Dear Connor - 3 Years, 9 Months

Dear Connor,
How can I explain to you how amazing it is to watch you grow from baby, to toddler to little boy in such a short time. When I see you laying down or sitting, your gangly legs spread out before you, I'm struck by how quickly you are growing up. Often when I look at baby pictures I'm equally struck by how quickly I've forgotten how little you were. I still curl you up into my lap which sometimes leaves me with a feeling of desperation as I cling to your body holding you, until you wiggle down or start bouncing hoping that I'll throw your 36 lb self up into the air.


You had a great time at the beach. You swam in the surf with Daddy and swam in the Sound by yourself like a little fish. You were so worn out by lunch that it was no problem to get you to take a nap every day and I found myself with a couple of hours of alone time each afternoon. Now I'm finding myself missing the beach because you and your brother are both bored to tears, some days literally. Not to worry you'll be starting pre-school again, soon enough... but this time brother will also be attending. Oh what will I do with all of that extra time?!

You and your brother fight just as much as you play together. It's difficult to put you into time out, because your brother comes and sits with you and the two of you end up playing together. If I put you into time out, more often than not, I end up having to hold your brother for the three minutes that you are sitting out so you get the full effect.

There is nothing that I love to hear more than you and your brother playing together shrieking with laughter. I get to hear it every day and it makes up for the fact that no matter how much fun the two of you are having, I know within the next few minutes, someone is going to be in tears. Not necessarily because someone has intentionally hurt the other, but more often because in the excitement of chasing each other around the living room, someone has tripped over a shoe and hurt themself.

Your vocabulary is amazing. So much so that often when you speak to complete strangers they gush about how well you communicate after they've found out how old you are. Sometimes because of this I talk to you like you are 20 instead of 3. You always looks up at me with your big brown eyes, filled with such understanding that I'm sure I'm getting through to you. I'm sure that you are going to look back up at me and say, "I'm sorry about that Mama, I forget that toothpaste isn't for finger painting. I don't know what craziness possessed me" But it never happens. Then I look down at your gangly little legs and remind myself that one day, I'm going to miss all of this.
I love you,
Mama

Dear Tristan - 22 months

Dear Tristan,
A few weeks ago, we took a trip up to the beach. We rode in the car with Papaw and then Daddy came up a few days later, when Papaw had to leave to go back to work.
You can’t help but get up at 7am when we are on vacation. You wake up and instead of going back to sleep like you do at home, you get so excited because we aren’t at home, that you just can’t help but stay awake.

The first morning that you woke up at the beach house, you climbed out of the pack and play and then launched yourself into the hallway at full speed shrieking with laughter; only to freeze and realize that you had no idea where you were. You cried hysterically for a minute but as soon as you saw me, you came to your senses and demanded that I bring you juice and tell you where your brother was at.

Finally, a trip to the beach and you weren’t trying to put the entire beach in your mouth!
You were fearless in the surf at the beach but apprehensive at the Sound which is where we spent most of our time. Going to the Sound was more like a vacation for Mommy than the beach was so we spent a lot of time there. At the Sound, I didn’t have to spend the entire time with my heart in my throat, watching you like a hawk, lest the ocean try to take you. You were able to play in the waters edge, collecting shells and after the third day of the trip, intermittently crying because you were completely exhausted from the excitement of the previous three days.
Papaw has the house set up nicely for guests under 4 years old. There’s a tire swing in the back and a baby pool that can be filled with freezing cold well water. And truly I think it might have been just as fun as playing at the beach for you and brother both.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that you are speaking in short three word sentences or that you have amazing agility and are able to climb anything. You’ve started retaliating against your brother and at times just randomly jump on him, hitting. The first few times we pretended like we didn’t see it as you’ve taken enough abuse from our eldest. But since we’ve had to break it up and put you in time out. But you’ve also discovered that you have a super power. You use those three word sentences to come up and say, “mama, ca-na, hit!” and then burst into tears as if you were hurt. More often than not, this is true, but there have been several times that I’m sure Connor has been completely innocent.
My personal favorite of all of your new skills is one that I think will serve you well in life. You are developing a sense of humor. You get a good laugh out of funny sounding words and there’s nothing that cracks you up more than pointing to your brother and yelling TIME OUT! It’s certainly not funny to him, but it makes you laugh every time. You love a good joke, a mild scare or a tickle. I’m so glad that your sense of humor is developing… you’re going to need it growing up in this family.
I love you,
Mama

Larry said

I keep threatening to post one of Larry's comments as an actual blog entry because they crack me up. Here's what I mean.

"It's a pity you joined the Everdream C2 crowd a bit late. I remember having one hell of a time playing Quake II on the LAN Jorma had set up in the temp building. "Training Class", I think it was called.Being geeks, we all downloaded our own avatars and, while Jorma went on and on about Element K, *thunk*aaaaqqqqzzzxxxxxccccxxdddddd...*Oh, sorry, fell asleep on my keyboard.ANYWAY, while we were supposed to be learning all about how Ben Stein sound-alikes are a bad idea at 7AM, we would be running about in some hellish ruined cityscape, fragging each other. (Heh, that sounds *so* wrong.) My avatar was Starscream. And just as in Transformers: The Movie, Starscream always died most horribly. My FPS skills... not so hot. Good times nonetheless.Congrats on joining the Wii crowd. One of us! One of us! One of... yeah, we ought to get our Smash Brothers on soon. We can play online, and there will be much greatness. I promise to play Peach. Ask Jorma what "Playing Peach" means. Hint: Frying Pan to the face, followed by golf club = gaming joy.As far as the WEED comment goes, I think you may have just found a way to er, mellow Connor out. Heh heh. Mellow.(Please don't arrest me)."