I had my back to the living room while changing Callista’s diaper tonight and was pulled to turn around by the sound of Eleanor’s frantic distress.
As soon as I see her, I can’t help it – I doubled over in giggles, the exact kind that make my sensitive girl cry. I knew it would happen the second my fit started, but I couldn’t help it.
Eleanor managed to squeeze her (albeit small for her age) feet into Cabbage Patch Kid shoes. Not her entire foot, of course, but they were on well enough that she was trying, and failing, to stand on her toes in them. My giggles sent her to the floor in tears, and I couldn’t help it – I laughed harder seeing her little legs flailing with these ridiculously tiny shoes perched on her feet.
I won’t be winning mother of the year anytime soon.
(This all went down in a matter of 30 seconds, and I was able to stop giggling and scoop her up before the tears really turned on.)
I calmed her down but couldn’t convince her to remove the shoes (my attempts brought on more tears), so I decided to embrace her creativity and praise her gorgeous new kicks.
Eleanor insisted on getting down from the chair we sat in together, and I held her hand while she took a few practice steps. After precariously walking 5 feet, she insisted, “Eleanor do it!” while pushing me away.
OK, kid. Go for it. And she did.
I’m quite certain Eleanor would make me look like an oaf if we were to walk side by side in stilettos. I’d be embarrassed, but I’m too busy being proud. I think.
Tobias, Eleanor and Callista,
You’ve been two nearly a month now, and I think the fact that I’m writing this letter so late is a fair illustration of life around our home.
You’re busy people. You keep us all on our toes, always trying to stay a step or two ahead of you but more often scrambling to catch up.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I can’t watch you enough. I love the time we spend together, me interacting with you, but since I’m a thinker, dreamer and observer by nature, watching you brings me peace like nothing else. You are wondrous. You pick up on so much, and one of my favorite things is to be surprised by a new word/game/song/dance move.
The way you sleep
Toby, I haven’t yet figured out your sleep “thing,” but the way your hand smells like baby spit after you’ve slept tells me you must sleep with it by your mouth and that you drool. You don’t comfort-suck on anything, but you have a beloved corner of “Bee,” (the name you donned and we all – even your sisters – use for your blanket), and while your pleas to help find that “cohr-nuh” can sometimes be maddening (Kid, there are only four!), they’re mostly endearing. In truth, it’s really the grin and “coh-oh-nuh-uh” that comes out in a relieved chuckle after a desperate search.
You like to be covered with your blanket, but you kick it off or roll away pretty much instantly. I think it’s more of an act of solidarity with your roommates, but who am I to argue?
You probably don’t like a blanket covering you so you can roam freely about your bed. You have a pillow, but like your sisters, you rarely use it. It’s a good thing your crib encloses you because you sleep in motion. You are in a different spot each time I check on you, and you often have your feet or legs propped up on the rails.
You woke mostly every night until you were 19 months old. You instantly signed to nurse when you woke, and despite the negative nancies who insisted you needed that bad habit broken for you, you grew past it on your own, just like we hoped knew you would. You had too much growing to go all night without a snack, and I don’t regret a night of providing that for you.
You’re usually the first to wake, and I hope think you’re starting to make a turn. The number of days you wake as a grump are becoming outnumbered by days you wake happily chattering to yourself, then your sisters as they wake, then finally to calling, “MAma! MAAAAma!” for me when I’m taking too long getting myself ready for the day. You’re quick to greet me with a big kiss and hug before you are off and running with Bee in tow.
Eleanor, your comfort tools for sleep are no secret, and they haven’t changed. You suck the first two fingers of your left hand and either pull at or hold onto your jersey-knit crib sheet. It’s loose enough for you to get a bit in your hand, and you’ve had nothing but jersey sheets on your bed since we noticed the attachment.
You insist on being covered each night. There are some nights that you’ll be in the same position we left you, and I stare at the screen to make sure you’re breathing. Other nights, you toss out every item in your bed and happily sleep in the wide-open space with nothing but your mattress and beloved fitted sheet. You’re always shocked in the morning to see an empty crib and hold your hands up in question, saying, “Oh, no! What happened!?”
You seem to have occasional nightmares, but we’ve not yet been able to confirm that a dream has scared you. All we know is you sometimes wake in sobs and say, “Eleanor sad,” when we scoop you up from your bed. Cuddles and snacks with Daddy or Mommy usually set you up for a quick request to go back to bed.
One of the reasons you and Toby sleep with Callista separating you is because you two wake easily. I think you’d wake each other more (if one of you wakes, the other usually follows – something that hasn’t changed since your NICU days) if your sound-sleeping sister weren’t there to buffer your traveling noises. You’re both restless sleepers, and, like Toby, you seem to sleep all over your bed most nights.
You start chattering the second you wake, and you often start with singing your ABCs or counting (you can basically count to 13 now), and the second I walk in your room, you always have some cheerful greeting. Most often, you say, “Good morning! How you doing!?” And then you’re ready to run.
Callista, you sleep like your daddy. Once you’re out, you’re out. Two crying bookeneds can’t even wake you, which is why you’ve happily slept through the night (99 percent of the time) since you were 5 months old.
You are quite particular about your sleep setup. You want your pillow, a crocheted blanket covering you, your satin-trimmed blanket cuddled in one arm, your stuffed dog in the other, your sooth-n-glow seahorse by your head. You suck your right thumb and rub at the silky edges of your blanket. I have to sometimes squint at the screen to see if I can see a glint of eyes because you rub your blanket edge the same asleep as you do awake.
You wake sometimes in the night and quietly rearrange what I call your nest. You aren’t particular about what goes where during these wakings, but you do pile all your bed things into one spot and then burrow in and fall asleep in a mess of comfort. It’s something that would give new-mother me a heart attack and send me flying in your room, but as long as I can see something twitch, I’ve learned to leave you be.
If you wake first in the morning or during the night, you’re sick. That’s the kind of sleeping champ you are, sweet girl. High fives to you for accomplishing something so many adults (me included) wish they could do.
I’ve been writing a draft of this birthday entry for almost a month, and rater than putting it back on ice until I have time to write more, I’ll write installments. Also? It’s getting long. No one who knows me in person should be surprised by my verbosity. You’re welcome, readers. Being an overtalker is the reason I started this blog in the first place.
To be continued …
It’s nearly impossible to organize any thoughts lately. I’m almost to the point where blogging will require an outline before I even think about attempting a rough draft.
For a person who writes and edits on the fly – I’ll pause to allow all the writers and English-teacher types to be properly horrified – it’s a total turnoff. I don’t want to think much about what I write. I want to touch the keyboard, get it out and move on.
Lamenting about writers’ clusterfuckery is boring, so onward and … upward? Crossward? Another-subject-entirely-ward?
Whatever.
You’d think with the amount of reading I’ve been doing lately, my brain would be in better shape, but it isn’t. Le sigh.
Since June, I’ve read 19 books (check out my Goodreads account for quick reviews and my read and to-read list). Seeing as I’d only read 1 book in the 18 months prior, I’d say that’s a vast improvement. Next year, I’m going for 50. I read to escape into pages (or tracks, in the case of occasional audiobooks), but I also read to have something fill my thoughts other than my running to-do list.
Rob doesn’t understand my love of reading, though he does appreciate and support it. Watching my trio, I can see great potential for them sharing my book love. All three are known to sit and get lost in the pages of their books, and just yesterday I saw Eleanor stand and hug the book we had just read together.
I hug my favorite books, too, Eleanor. Cheers, little lady!
(Pretend there’s a brilliant segue here.)
I often intend to do weekly wrapups of tweets, photos and videos I’ve shared in social media during the week, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I suspect it never will. The road to hell is paved in good intentions, my friends.
You can follow my daily antics on Twitter and Instagram and my occasional overshares of the triplet variety on YouTube.
I have a new video today, and just because you’re awesome (and totally not because I was unfortunately too close to the microphone), this video showcases my exceptional singing talents.
You’re welcome.
(Oh, it also shows the requested evidence of how Eleanor, Toby and Callista say each others’ names, including the brand-spanking-new “Cass-ah” from Toby, instead of just “Sissy.”)
Finally, all three of my loves say all three of their names.
Eleanor says, “Eh-nee” (which started as “Eh,” and changed to “Eh-nah” before this latest trend of adding an “ee” sound to a lot of her words), “Toby,” and “Key-sah” (or “Sissy”).
Callista says (and always has), “Cass-ah,” “Eh-nah” and “Toby.”
Toby was my holdout. Just recently he stopped giggling at me when I prompted him to say his own name. He now calls himself, “Tee-bee.” His sisters were both “Sissy,” until a couple weeks ago when he started calling “Eh-nah,” but until today, Callista was still “Sissy.” this morning, he finally said, “Cah-sah.”
The evolution of their names has been fun so far, and while I’m a little sad to hear most of the initial uses disappear, I’m mostly proud. I’m also pretty excited to hear what other nicknames they develop for themselves and each other – both the ones they use freely and those they (try to) keep secret between their exclusive trio.
Browsing my library’s used book sale, I heard a mom digging through her bag for change – her son wanted 3 books. He looked about 10 or 11 years old, and when she gave up her search and said she must have given all her change to a homeless person, she asked if he <em>really</em> wanted the books. “YES!” He was emphatic.
They checked out at the station next to me, and when the mother tried to pay for the books with her credit card, the librarian sadly said they don’t charge less than mothering
I dug in my pocket and found the change I stashed there before heading to the library, just in case I found something good on the sale shelves. I’d heard that the books came to $1 (for 3 books! How awesome is the public library system?), so I said, “Excuse me,” and held out four quarters.
After a few exchanges, “Are you sure?” and “Thank you so much! I just gave all my change away!” I finished my own stack and told the librarian I, too, had a book to buy. So handed her my $5 bill, which she took and turned for the cash box before spinning around.
“You know what? Don’t worry about it. You can have it for free.”
The world is a pretty awesome place sometimes.
