Dear Plucky Ducky,

I want to lie and tell tales of the wondrous month of 30. What a load o’ crap it would be. One day, almost a decade ago, I decided to get a fresh start in life; I put my belongings in storage, and convinced your Aunt Jenny to help me move to Nantucket. After a long night of driving we created a new word: BUNCHY. It’s a word to describe a little bit hungry, a little bit tired, a little bit bored, and a whole lot of wishing you had reached where you were going. It describes being “all bunched up inside”…the essence of being bunchy. No other word can so succinctly encompass the last month of our lives.

It’s really no fault of yours, even if the daily tug of war one holds with a 2 year old is nearly killing us. We never negotiate a peace accord until bathtime, and the emotional wear and tear of your non-stop whining has made me and Daddy want to take your toddler scissors and cut off our ears. We go to bed at 8 pm, just to blanket ourselves in a few moments of silence. The tally of the last 4 weeks at our house includes: 2 flus, 3 colds, 3 minor outpatient surgeries, croup, an ear infection, and Kelly’s decision to join the “hell no we won’t sleep” club. And while I welcome the chance to cuddle and comfort you, you have now been glued to my body for 30 straight days. Crying every second of that time. Always, the crying. Forever crying. Oh God….so much crying. If it were entirely out of illness, I’d just give you a pass. But my dear, you cry because we won’t let you watch Mickey 100x a day. 80x just isn’t enough. You cry because you asked for Nemo snacks and really wanted Princess snacks, and I didn’t read your mind, so THE TRAVESTY! Leaving me completely exasperated saying things like, “GOD SARA THEY ARE THE SAME SNACK! THEY ARE FRUIT SNACKS WITH CARTOON CHARACTERS…SAME SNACK!” And then all of the sudden, my bright child turns mute and you give me a look like, “What Mommy? ONE IS NEMO. ONE IS PRINCESS. DIFFERENT SNACKS ALTOGETHER.”

Most months we experience amazing strides in growth and development. This month, we actually lost time. I think you have forgotten a few words. The flip side is that you still call Pancakes, “Pank-panks”, and a little bit of me is reborn every time you say it. Some mornings you want waffles, and I ask, “Are you sure you don’t want pancakes?”, just to get you to say it.

With a trillion hours spent indoors in a Robitussin haze, we did learn to play “Candy-Wand”. I logged some serious Candy Land hours as a child, and kid…I have yet to beat you. I’m not letting you win. You actually beat me every single game. Embarrassing considering you can’t really play. We put down the pieces, you draw cards and announce your move, “I hab 2 pur-pur”, and then I move you two purples. Beginner’s luck. Always the rookie, I wanted to get you excited about board games, so I introduced the game along with a bag of candy. Get it? Candy Land? Now you will only play if there is actual candy involved. Duh Mom. Who cares about virtual candy? I’m supposed to EAT the board and these plastic gingerbread men? Where are my M&Ms?

Despite 3 stitches and the flu, you desperately need an outlet for your crazed monkey energy, so you have turned to your Princess Hopscotch. Santa brought you an indoor foam hopscotch board that you have disassembled and you wildly jump from tile to tile. All the while yelling, “HOP! HOP! HOP!” I tried to kick it up a notch, and while I jump, I call out the Princess name, or the color of the tile. Going with the flavor of this month, you just give me this look like, “Does everything with you have to be this hard Mom? Can you just hop?” Exasperated with me one day as I asked, “And what SHAPE are the tiles Sara?”, you replied, “They are a SHAPE Mommy. A SHAPE.”

We argue through breakfast, lunch and dinner. We argue every time we need to get out the door. We argue about which coat you want to wear. Why won’t I let you wear my hosiery under your jeans? Why can’t Kelly play with the tiny beads from your necklace kit? Why can’t you be left alone with a jumbo pack of dry erase markers? Where the hell did all your play dough go? You keep asking if it got old, like your pumpkin. Well that, and after you smeared it into the carpet, I’d had about enough play dough fun for one year. And just when I think I can’t take anymore, you hug me and ask things like, “Why is GG so sick?” Questions I cannot answer with my usual, “Stop eating your hair” responses. And I realize there are more important things than why surgical gloves aren’t the same as winter gloves, and I give up…you can wear them to the beauty salon.

But, at the end of every day, there is peace. We sing, “I’m gonna wash that man right outa my hair” in the tub. Daddy puts you in your tiny girl pj’s (Aunt Jenny calls you the toy poodle who thinks she is a doberman..and yes, you’ve also lost weight this month) and you come into Kelly’s room to give us hugs and kisses. It’s the best moment of my day, when you lay your wet little head on my shoulder and grab my arm. And I think, OK, just one more day. But every night, Daddy calls, “Come on Sara, let’s mark off the day!”, which means you get to hold a precious marker just one last time, and draw an “X” through the day on your Bryce calendar. The look on your face is one of, “I want to stay, but it’s a marker! I MUST TOUCH THE MARKER!”, and off you toddle. That’s the look you’ll give me when you head off to college. When your career takes you to Sacramento. When you want to be an exchange student in China. The world is calling you, and you must touch it. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? I can’t hold you forever, right? I mean, unless you want me to. Because if you need me to, I can. Just crawl right up here on Mommy’s lap, little Duck. And please Sara, stop eating your hair.

Sometimes ’round these parts we just call a day what it is,

Surviving Sara,

Mommy