frozen. When you are good, you are very, very good and very, very cute. You have your moments, though, both of you. But you’re also both very aware of being a family, and are pleased when we’re all together: in New Hampshire, you both loved to count each of us in turn, happily declaring “Four!” when all were accounted for.

Favorite toys/activities: Magiclip princesses, other princess dolls, Elsa and Anna dolls, Hello Kitty stuffed animals, puzzles, coloring, dancing, playing outside, chalk, bubbles, tea parties, water table, mermaids

Favorite books: Three Billy Goats Gruff, Pied Piper, Rainbow Fairies books (Lucia), The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Greta)