Dear Duck,

As quickly as you are growing up, some things never change. Daddy is upstairs right now, battling out the sleep routine. Daddy is in charge of your bedtime now, and honestly, I should probably give him miles of leeway as a trade off. Like, should he want to take that Habitat for Humanity trip to Sri Lanka, I’d be best to buy him a bush knife and wish him well. Of course while he was building the house he’d also negotiate a peace accord with the Tamil Tigers, save the local government millions, and convince the school system to install Macs. Sometimes I wish you would grow up so that I’m not alone in my “What?!” every time your Daddy walks in the door exclaiming, “So I have an interesting idea…”.

This is the month of “NEW”! You insist that the “yucky juice” be thrown out, and you must have “NEW JUICE!” Every day you beg to play a “NEW game Mommy!” However, things that should be new, you would prefer stay old. I bought you a NEW toothbrush, thinking it would thrill you to no end. My mistake. I apparently bought you a toothbrush identical to Bryce’s. Every night you insist that we are brushing your teeth with a borrowed toothbrush, and while you will gladly drink bathwater filled with e.coli, you couldn’t possibly use Bryce’s toothbrush. It’s been weeks of begging for the old Dora toothbrush, as you point to the trashcan, and lament its passing. To be fair, I wouldn’t want to borrow Brycey Blue Eyes’ toothbrush either, but I don’t think of play-dough as a hearty snack. I find your Elmo toothbrush protest slightly ironic.

Which brings up your newfound memory. Your constant recollection of events requires me to catalog every second of our day, because in two weeks you might regurgitate the minutia of that time you dropped an ice cube and it slid across the floor. Wasn’t that a wild ice cube party we had? You’ll stand at the freezer, repeating the tale, expecting me to translate and repeat it back to you so that you can exclaim a triumphant “yeah!” Not our favorite Sara-ism, but you repeat every single sentence incessantly, until we repeat it back to you. Once, twice, 500 times. You do not stop Sam I Am.

The same goes for injuries; daily I get a run down of every real and imaginary boo boo you’ve ever had. You carefully point to just about every spot on your body, explain the injury (sprain, bruise, what have you), how you got it, and if it required a ban ban. Grandma Sally thought it would be funny to teach you how to MAKE UP boo boo stories. Your wide eyes only got wider as you told the tale of breaking your arm and going to the doctor to get shots. Grandma Sally has some ESPLAININ’ to do…

But there is a flip-side to this memory thing. With every trip to the Children’s Museum you now tell me in advance which animal you will ride on the carousel, and whether it will go up or down or stay stationary. Remember that time we rode the tiger and it didn’t go up OR down? What were we THINKING? But the greatest of these things is the night you sat in my lap in the rocking chair in your freshly decorated bedroom, put your hand in the air, twisted your tiny wrist in a circle, and stated, “Daddy make all this for Sara.” I have no idea how you put that together, but yes. Daddy painted the yellow room pink (and turned Kelly’s room yellow), and then painted your shiny white woodwork a very slight shade of off-white…just to make his girls happy (OK, maybe just me, but I was pregnant at the time and can’t be held responsible for my hormonal rants that your room MUST be Romance Pink). And in case he has any doubts as you bound into your NEW bed every night, you are…just so very happy.

You can sing many songs all the way through. While I was washing your hair one night I taught you, “I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair”, and with repetitive glee you kept requesting, “SOME MO’!”…trust me, no one has ever asked me to sing more of anything. Someday far too soon you’ll learn that I’m no Whitney Houston, and you’ll surely request that I shut my piehole. The good news is that it is Christmas Carol season, and your Daddy LOVES, and I mean LOVES Christmas music. I came home tonight to him serenading Kelly with Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and I reminded again of how much I love listening to him sing. When you’re 15, you’ll be embarrassed at his “Countdown to the Day the Radio Stations Start Playing Christmas Music”. When you’re 30, you’ll wonder how you ever got so lucky to get a Dad like him.

You are now holding marathon tea parties, of which I am the perpetual guest of honor. I’ve convinced you to start inviting other guests, such as your dolls Noodle, IshPooh, Snuggle Beans, and your lion, Tippy Toes. Less successful parties include the time you invited your samurai sword. He was a ridiculous guest, because everyone knows Ninjas don’t drink tea. And of course, we’ll never forget the dreadful party when you invited Elmo, and then tossed him out on his head for bad table manners. Again, slightly ironic coming from a girl who covered her head in corn chowder the night we had NEW company. The primary food served at a Sara tea party involves imaginary syrup and honey. Drizzled on everything. Some days you drizzle it on fish, and I struggle to swallow my imaginary food, just thinking of the taste. But as the guest of honor, I smile as I eat my syrup covered honey, glad to be included in your endless festivities.

You suddenly understand analogies. The flashlight you point to the ceiling is the moon. The curly straw is an eye. Everything you put end to end is a train. Maybe it comes from me pointing to the clouds every single day and asking you what you see. While I swear on your genius, your only answer to date has been “mine”.

And finally, this month, we’ve started laughing together at the same joke. We’ve done that before, but now it’s almost daily. When you make me laugh, you make note of it, and repeat whatever it was, usually out of context. We might be taking OJ out of the refrigerator case at Wal-Mart, and suddenly you’ll yell, “NO NEENO, NO! COME BACK NEENO! LISTEN TO YOUR DADDY!”…and then you’ll give me your sly little smile and wait for me to explode in laughter. I always do. One of these days you’ll wake up and say Nemo instead of Neeno. A little piece of my heart will break that day. The other day you put puppets on your feet and did a show for Kelly. She laughed, I laughed, you laughed, and the three of just rolled on the carpet in fits of giggles. Now that’s a NEW memory I hope to never forget.

 

Teapot Wishes and Syrupy Dreams,

Mommy