Mercedes - SK Graduation

Dear Mercedes,

Yesterday was your final day of Senior Kindergarten, which means the end of a two year journey through the Ontario full-day kindergarten program. And we couldn’t be prouder. I remember you being excited to start Junior Kindergarten, but also quite nervous. You didn’t know anyone, it was a new school with a new routine (no nap!), and meant much more independence (bringing lunch for example). And although there were some tears shed the first few days, you settled in quickly and you THRIVED. You absolutely loved school. There were some tears leading up to the start of Senior Kindergarten as well – you had such a fun summer and had seemed to forget how much you loved school, and you were nervous about having two new teachers and the added responsibility of being an SK. But by the end of the first day, you were right back into your routine, and your circle of friends was complete again.

You have developed some wonderful friendships the past two years, and you have learned so much – it’s pretty astounding to watch. The reading in particular makes me thrilled – I’ve always been an avid reader and writer, and watching you navigate the world of advancing literacy is awe-inspiring. It’s so fascinating seeing how your mind works and the things you remember and how you adapt your new knowledge and skills to the world around you. You also ask the most interesting, observant, thoughtful questions. Some of them are quite difficult to answer (What is God? Why do some kids have to be in foster homes? Who was the first mother?), but it delights me to witness how you interpret the things you see and hear. I love hearing about what you’ve learned in school and the adventures your teachers have taken you on. You have truly blossomed this past year, and I have no doubts that Grade 1 will be more of the same – learning and growing and friendships and finding your voice.

So although your school in particular didn’t have any sort of Kindergarten graduation ‘ceremony,’ rest assured, we are extremely proud of everything that you have accomplished this year, and can’t wait to see what the coming years bring.

Much love,

Mama

Alexis - Happy 4th Birthday!

Dear Lexi,

Happy 4^th birthday! Four years ago, you burst on to the scene – all 6 pounds and 6 ounces of you. Four years later, you still enter most rooms the same way, as a tiny spitfire, with big brown eyes and a loud, adorable voice. Only now you have the best hair I’ve ever seen. We say it’s crazy hair, but really, it’s one of my favourite things about you and I hope it never, ever calms down. It matches your personality in the best way – unrestrained, uncontained, and infinitely smile-inducing.

I am so proud of the wonderful human you are growing into – caring, considerate, giggly, funny, smart, adventurous, and snuggly. Although you’ve always loved playing with your brother and sister, it’s so fascinating to watch those relationships change and mature over time. You worship the ground that Mercedes walks on, but you stand up to her more these days – insisting on which role you want to play in your make-believe game of ‘family’, or saying no when she tries to direct a game a certain way. But you also get along so much better with Holden now, which delights me. Your relationship with him has always been a bit tricky – being so close in age, and being so young yourself when he arrived, it’s easy to see why there might have been a bit of animosity as he quickly progressed into toddlerhood. But now, with him being so verbal, and you being nearly the same size, you seem more like equals. You find him just as amusing as Mercedes does, and you treat him with compassion and consideration, and more like a true playmate than you ever have before.

You have only a few months left of full-time daycare before you embark on your next great adventure, full-time school! You are super-excited about Junior Kindergarten, and getting to go to ‘big school’ like Mercedes, but I know you will miss all of your friends and teachers at Learning Jungle. You have learned so much in your time there – progressing from the Junior Preschool Room to the Senior Preschool Room, dropping your nap, learning basic literacy skills – right now you are even teaching us sign language! I love hearing about the fantastic things you do at daycare – adventure walks and theme days and catching frogs and learning about the ocean and pirates and building tiny towns. It’s a fantastic place and they love you almost as much as we do.

Thank you for being such a delightful presence in our lives – everyone who knows you agrees that there is just something extra special about you. Some spark, some fire, some impish-ness that I hope never dulls. You glow, and I vow to always nurture that glow, ensuring it forever shines as bright as it does now.

Happy 4^th Lexi-Doodle!

Love,

Mama

Holden - Weaning

Dear Holden,

Seven years ago this month, I got pregnant with your big(gest) sister. And since that time, I have been either pregnant or nursing (or both!) continuously. That’s a total of nearly 30 months pregnant, plus a total of over 65 months nursing. Yes, that’s right, SIXTY-FIVE MONTHS.

I haven’t regretted my choices, or the unexpected path that our life has chosen for us – to have all three of you within four years has been a blessing. An exhausting blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. To be able to fairly effortlessly breastfeed all of you has marked some of my most joyful, peaceful moments in the past six years of being a mother. There have been hard times in my breastfeeding journeys, for sure – I vividly remember how slowly my milk came in after Mercedes was born, and having to pump with a hospital grade pump after each feed for a few weeks. I remember the night after Alexis was born, when she basically nursed ALL NIGHT LONG to bring my milk in. She was tiny, but feisty, and very vocal about her desires! (Not much has changed about that in the past four years.) I remember the only real nursing strike I ever experienced, and that was yours, during a pretty serious set of illnesses (strep throat, double ear infection, pneumonia). That was a week-long period of agony and doubt for me, which ultimately culminated in a brief hospitalization for you and the beginning of your asthma diagnosis.

Thankfully though, I weathered all the hard times and the growth spurts and the TEETH, together with my babies. I’ll never forget coming home after a week-long business trip just a couple of months ago, and being SO worried that you would not want to nurse anymore, even though I knew you were over two and of course, would be fine. But the first words out of your mouth when you saw me were “Hi! Hi Mommy! I nurse now peas!” It was heart-warming and made me feel so incredibly glad that you treasured our breastfeeding relationship just as much as I did.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. It appears, after 29 months of nursing you, my final baby, we are on the resolute path towards weaning. It isn’t exactly your choice, and it isn’t exactly my choice, but we seem to be making the march together, which is exactly what I always wanted to experience. I stopped nursing both of your sisters, fairly abruptly, as I was pregnant each time with a subsequent child. It didn’t bother them, but it did bother me a little – pregnancy hormones and guilt are a horrible mix! I always longed for that slow, gradual weaning process and now, years later, here we are!

Before you started daycare at 15 months old, we were down to about 4-5 nursing sessions a day. Once you started daycare, that became 2-3 sessions a day – always in the morning and before bed, and then sometimes an extra session thrown in overnight, or on the weekends. More recently, we’ve moved down to one session – the eternally-helpful bedtime session. It has always been a great way for the two of us to reconnect after a day apart; some quiet cuddle time, just mama and her little boy. Of course, it always had the added benefit of making you sleepy, which I have to admit was a sanity-saver!

However, your bedtime routine is taking longer and longer (particularly since I returned home from that business trip) – you seem to be about ready to drop your much-beloved nap, you are far less tired than your sisters in the evening, you want to do everything they do (including PJs and stories in Lexi’s room), you want to help tuck your sisters in, you want an extra story in your room after the girls are already in bed, you want me to sit on your floor for a few minutes in the dark, etc, etc. And you seem less and less interested in maintaining that bedtime nursing session, and truthfully, so am I. We still have quiet cuddle time in your room, just you and me. We read a quick story, with you snuggling up in my arms in your chair. We rock for a few minutes. You give me a sweet kiss and a big hug and we exchange ‘I Love Yous’ and ‘Goodnights’. Truthfully, it’s pretty perfect.

So I am sad, but also happy. It’s a bittersweet time for me – to know that such an ingrained part of my day, my life for the past six years, is coming to an end is hard for me. It’s yet another sign in the expanding pile of them that my babies are growing up. But, yay, it means that my babies are growing up! My babies are turning into big kids – with voices, and distinct personalities, and their own thoughts and wishes and interests and likes and dislikes. My babies are becoming independent, and confident, and growing into themselves. How can I be sad about that? And of course, I have to admit, that I am a little relieved to finally be getting my body back after all of these years. I gave myself over fully – to growing three wonderful humans, and to sustaining them for months on end. And I will never regret it. But I am happy to be just me again. To not be tied down to a nursing infant, to not have to worry about the fact that my babies don’t take bottles or soothers, to not have to worry about being gone overnight (or multiple nights!). There will never be a time that I don’t feel grateful for all of the experiences I’ve had being pregnant and breastfeeding. But now, the time has come for new experiences, and I am excited about what the future holds.

Love always,

Mama

Holden - Surgery

Dear Holden,

Today marks two weeks post-surgery, and I am thrilled to say that you sailed through the whole experience with no issues whatsoever. We were nervous that the surgery itself might not go ahead as planned, since you were fighting a cold for a few days prior to your scheduled operation date. But we were told as long as you didn’t have a high fever and you were in good spirits, not overly congested, etc. that the surgery should be a go ahead. So we finalized our plans, booking time off work, withdrawing you temporarily from daycare, arranging for care of your sisters, packing our bags, planning for an overnight hospital stay… and then the morning of, you woke up with a fever. We could tell that you were sicker than you were even just the day before and your father and I were terrified that they wouldn’t go through with it. Of course, we’d never put you in danger, and obviously the medial team would never operate if they felt it unsafe. But we knew how desperately you needed the surgery to stop getting sick so often, and of course, it would have been a huge inconvenience to have to reschedule everything.

Thankfully, the anesthetist made a last-minute call to go ahead as planned. He said you weren’t too congested and your chest sounded clear, plus he knew you were scheduled to stay overnight, which meant that the nurses would be able to keep a close eye on your recovery and make sure you were okay.

So off you went, after charming every single doctor, nurse, and patient you came across. Everyone commented on how handsome and well-behaved you were; both true! Of course, you cried when I handed you over to the doctor and he took you down the hall into the operating room, but you had your Eddy with you at least (complete with his own hospital bracelet to match yours, which you weren’t a big fan of), and I know you were put under fairly quickly.

Your father and I breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it through the morning with only one minor meltdown about Bear Paws (you were fasting of course), and that the surgery was going ahead as planned. And then we waited a bit anxiously for news once the procedure was finished, which came fairly quickly, thankfully. Your surgeon said you did amazing, and everything went exactly as planned. She said your tonsils and adenoids were HUGE and they could all hear an immediate difference in your breathing when you were taken to recovery. You were supposed to only be in recovery for about half an hour, and then moved to the Pediatrics floor where you (and I) were to spend the night. However, they kept you for over two and a half hours – apparently you were VERY sleepy and had some trouble coming out of the anesthesia (not uncommon). Your oxygen levels were low, so they wanted to keep a close eye on you and provide you added oxygen via mask to be sure you were okay before moving you upstairs. But, within a few hours of the surgery, we were reunited. You were so sad and sleepy, but that changed to angry within a couple of hours. You had no problems drinking or taking your medicine, thankfully, and you ate a bunch of jello in the middle of the night, but you did want to be held constantly, and were pretty upset about the IV in your foot and having to wear a sensor to monitor your vital signs.

But, with some tears (from us both) and some EXTREMELY uncomfortable sleeping in a chair, we made it through the night and were discharged mid-morning on Thursday. And thus began a week and a half of ‘recovery’ at home. No daycare, no scratchy food, no super strenuous activity. There were some challenges, particularly around taking your pain meds (which you often took like a champ. However, when you decided you did NOT want to take your medicine, there was no convincing you) and arguing about snacks. You quickly tired of pudding and jello and were quite upset to not be allowed to eat exactly what you wanted. We made do with a lifetime’s supply of yogurt, super-soft bread (croissants, fresh buns, super-nutritious white bread, etc.), and overcooked pasta to keep you happy. Finally, on the weekend, we worked our way up to some harder food and here you are! Two weeks post-surgery, no sign of any bleeding whatsoever, and over a week without any pain meds.

You are sleeping better. You are breathing SO much better. You don’t snore anymore. Your cold cleared up after surgery almost instantly. You are even in great spirits! I don’t know if it’s because you can breathe better and are sleeping better, or if it’s because you cut two molars during the last couple of weeks, or if it’s because you just finished a growth spurt… but in any case, I see so much more of my happy, easy-going, funny, charming baby boy these days. You are still two, in all your toddler glory, but you whine and cry and cling and complain and tantrum SO much less and it delights me. Because truthfully, you have been quite a handful these past six months (not at daycare, not with anyone else, but for Mommy and Daddy – especially Mommy – yes). And now I am falling in love with you and your cheeky grin and that tiny dimple and your increasingly-crazy-Lexi-like hair all over again.

I am so relieved that this is behind us, and so hopeful that it means a much easier Winter for you this year. And the bonus? Your voice has completely changed (even more adorable) and now I can’t tell you and Lexi apart at all.

Love,

Mama

A Week Away

Dear Offspring,

Last week marked an important milestone, for all of us! I was out of town on business, for the first time in over seven years. I used to travel a few times a year for work, but that was before any of you were born. Since you’ve all arrived, I have been away from you for only a night or two here or there. Your father and I actually went on a vacation for a week when Mercedes was almost two (and Lexi was in my tummy!), and it was a fun but LONG week. We both missed her terribly. Lexi, the longest I’ve been separated from you was two nights in a row, and my baby, Holden – the longest I’ve ever been apart from you was one night at a time! So me being gone for an entire week was truly something new. For me, for you, and also for your father, who was alone with all three of you the entire time.

Of course I was nervous, and sad. I knew I would miss you all so much. And I did. I missed hugging you all goodbye in the morning and tucking you in at night. I missed hearing your little voices telling me all about your days. I missed seeing you guys giggling as you play with each other before dinner. I missed seeing whatever strange object Holden would insist on bringing in the car on the way to daycare. But I also had a great time – I was working of course, so I was busy, but it was also really nice to just be ME for a few days. To only be responsible for myself, and to not have to worry about bedtime and naptime and diapers and school lunches. It was a little taste of freedom, really. And I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoyed it. I know your father was tired by the end of the week (taking care of three kids is exhausting, even for two parents!) but he also had a blast spending some quality time with you all. Of course, he is an awesome dad all the time, but having to be responsible for everything for an entire week is a daunting task – three kids, a dog, a cat, fish, a house – it’s a heck of a lot of work. But he did great, and you all did great. I am happy that no one seemed to miss me TOO much (except probably Duke), and that everything went smoothly without me. And I am happy that you got to see that Mommy's life outside of being Mommy is important too.

So while you all had fun, and I enjoyed the week away, I am super happy to be back. It was wonderful to hear all about your week, see Lexi’s crazy hair in person again, see Mercedes’ brand-new loose tooth, and hear Holden’s first sentence upon seeing me again (“Hi Mommy! I nurse now please.”)

It’s good to be home.

Love,

Mama

P.S. In case you were wondering, this morning in the car on the way to daycare Holden insisted on bringing a Tupperware container that dispenses salad dressing :)

Mercedes - Happy 6th Birthday!

Dear Mercedes,

Today marks your sixth birthday – six years seems like an eternity in the day-to-day monotony of parenting… bathroom breaks and bad dreams and snack-fetching and lunch-making and never-ending-illness… But it also flew by in a flash of course. It seems to me that one day you were a helpless little nugget, relying almost solely on me for food, shelter, love and protection; and now you are a confident, independent, reading, walking, talking, sentient being. It amazes me how much you know and how quickly you learn; I love hearing about the new things you discover at school, and listening to the cheesy jokes you tell us. I love watching you find your footing as a reader and a writer – practicing your spelling, sounding out words, teaching me the meaning of the ever-important ellipsis. I love snuggling with you in your bed after you are all tucked in, while you tell me your grand plans for the next day, gesturing wildly with your hands (which I am sure you’ve learned from your mother). I love seeing your careful consideration when it comes to picking out clothes, or snacks, or how you detail EXACTLY what you want in your lunch bag the next day (always being mindful to include healthy fruits and vegetables!). I love watching you play with your siblings – making up elaborate, imaginative games with Lexi and being ever-patient of your rough-and-tumble brother (who happens to think the sun rises and sets on his ‘Cedes).

I am so proud of the wonderful little person you are and can’t wait to see what your very bright future holds. Thank you for making me a mother, and for teaching me more about myself and love and life than I ever thought possible.

Happy Birthday Shmeecee!

Love,

Mama

Alexis - JK Registration

Dear Lexi,

Last week I registered you for Junior Kindergarten. It was kind of anti-climactic – I mean, sorry middle-child, but I HAVE already done this before and I know the school well of course, since your sister goes there. That doesn’t mean that it was any less thrilling to me that in seven short months, I’ll have TWO full-time school kids. Mercedes is so excited to have you join her in the ranks of ‘big kid’ (although she isn’t thinking that through very carefully, since she clearly loves lording it over you currently that she goes to big girl school and you, most certainly do not) and you are counting down the days to being in ‘real’ school. 

We’ve already talked about how in the spring we’ll go and visit your school and see the classrooms from the perspective of student, instead of little sister. You’ve reminded me over and over again that you’ll pick out your own backpack and a lunch-bag just like the one Mercedes has because you’ll be bringing your own lunch when you are ‘big.’ I find it so endearing how excited you are (your sister was the same) and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with school the way she has (and the way I did, 30 years ago!)

It’s funny, because I look at you currently and picture Holden starting JK the year after you; he’ll be the exact same age that you are right now (3.75). I look at your bathroom skills and your dressing-independently skills and your alphabet recognition and your language and vocabulary, and it reassures me that he’ll do okay when the time comes. Because I have no concerns about you starting JK – none at all. You are a delightfully charming little girl. Feisty and spunky and independent, but also sweet and cooperative and considerate (particularly when not at home, ha). I realized just this week that you seem so much more grown up all of a sudden – the changes actually happen slowly of course; gradually you learn new things about the world and your place in it – but to me, it seems like there was an abrupt change in how you carry yourself, how you speak, how you interact with your siblings. You stand up for yourself a bit more with Mercedes. You are more tolerant and playful with Holden – viewing him as a playmate and a peer instead of a pesky baby competing for our attention. You have fewer completely irrational tantrums. You tell us delightful stories and while your voice is as tiny as ever, your pronunciation is clearer, more distinct.

It is these changes, small and big all at the same time, that make my heart ache. I am so excited to see you move on to this next phase of your life (an important one!); to see you become a full-time student and rediscover the joy of learning through another one of my children. But at the same time, I want to keep you tiny-voiced and big-haired and unabashedly affectionate and snuggly and feisty forever.  

Love,

Mama