Dear Kelly,

Today, you are 2.  As in TWO.  As in, you are officially no longer 1, when I could justify calling you “Baby Kelly”, rocking you like an infant, and in all other ways pretending you were 6 months old.  Forget that you can probably name 50 animals, sleep in a twin bed, and are currently sporting a bruised cheek so dark, only a toddler could have wiped out hard enough to get it; and you have a Mommy so accustomed to boo boos that she can’t remember exactly which fall created it.

There is so much Daddy and Sara and I love about you that I can’t seem to get my head around it all.  Everyone loves your voice.  We love it less at 10 pm when you are chatting in full voice like you’re an 80 year old woman at a quilting bee.  Girl, you can lay in that bed for hours, just TALKING and TALKING. You didn’t get my hair, but you got my chatty.  Just like Sara, you talk about “the ban bans” (band aids) and whine that you need your pank panks (pancakes).  But you have your own style too.  I love love love your daily request to wear your “baby soup” (bathing suit).  I love watching you wrap a blanket around your neck as you dash down the hall yelling, “Super BUNNY!”  I worry that your favorite cartoon character is “Too Tall” from Berenstain Bears.  He’s the bully, and as you attempt to headbutt Sara from BEHIND, I realize you might have a bit of bully in you.  I repeat, I wish you would have gotten my hair color instead of a few of the things you did inherit from your…um….bossy Mommy.

The good news is that you are only 10% bully, NO NO NO, I’m not gonna, AHHHH!!!! Terrible Two-like, and 90% giggly, funny, kissy, huggy, cuddly Kelly.  You say thank you to everything but the air molecules around you.  When you run at me with a book, and I grab you and put you on my lap, before I even open the cover, you squeal, “Tank You Mommy!  Tank You!”  Grandma bought you new shoes yesterday, and as she handed them to you, you took each one as if it were a glass slipper.  So deeply you chanted, “OH TANK YOU GANDMA…TANK YOU POR MA TOOS.”  It was then that I realized in 2 years you have been given exactly 3 new pairs of shoes.  More than some, less than others.  Being second in line and third if you count Avery, yours is a life of “previously owned”.

As I look back on the last 24 months, I still find my mind wandering to worry.  Do you get enough attention?  Do you get enough of my focus?  Are you thriving?  Are you where you should be or where you could be?  I try not to compare, but in all honesty, with half the attention Sara got, you seem twice as content.  With 1/4th the money, 1/100th of the “new stuff” Sara had, and only one enrichment class, you are 20x more even in temperament.  I look at you chatting away in full conversations (albeit they must be extraordinarily concrete and focused on the thing right in front of you at that moment), I have to quote Pa Pa Bump and say, “You’re alright Kid.”  Lest anyone think these comments are too tough on the Sara, read any Sara post.  Thick as thieves, my girls and me.  I love ALL their parts, even the ones that drive me to drink.

I wish I could share some deep insight with you about the awesomeness of you, but you see, here’s the thing: you’ve already got it figured out.  The world mirrors back to you your joy.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, falls over themselves to hug you, talk to you, smile at you, compliment you, and otherwise be in your presence.  You don’t need your Mommy to tell you how lovely you are, inside and out.  But you seem to want me, all the time, Mommy Mommy Mommy.  AND YES.  I LOVE THIS PART TOO.

The worlds wants me to share you, but I’m a selfish Mommy.  I want to keep you right here, just for a little while longer.  Surely the big world can wait.  I know you are biting at the bit to take a chomp out of it, but Chick, my hip still holds you.  And as long as I can keep you there, I will.  So maybe you are TWO.  Maybe you are.  But here in my Mommy heart, you are that tiny, quiet baby we brought home, marveling at how you were the littlest baby either Daddy or I had ever held.  We even lied to Grandma about your weight so as not to worry her (sorry Grandma, but we knew you’d bring a scale and goat’s milk to our house if you knew her actual size).  So on your birthday, I want you to know, we love you with all our hearts.  Three crazy, wacky hearts who still wonder what we did to get such an amazing daughter and sister.

Happy Birthday Beautiful Baby Girl,

Mommy

P.S.: The reason this post is “Happy Birthday Ernie” is not because you are so ridiculously in love with Ernie.  You are, but the bloom is off the rose.  You are now very much into Big Bird.  That being said,  you and your new Big Bird are having the same love-hate relationship you are having with Ernie.  Your inability to bond with a lovey rivals only that of your sister, who would turn against Hello Kitty in an instant.  No loyalty, that one.  I’ve been trying to teach you how to say, “Happy Birthday, I’m TWO!” for weeks.  No success.  You wish everyone around you a Happy Birthday and then tell them that you are Ernie.  “Happy Birthday Grandma!  I’m Ernie!”  “Happy Birthday Sydney Cat!  I’m Ernie!”  Hey Birthday Kelly…I give up.  You have 12 months to figure out your age, so there will be no math quiz today.