September 6, 2017

Dear Baby,

While today marks a weird day for your sister as she goes to school for the first time, it also marks a really exciting day for you and I as we begin a year of actually spending time together.

People say a lot of things about a second child but one of the most profound things I can say is that I really never have the time and space to know you. Every minute that we are all together, our attention is taken by your sister. It’s hard to focus on the details of your cry when your sister is running towards traffic on a busy street. Hard to study your face when we are trying to prevent her from gouging your eyeballs out (lovingly, I think.)

For better and worse, she takes a lot of our attention so with her leaving us for 4 mornings per week we actually will be spending chunks of quality alone together for the first time ever. This makes the transition I am experiencing with her a lot easier because I am really excited to get to know you better.

I want to be able to tell exactly what you are thinking by a small sample of your cry. I want to immerse myself in getting to know the details of you and spending the time doing silly baby things like playing with a rattle or tummy time (the long forgotten tummy time… whoops). I want to go for walks together and inhale your little baby smell. I want to be so connected that you are instantly calmed in my arms. I want to repeat the same wonderful classes and experiences I had with your sister because you are so fucking sweet and you and I deserve the chance to really hang out and be together.

So today also marks the real start of our journey together as we spend the year nurturing you and fostering your growth and personality. I can’t wait to see what unfolds…

xo

Mom

September 6, 2017

Dear Baby,

It is with a certain amount of sadness, happiness, anxiety and excitement that I begin the day today knowing that it is the first day of school. when I signed the papers and began the process of school thoughts, I never really imagined myself on this day and now here I am, packing your little backpack and about to lose my fucking shit.

With the newest addition to our family, things haven’t been the same but we have, nonetheless, managed to stay close and do things together. We have had time to spend and our day to day has been somewhat intact with the most notable difference of my boobs being out for a lot of it. But as of today, you begin a very small step towards your independence and not to “sunrise/ sunset” this shit but is this the little girl I carried????

Beginning today, for 3 mornings per week I will be walking you to school and then leaving you there for 3 hours in the care of people who, as of today, are total fucking strangers. My only saving grace here is that I will be in your class helping out one day per week – which happens to be today.

Truly, in my sadness and feelings of loneliness and missing you, I am so proud to be the mom of a kid who I am sending to class knowing that you will thrive and love it. You are so independent already and your love of others and love of learning is exactly why I wanted all of this for you in the first place. I feel excited to see what you will come home with knowing and what new cool things we can learn together.

I’m excited to meet your new friends and see your class and I’m excited for you to be excited and happy, which I hope you are.

But FUCK if I’m not going to lose my mind that first time I actually walk away and you stay in the class.

Yes, it’s hard to trust other people with your most precious of things. How can they do as good a job with you as I can???

Yes, I am scared about the things that could happen without me being there to know or help. What if you fall? I can’t even bring myself to go there but what if it’s worse than a fall? Will you be ok without my safe arms?

What if you are secretly scared or unhappy and unable to articulate that?

What if someone is mean to you – I would pinch a kid for you.

What if you love it so much that you never turn back around to say bye when I leave the room?

What if you form a bond with a teacher or other parent that isn’t me?

What if your being gone leaves this huge void in my day and I can’t fill it because you are my whole fucking world?

What if I miss something? A first new joke or new skill?

What if this is the marked beginning of not being needed or even wanted?

If it was even remotely normal to just keep you with me forever, this might be the moment that I would do it. I couldn’t sleep all night because I kept thinking about ways to not send you to school, freeze time and just enjoy being together playing your little matching puzzle game on the floor happily for the rest of our lives.

Please don’t outgrow that yet. Please don’t outgrow me yet.

And please don’t outgrow your new pants because your dad will literally kill me if I place one more order to Old Navy or Gap or Zara this month.

Away we go….

xo

Mom

September 1, 2017

Dear Babies,

Another summer has come and gone and while this one felt exceptionally weird given the weather and newborn baby aspects, it was a summer nonetheless that is now over. We finished up the season with 2 weeks in Muskoka together and learned some valuable lessons about our new life with 2 babies. Will we ever travel again? Of course, but this time we will be armed with some knowledge that perhaps we should have had before such as…

1. Someone will get a cold. This time it was toddler baby who came down with a common cold that somehow did not get spread amongst us in spite of best efforts. Also good to know that a thermometer makes for an excellent 10 minute distraction game called “put the thermometer in your armpit.” You were wholeheartedly delighted.
2. Bring the world. Our first time away earlier this summer we only brought you tokens from your room. We packed one stuffed animal, one sound machine and figured they would represent the other items you usually have. HA. We learned the lesson that when we forget to pack your Dracula stuffed animal, it will be all you want and need to sleep. This time around we devoted an entire bag to your 7 stuffed animals, 3 sound machine/ light things and brought 25 of your favourite books of which you read about 2.5 and asked for the random ones you haven’t read in about 6 months that we left at home.
3. Don’t bring the world. Confusing? Above I mentioned bringing as much as possible and then I say the opposite? Weird. Well, in this instance I mean clothing. I may not have brought you the book I thought you had long forgotten but I sure packed dresses you have never worn and would have zero use for in cottage country because… you never know… I seriously packed more than one dress for a newborn baby to wear. WTF is wrong with me?
4. But in an effort to fully confuse you, BRING THE WORLD because you never know when out of nowhere summer will cease to exist and you will be in full fall mode with not enough warm weather clothing (but an abundance of dresses).
5. Expect that if the resort you are staying at basically has nothing to do but play in the water, this will be the time that your kid no longer wants to be in the water. Not only will they not be excited by it, they will downright scream bloody murder if you pop their toe in it. Because, of course.
6. Finally, expect to never sleep, and yet still “wake up” in the am feeling excited to begin the day because watching you kids as the blossom and grow amid a backdrop akin to paradise is just fucking beyond and I would trade 10 nights of sleep, 100 tantrums and 200 poo explosions to do it all again.

xo

Mom