Mercedes - Happy 7th Birthday!

Dear Mercedes,

This past weekend you turned seven. Happy birthday! For some reason, I often still picture myself as a mother of ‘little’ kids; probably because we’ve been in the trenches of baby/toddlerhood so long that it’s hard to picture NOT being in them. But then I stop and realize just how grown up you are rapidly becoming. The reading, the writing, the reasoning and math skills, the increasing independence, the lost baby teeth (4 as of this week!)… it all adds up to one incredibly thoughtful, considerate, funny, witty, beautiful girl. Not a baby. Not a toddler. Not even a little kid. You are so quickly on your path to becoming a big kid, and it both thrills me and breaks my heart a bit.

I love having increasingly complex, intelligent conversations with you, and reading real novels, and listening to you discuss the things you are learning in school (last week you created your own company logo and painted it on a t-shirt – Mercedes’ Fairy Store – for your media unit). I love that you take care of your brother and sister; letting Lexi go first with a show, or allowing Holden to convince you to play Lego early on a Saturday morning, despite your desire to stay snuggled under the covers. I love playing games with you that are slightly more challenging; Mastermind and Life and Uno (with the actual rules, not kiddie rules!).

You are such a delight to us all – writing your own stories, telling jokes, playing with your friends, clearing the dinner table, enthusiastically doing your homework, and always smiling. We love seeing your personality develop – creative, thoughtful, sensitive, observant, kind, and so intuitive sometimes it takes my breath away.

Thank you for being you. And thank you for always teaching us how to navigate the next stages of our relationship together. We love learning how to parent a big kid, just as much as you seem to love becoming one!

Love,

Mama

Happy 3rd Birthday Holden!

Dear Holden,

Happy birthday! It’s hard to imagine that three years have passed since we first met. It’s been an amazing three years – full of ups and downs but every minute has been worth it. We’ve watched you grow and mature into the sweetest little boy I’ve ever known. We’ve seen you learn to walk and talk; we’ve watched you fall in love with your sisters, and make friends, and witnessed you figuring out how to tell a joke or do something cute to make everyone around you laugh. We’ve held you as you’ve cried, sighed in frustration as you’ve thrown temper tantrums, and tended to you when you were sick. We’ve taken you to countless appointments at the ear nose and throat specialist, and the pediatric asthma clinic, and been there as you recovered from your first (and hopefully only!) surgery.

Every day you change and grow a bit more – come up with new words, tell new jokes, make new observations (grow out of your shoes or your pants or your socks…). And every day we feel blessed that you have completed our family. I said it in your birth story, and it’s something I think about often: You are everything that we never knew we always wanted. We never envisioned being a family of five, and couldn’t really picture what it would be like to have a little boy running around. But when you burst onto the scene, you captured everyone’s hearts. Your smile, your dimples, your curly hair, you impish little voice. You are sweet and funny and cuddly and loving and mellow and mischievous, all rolled in to one adorable package.

You still LOVE cars (and trucks and trains and fire trucks and garbage trucks and police cars and motorcycles) and anything Lego. You love Star Wars action figures (thanks Daddy) and think that anything Paw Patrol is like striking gold. You love dinosaurs and dragons and playing with bikes. You love snuggling and ‘reading’ us bedtime stories and playing with the cat. You absolutely adore your big sisters, and even tell Mercedes regularly that she is your best friend. You like telling us all about your days at daycare (which friends you played with, what games you played) and anything Spiderman.

In short, you are a very typical, but wonderful little boy, and one that we could never imagine our lives without. Thank you for bringing so much joy to our family Holden John. We are all better people for it.

Love,

Mama

Lexi - Junior Kindergarten

Dear Lexi,

Last week, you began your full-time school journey. On Wednesday, we went for a one-hour ‘meet the teacher’ sessions, where we got to see your new cubby, explore your new classroom, play at some of thestations set up, and get to chat with your teachers a little bit. We already knew your teachers of course, because they were Mercedes’ teachers last year. Which I am super-thankful for, since they are a FABULOUS team. They are caring and thoughtful and encouraging and place a very high emphasis on fostering independence and outdoor education (making full use of the outdoor classroom, the forests and trails surrounding the school, etc.) You will have an absolute blast with them – Mercedes did, and I know that you will be the same. You were nervous to go for that one hour meeting, but by the end of it you didn’t want to leave! I was happy but still not very optimistic that your first days would be tearless (and I was right).

On Thursday morning, I had to drop you off to the Before School program, which unfortunately was not agreeable to you. Mercedes is also in the program of course, but being two years older she is in a different classroom during Kids Club. The kindergarten students are placed in the actual kindergarten classrooms (your Kids Club class is actually IN your daytime class, which hopefully makes the daily transition a little easier in the long run). However, on Thursday and Friday last week, she had to come and spend time with you in your class to help ease you in (which of course, she relished – she loves beinga helpful big sister). On Thursday (the first day) you came home and said you cried all day and that you were “ZERO excited” to go back the next day, which broke our hearts a bit of course. I know how rough it is to be in a new place, with new teachers, a new routine, new peers… it would be daunting for me, let alone a four year old! But by the end of Day Two, you came home proudly exclaiming that you “had a gooder day today!” and that you had made a new friend and that now you LOVE school.

This morning’s drop-off was still a little tearful, although thankfully I was able to distract you from the idea of Mercedes joining your before-school class again. I have to keep reminding myself that for the entire past year and a half of daycare, you have always been dropped off WITH Holden (likewise, Holden cried for you last week, since he is used to sibling back up as well). It is a big adjustment to be left alone in a new class, on top of all of the other adjustments you are trying to make.

So while it makes me sad, it also warms my heart a bit to see how much you all love each other. I know you fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but fundamentally, I think that the three of you absolutely worship each other. So much so, that we’ve agreed that you and Mercedes can have ‘sleepovers’ in her bed each Friday and Saturday night (no school nights!) – something that you especially seem to love. I am so thankful that you all have each other to lean on.

I am curious to see how your second week of school unfolds, but however long the transition takes, I know that you will thrive in kindergarten, just like Mercedes did. I can’t wait to see it all happen.

Love,

Mama

Mercedes - Grade 1

Dear Mercedes,

Last week marked your first week of Grade 1. We had a rough start to your first day of school – this year, the administration made everyone from Grade 1 and up meet in the yard before the first bell, where we were to look for the right Grade and then find your name on a list to learn who your teacher was. I understand that for many reasons this may have been the best method (there are changes in enrollment right up until the last minute, etc.), but it sure was chaotic. For a sensitive kid like you (and for me too!) it was downright overwhelming. You surprised me with how UN-anxious you were leading up to the start of school though. I remember last year you crying at night for a good week prior to SK starting, and that was when you knew the classroom and the routine and that all of your friends would be with you! This year, we had no idea who your teacher was, where your classroom was, and whether or not your best friends would be with you (sadly, your two best friends are NOT). But you took the uncertainty in stride and while you admitted that you were a ‘bit nervous’ prior to the start of school, not once did you cry or complain. Until of course, the chaos in the schoolyard.

However you persevered, and as you told me later you were totally fine once you walked through those doors. You do have a few friends in your class, and you actually have TWO teachers, both of whom you seem to enjoy. You are very proud of the fact that you have a real desk now, and that there are no ‘toys’ left in the classroom (“just math toys”), and that you get to walk all the way down the hallway by YOURSELF to go to the bathroom (ah the joys of freedom at the age of six!). You love being on the third floor of the school, and after only four days have already seemed to fall into a great groove. This is not surprising to me – you have a true, unbridled love for school and all things learning (doing workbooks on your own time that you force me to buy for you).  You are 100% my daughter. I remember Auntie Kimmy and I begging Bubie to do gifted tests on us for fun on the weekends.

It is thrilling to me to see how engaged and involved you are in your school days – how much fun it all is to you, how you carefully observe everything around you and import it into your daily play with your brother and sister. I have no doubt that this year will be a fantastic one for you – I can’t wait to see what you teach me next.

Love,

Mama

Holden - Senior Preschool

Dear Holden,

You are now officially in the Senior Preschool room! This is the final stop in your daycare journey before you begin Junior Kindergarten next year in the Fall of 2016. It is hard for me to imagine that at this point – the idea of watching you walk through those doors, with your backpack and packed lunch, is a bit panic-inducing. I KNOW you will be fine, as the evidence of your sisters (not to mention countless of other wee ones) before you suggests. But it’s still hard to picture, especially knowing that thanks to your Christmas-Eve arrival you will literally be the very youngest in your class at not even four years old.

But truthfully, you astound me every day with how quickly you are growing and learning and changing before our very eyes. Just this week you lost the ‘mokorcycle’ mispronunciation and say ‘motorcycle’ properly. You produce these elaborate sentences and have such a vivid imagination – ‘reading’ stories and making up ghosts and creatures and the ever-present “Mommy, Lexi hurted me. Lexi hitted my arm!” stories. You have gotten your first haircut (although it wasn’t much of a haircut; I just couldn’t stand to cut off all of your beautiful baby curls), and we are working (slowly!) on potty training. We don’t want to rush you, but we are trying to push the concept as much as possible without traumatizing you (see the afore-mentioned ‘youngest kid in kindergarten’ thing). We have no more baby gates in the house, we’ve just moved your carseat forward facing, and you like walking up and down the stairs on your own. You are still in a crib, but that will come to an end within the next few months (definitely before your third birthday). You love counting and picking out shapes and singing songs and watching movies that are too mature for you.

You still absolutely LOVE trucks and cars and motorcycles and airplanes and trains and helicopters and garbage trucks (i.e. anything that moves), and you adore Lego more than just about any other toy. You worship your sisters, especially Mercedes (likely just because she is significantly older and more mature – Lexi is more like your trouble-making-partner-in-crime).

It is a privilege and an honour to watch you grow older – it’s bittersweet, knowing you are the very last to pass through all of these phases, but we are starting to feel the freedom and flexibility again – we can go places as a family much more easily, you are much more cooperative, and you love being at Bubie and Zaidie’s house for visits or sleepovers. It is hard to believe that you began at Learning Jungle in the infant room (as the only infant!) and that this only occurred a year and a half ago. There has been such a drastic change in you over this time period, but the fundamentals of your personality have remained – you are still sweet and smiley and charming and loveable and snuggly and funny (we call you Class Clown, given how frequently you like trying to make the rest of us laugh). Please don’t change too much, because those qualities are ones I plan to savour forever.

Love,

Mama

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