Eugenious

You started the day with princess face paint...

...and you ended it with an impressive fat lip. Your mouth bled for two nights afterward, as you slept. And your nose is now bruised. It was some bar fight.

Dear Elena,

You are a tough little chickie. While your latest big injury—your fat lip, bleeding gum, bloody nose, and subsequent bruised nose—did leave you weepy for the rest of that evening, you never needed any pain medication, and your didn’t have any trouble eating the following day. We coached you to tell grown-ups that you’d been in a bar fight, which was more amusing than the I-fell-off-the-bathroom-stool-and-hit-my-face-on-the-sink explanation.

If you knew my Gramma Jo, you may have seen her in glasses like these—they probably would have been black, or maybe red, but she'd have appreciated the panache of the pink ones..

You have a very respectful sense of nighttime and morning. While you do wake us (read: Daddy) up in the middle of the night because you need water or you can’t find Bunny, when it’s nearly morning but still dark, you hole up in your room and talk to your various dolls and stuffed critters. Sometimes you sing, and sometimes you fall back to sleep. Then, when you notice light, you fling open your door and holler enthusiastically, “It’s morning!”

Elena and Grampa Tom with their Stuart Little-sized snowmen

You are currently an interesting and contradictory collection of characteristics and behaviors. Since you were born, you’ve been happy and smiling, and you still are. Life is exciting, and you sing your way through it. And you’re also very much THREE! Three is an age of strong opinions and hardheadedness, at least for children who live in this house. You feel your emotions so strongly, and sometimes you just lash out with your negative ones and they manifest as ear-piercing screaming, fake crying, real crying, hitting. or, excitingly, biting!

In the past couple of months, you’ve started doing some representational drawing, encouraged by your calm and inspirational teacher, Jen, at school. Largely you’ve been drawing people, but I’ve seen some animals too. You can now cut with scissors on a line very well—better than some adults I know, in fact. You often ask me to draw hearts, which you trace with marker, cut out, and decorate with shiny things. You like to paint, and you’ve recently been painting a piggy bank, rocks, and probably the couch cushions.

You counted to 23 the other day, when you were counting stickers on your sticker chart. I was dumbfounded, as I’d never heard you count above 13. Yesterday, you added “eleventeen” after nineteen. I smiled; Sylvan corrected you, because you have to be right if you’re the big sibling.

These last couple of photos attest to your fearless nature. I won’t be at all surprised when you join the IceAxemen at South Eugene High School and tell me that you’re climbing Middle Sister in January. I just hope you don’t mind too much if I foil your plans to kiss that cute sophomore by joining the trip as a chaperone.

Elena, I really appreciate your hugs and kisses. You never fail to be aware of other people’s feelings, and you know when mine are low. You wrap yourself around me like a baby monkey and don’t let go. Thank you.

I love you, Miss Thing.

Love,
Mommy

5/21/12 P.S. I forgot to mention your singing habit, at least more than in passing. Especially when your big brother’s annoying you with loud noises or copying your every word, you have started to sing a happy song to keep yourself smiling. It usually goes something like this: “Princesses like hearts. And fairies like hearts. And unicorns like hearts.” Repeat. It’s difficult for me not to smile when you sing it, so I can only assume that it works for you, too.

"Go, Mommy, go!" Here's you cheering for me at the marathon, mile 8. You look really old in this photo, thin and tall.

Dear Elena,

I glimpsed my future today, and my knees trembled a bit. Daddy and I had a conference with your preschool teacher. I went in without any concerns; unlike some parents, I don’t expect you to learn all your letters or start long division in preschool. I do expect you to become better at sharing, expressing your feelings, and cooperating. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it’s progressing at the moment. You had to be removed from the lunch table today because you were trying to put an orange peel on your friend’s plate. When you were asked to stop, you refused.

We’ve noticed that stubborn streak at home, too. After I removed you from the couch for jumping on it the other day, you smiled sweetly at me and jumped on the couch again. Before you entered preschool, I joked that you were socially ready for Kindergarten: you shared well and played with others. Now, though, you’ve started hitting your friends if they’re in your space.

Elena in Grampa Dick's clothes. That makes this cute little tailored number about 65 years old!

Now, I’m not worried that you’ll keep hitting your friends. But I can see the social butterfly with a silly, stubborn streak causing a ruckus in Kindergarten—and an even bigger ruckus in 7th grade. Ruckus-maker, I’m not ready! I have to prepare.

It’s just that I think of you as easy: a pleasure to be with, easy to please, happy in the morning, with the ability to make everyone laugh. But you are three. Time to test out those parents and teachers, you say, and find out what they’re made of.

• You recognize a couple of letters now: E and S, for Elena and Sylvan. You enjoy playing with the magnetic letters, but you become frustrated if Sylvan tries to spell your name with lowercase letters. They’re not as easy for you to recognize.
• You are counting higher, often to ten with no mistakes.
• You like to say grace before every dinner. That means holding hands and thanking whomever cooked the meal.
• Like your brother, you like to run around naked, and you seem incapable of feeling the chill of a 62-degree house. The other day, I said, “Elena, you’re naked.” You responded, “Yes, but I have hair!”
• Although I don’t remember the context, you said, “It would be funny if you had blinky eyes.”
• You like to sing the ABCs and Hey, Diddle, Diddle before you go to sleep. I sing and you sing along.

I love you, Miss.

Love,
Mommy

Elena being gentle with her new cousin, King George. Or Dominic.

Almost two, waiting in a basket.

On her first birthday, August 15, 2009.

Dearest Elena,

A week ago Sunday, you turned TWO! While I finished up a course in the Wallowas–eating cinnamon rolls baked over a fire while laughing with college students–your Dad gave you the greatest gift anyone can have on her birthday: freedom to choose! When asked where you’d like to have dinner, you said “beach.” So you, Sylvan, and Daddy packed up the van and headed to Florence to build a boat out of sand and eat fish and chips. Yumm, good choice. You even made it back to have brownie-flavored mini-cupcakes for dessert with Avi and Noah.

Does this really need a caption?

Elena on an E, Spokane, July 2010.

Every day, you are different from the day before. Really. What you do right now:

• Imitate any word you hear, often with amusing results. Somehow, when you say Sylvan, it sounds like “doh-doh.” Likewise, when you say turtle, it sounds like “doh-doh.” The other day, when I asked you to say “Sylvan’s turtles,” you knew how silly it sounded: “doh-doh-doh-doh.” You couldn’t stop laughing.
• Speak, knowing that you will be understood by someone. Just after I said to a friend, “My older child translate for my younger? No. I understand her, too,” your vocabulary exploded in early July. I often don’t understand you, but between Sylvan’s knack and your patience, you’re bringing me up to speed.
• Play with play-dough. You like to cut it up, put it in containers, and smush different colors together.
• Climb anything.
• Play independently, often with messy results: sleeping bag piles, drawers full of rubber band/twist-tie nests, book explosions. But, hey, you’re taking care of yourself. I think that, sometime this year, you and your brother can take on breakfast by yourself. You have the will, and he has the skills. You’ll be a cereal-eating team!
• Say “Yes, please” (“Yes, pease”) when asked if you’d like milk or blueberries or cashews. So polite I just want to squeeze you.
• Love dolls, and you’re learning to count them; one is for one, two is for anything more than one. This morning, though, you used the word three–for only two dolls, but you know it’s related to those counting words.
• Joke and laugh. You say “Noooo” with that head tilt that means “I’m not sure if I mean no or not.”
• Have very definite opinions about things. I’m sorry if you sometimes get squashed in the melee of family life. You can commiserate with Aunt Jenny, another second baby.

A rare moment of sadness. Cute, huh?

Two years ago, one of the best things in my life happened to me. You are a burst of positive energy, and we can use that in a family prone to the grumpies. You are full of joy and wonder and independence. I want so badly to be a great Mommy for you.

You told me you loved me on the phone the other night, when I was in eastern Washington. I love you, too, Elena.

Love,
Mommy

Dear Elena,

As the rain pelts the windows and the clouds blow in across Spencer Butte, I look back over photos of you since you turned one – a quarter of year ago – photos that include playing in a fountain and lots of short sleeves. I think about how much slides by, how many new things you do that go undocumented. I want to apologize, to say I’m sorry that I know exactly when Sylvan pointed to a bird and said “bhut” (or I’d know if I could find that notebook…), but I have to stop regretting something I can’t change. You’re a second child, baby girl, and while that means I might not write down when your top right bicuspid comes in, your cheerful presence and cuddly ways have earned you a position of high regard in this family. In other words, we just want to squish you, you’re so cute.

You love to help with laundry and are quite accomplished at taking it off the drying racks and putting it in the laundry basket.

Taking after Mommy (who drank Bud as a toddler. She has better taste now.)

And I haven’t totally been sitting down on the job:

By mid-September, when you were 13 months old, your fun tricks included shaking the water off, which looked like an out-of-control head shake, and saying “fff-fff-fff” for dog (woof?). You enjoyed pursing your lips into a duckbill and breathing loudly through your nose. When the windows were all rolled down and the sunroof was open in the car, and the wind whipped across your face, you squealed with delight. (This was something Sylvan despised when he was almost two. It was a HOT summer of riding around with the windows up.)

Eugene Celebration Parade

When you reached 14 months, you started nodding to say yes. You still use the “milk” sign when you want something, although you started to use the “more” sign at around 14 months, too. Sometimes these two are interchangeable for you when it’s food you want. You also use your version of the American sign language sign for “bird” whenever you see or we talk about a songbird. For your sign, you curl and straighten your index finger. We think you also started verbally saying “up” about a month ago, although you use your arms to indicate that you’d like to be picked up more often than you use your mouth. You might also say “out.” And you definitely say “mamamamama” when you see me and would like to be with me.

For a while a couple of months ago, you calmed yourself to sleep with a singing “mmmmmmm.” I haven’t heard you do that in a while.

Sometime in your thirteenth or fourteenth month, you started to understand nearly everything we said that had to do with objects. I could easily give you a two-part instruction, like “Please go into the laundry room and get your shoes” and expect that you’d come back and sit in front of me, shoes in hand, ready to put on your shoes and go outside. And, while you do have a sincere appreciation of the shoe (we regularly find shoes scattered through the house, the remains of your day), you sit right down when you walk inside, ready to have us help you remove your shoes. Good little egg. You also eagerly sit when food or drink is forthcoming.

Fearless

Fearless.

You are a better listener than the rest of us. Daddy, Sylvan, and I interrupt, get frustrated, and don’t hear each other as we selectively listen. You listen and you act. You may not reliably say many words, but you understand not only a great number of words but also the energy of what’s happening around you.

You have absolutely charmed your teachers at school. All of them would like to take you home with them. When I picked you up on Wednesday, they said you’d rocked a baby doll to sleep when a teacher was rocking one of your peers to sleep. You stood right next to her and twisted your torso back and forth, soothing your doll.

You rock Annie at home.

Your fifth tooth also came in on Wednesday. I can’t believe you can eat all those almonds we’ve been feeding you with only five teeth (I’m kidding; walnuts are so much softer.)

At fifteen months, you have become a much better follower of rules. Because I must say “no touch” so often, you have now started to wait to touch something new. You’ll look at the [plant, baby, cat, trash on the street], then look at me, then sidle closer, waiting for my approval.

Within the last month, you’ve started pointing at your hair, ears, mouth, nose, toes, eyes, and belly button (your personal favorite) if we ask you where they are.

Helpful.

While I keep thinking you don’t have many words, you do show your appreciation for all vehicles with engines by telling us “duh,” a variation of “truck” I think, and any animal other than a songbird elicits a “daw,” for “dog.” (Yes, readers, those sound almost exactly the same.) Just yesterday, you created a sign for “water” that looks a lot like the ASL for “eat,” probably because your hand isn’t ready to hold only your first three fingers up yet.

That said, you seem pretty dexterous. You are a happy tinkerer, wandering around, putting objects in cups, piling them on top of each other, pushing buttons, seeing how things work. You also love to draw – also just to carry pencils around, to my paranoid dismay.

Happy 15 months, munchkin.

Love,
Mommy

Anyone who's ever met Tephra will understand how unbelievable this is.

How else could I carry two pumpkins and a toddler?