twenty six months
Dear Julianna,
As usual, the last month has gone by in a whirl. You’re twenty six months old today and you’re very much a two year old. Your vocabulary = amazing; your behavior = not so much. Sometimes you are an angel. Just this afternoon I told Daddy that the best part of TWO by far has been the hugs. You give them willingly and frequently WHEN YOU WANT TO. Sometimes you are just a typical stubborn, pain-in-the-butt two year old.
We’ve done a lot this month. We had a birthday party for your OLD father. You got to ride a Ferris wheel for the first time. We took another sick trip to the doctor (but I’m not complaining as long as we can make it another three or four months without going back). We spent countless hours outside enjoying the pretty weather and May flowers.
We spent this afternoon at Pilot Mountain hiking and wandering the trails. It was so much fun to experience that with you. It was a beautiful day and you rode so easily in the backpack until you decided you were ready to get down. You asked and when we answered “no” you kept devising new plans to see if we’d let you get down. You told us you wanted to climb on “wots of wocks,” you told us you wanted raisins, and when we heard a cow moo in a far off pasture you told us you wanted the cow to “come over here.” When we did let you walk on a flatter part of the trail you simply amazed us. You probably walked for 30 or 45 minutes without whining or complaining and you only stopped to pick up a half dozen rocks instead of every rock on the mountain as I’d anticipated. You called it “our mountain” several times and I silently vowed to take you back soon.
We’ve been asking you if you want a baby brother or a baby sister and you consistently reply “no.” Until one morning as I was putting away clothes you pushed your baby doll stroller into the bedroom and declared the doll your “new baby sister.” Ten minutes later you were telling me to kiss it, that it was your baby brother. You just might be mulling over that one for a while.
It’s so weird to look at you and think of how small you once were. I can hardly remember it, but at the same time I’ll never forget it. I looked at your long legs hanging out of the backpack today and I marveled yet again at how tall you are. When I slept in your room a couple of nights when you were sick this month, you just about kicked me out of the bed, literally. But then the next night or the next few naps times you’d sweetly say, “Mommy, sleep right here” and pat your pillow.
Maybe if I’d kept sleeping with you, you wouldn’t have started taking all your clothes off at naptime. Hmmmm.
You finish up your last day of preschool this week. Your teacher sent home a small photo album with pictures of you throughout the school year and I looked at it at a stoplight in the car on the way home on Thursday and immediately got tears in my eyes. Not only are you scarfing down food in almost every single picture (that’s my girl) but you just look so happy. There’s one picture of you sitting there are the snack table. Your plate’s empty and every other plate on the table is full of crackers and you’re bear-hugging the little girl sitting next to you with the most adorable smile on your face like GIVE ME YOUR CRACKERS OR YOU WON’T GET HURT.
I will treasure this photo album forever because it shows how quickly you grow up and change just in one little school year. The first picture is from the first week of school where you carried Elmo to and from school with you every day. The one at the end of you obviously saying “cheese” while spinning on the sit-and-spin is by far my favorite though.
Julianna, I adore you. I don’t think I could ever love a little girl more. I’m so glad to have you in my life. And I’m so glad you take out the recycling for me. :) Thanks, Kiddo. I know. I know. You’re not a kiddo. You’re Julianna Tucker V. Thanks for the reminder.
I love you.
Love,
Mama
