Eugenious

Dear Sylvan,

You’re three! Here are some photos from your four Septembers:

Sylvan at twelve days old

Sylvan at his first birthday party. Mommy made three carrot sheetcakes (enough to feed approximately 823 people)

Sylvan at his second birthday party. Mommy made really yummy cream cheese centered chocolate cupcakes. We only had about two dozen left over.

Sylvan on his third birthday (thanks for the awesome crown, Aunt Stephanie!). For his kid birthday party, Mommy bought Market of Choice cupcakes. For this adult celebration in the park (Gramma Mia, Daddy, and Mommy), Gramma bought Sweet Life cake. Good choice.

When you were born, I fell even more deeply in love with your Dad, who was obviously created to parent — and to write and be married to a woman who occasionally (okay, often) needs her self-esteem fires stoked. After your birth, your Dad arose with you throughout the night, changing your diaper, swaddling you, shushing you, and handing you to me to feed you. He never lost his patience with your, let’s face it, incessant crying. Your crying reduced me to tears many times. I felt like I couldn’t help you, and it made me sad and angry. Problem solver that he is, your exhausted Dad knew he could deal with an eight-pound crying machine. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have decided to share my life with such a competent, uncomplaining, loving father.

Since Elena was born nearly a month ago, I’ve been reaching another level in my love for you. You have been nothing but gentle and sweet when it comes to your little sister. You pet her, kiss her head, talk to her in a little voice and tell her how soft she is, sing her the Tiny Tim turtle song when she cries, and bring her vehicles or stuffed animals, depending on your mood — and hers, probably. Today you told me that “Elena likes diggers, and I like dumpers” as you put a tractor with a front-loader attachment next to her little ear.

There’s no doubt that you’ve recently been acting out against your parents and grandparents, but, honestly, you’ve had more change in your little life in the past month than most people have in years: getting a new baby sister who is physically attached to Mommy for many hours a day and who has the privilege of sleeping in Mommy and Daddy’s bed; moving into yet another transitional home while we await the end of our house renovations (Next week? The week after? Christmas?); visiting our scaredy-cat, being fostered by Chandra and Eric, who was just starting to allow you to touch her when we were in the summer home and who has now only emerged from her closet hiding place to eat and use the litter box; having three grandparents and an auntie visit, which is super-exciting (and helpful!) but also routine-altering.

Anyway, the bottom line is that you’re handling all this superbly. I find myself just looking at you and smiling. You’re still crazy about trains and excited about singing. You still stop in your tracks when you hear a siren: “Where is it?” You still want to go to the library to hear Jeff play his auto-harp. You could play in the dirt for hours with your bulldozers and frontloaders. Thank you for being so flexible and understanding.

Additionally, this month you’ve developed quite an adorable story-telling style that involves putting your flattened hand either up against your face like you’re telling a secret or a few inches off your cheek as if you’re making a serious point. You change your voice, too, giving your words a sotto voce, dramatic flair. (Taking after Daddy, huh? I can’t believe you even allow me to tell you stories after hearing how creative and fascinating Daddy’s are.) I won’t lie: your storytelling style is so silly I sometimes wonder if you’ve had one too many gin and tonics.

Love,
Mommy

Dear Sylvan,Because your dear Mum didn’t write you a letter last month doesn’t mean she hasn’t been thinking about the wonder you are — and the screaming bag of rubber bones you can be when your world goes awry, in your humble opinion. Your past two months have taken you into the realm of little boy rather than toddler. You’re getting too tall for your trousers, you have very real whims and expectations, and you’ve become a pint-sized Pete Seeger with a fascination for musical instruments that exceeds even the appeal of construction vehicles.

The three big events of the last month were: Gramma Mia’s visit, your first stage performance, and moving to another house (which we’re still doing, but which has thus far impacted you by making all of your bedroom furniture disappear and giving you the opportunity to dance in the back of a moving truck).

I’ll come back to these, but just so you don’t think I totally shirked my responsibilities, I did start a letter last month:

Last week, we visited your Grandma Diana and Grandpa Tom in Virginia. Also in attendance at Camp Diana were: Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Chris, along with your cousins Hanna and Sebastian; and Grandma Diana’s brother, Uncle Brian, with his wife and son, Aunt Tammy and cousin Nicholas. That’s two cousins just over 2 1/2, one a few months shy of 2, and one born last August. While the madness lodged itself right between my shoulder blades and my eyes, your Grandma Diana dug it. She encouraged greeting card-making, T-shirt painting, and exploratory hikes in the woods.

It was a treat to observe your interactions with Hanna. You, Hanna, Uncle Christian, and I went over to Ivy Creek mere minutes after we flew into Charlottesville. After attending toddler storytime, complete with touchable turtle shells, a book about creatures that lay eggs (“Spiders,” you said, when the storyteller asked who had laid the cottony mass of eggs in the illustration. It didn’t seem that obvious to me.), and a nature walk, you and Hanna found the lawn, studded with pungent onion grass. You danced, sang, ran after each other, had conversations with each other about benches, and fell to the ground, sometimes on top of each other. Uncle Chris and I didn’t feel compelled to “manage” you at all. You easily worked through problems, especially if we laughed when one of you took the other out.

I told you last Sunday morning that, the next time you saw me, Wednesday night, I’d bring Gramma Mia with me. At lunchtime, though, I managed to escape and see you, and you said, looking behind me, “Where’s Gramma Mia?” I called today from the Dallas airport, and your Daddy tried to get you to talk to me. You said, “NO! I want Gramma Mia.” Ah, well, second fiddle. It’s okay; I know you’ll shun me for all of your teenage years, too.

You now recognize most letters of the alphabet in upper-case, plus some punctuation, the exclamation point.

That’s it for last month’s letter.

As for this past month’s excitement:

Gramma Mia and you were inseparable for a couple of weeks. Despite the fact that, when you were under a year old, she encouraged me to put you in a playpen so I could get things done, she rarely left your side during this visit. You appreciated the attention. You’d climb into bed with her in the morning to talk about your dreams, sing some songs, and eat the trail mix “hidden” in her carry-on. Throughout the day, you and she sang songs, snacked on usually forbidden fruits (Twizzler pieces in the trail mix?), and generally missed each other when you were apart. Thank you, Gramma Mia!

Gramma Mia was very sad to miss your first performance on stage. While she was here, you and I received an invitation to dance with five other Moms and their children, aged 2 weeks to 6 years, in Lane Community College’s annual faculty show. I asked you if you wanted to participate, and you said, “Yeah, I’m gonna dance like an armadillo. And a lion.” Gramma saw your rehearsals, all two of them: you cried “I wanna go home,” with snot and tears running down your face, for one of them; you danced like a lion, complete with roaring, during the other. But she missed your finest performances, unfortunately.

The piece had actual choreography in it, with all of the Moms dancing their own movement phrases along with the choreographer’s phrase with little ones either in arms, partnering (6-year-olds can partner), or doing their own thing (you). Two microphones were set up, one where each Mom answered a few questions about our dance lives and the other where we talked about our kids. The first night, you said, into the mic, “I wanna get down now.” You danced with me, after a fashion, that night, by staying close and bowing under my legs if they ventured off the floor. The second night, you were doing your own thing, rolling around and running. I went to the mic and told everyone that you liked drums tonight; you had really appreciated watching the drummer and electic guitarist jam backstage before the show. You ran over to me because you had something else you wanted to say. “What else do you like, Sylvan?” “Guitars and bananas!” The audience laughed.

While you’ve never been a “joiner,” now you really shy away from any organized activity. You don’t want an adult with some lengths of foamy pool noodles to tell you how you can balance them; you’d rather take those tubes and bang them against the wall to experiment with the sounds they make. Good little inquiring engineer.

At your last parent-teacher conference, your teacher confirmed that your two-year-old classroom has few scheduled, altogether activities or curriculum. What?! Where’s the algebra? You 2-year-olds have the freedom to explore your world independently, making up games and manipulating objects on your own terms. Aside from suggestions, comforting, and some discipline, your teachers don’t interfere. In fact, your father even told me about a kindergarten study that confirmed that 5-year-olds who were pushed into learning to read, rather than engaging in the structured play that was the intention of the first kindergartens, didn’t learn how to control their impulses. There’s VALUE in playing — and in making up and following your own rules and figuring out how to compromise.

I’ll work on encouraging your independence and curiosity rather than fitting you into the classes for which we’re undoubtedly overscheduled.

Love,

Mommy