Britta, my love.

This is Britta’s birthday week. My baby turns three in less than 48 hours. Just the other day I was taken aback hearing Britta call me “mom.” Every now and then the gravity and permanence of that realization hits me hard between the eyes. Someone calls me mom; another one knows I am her mom even if the words aren’t there yet. Then it dawned on me that not only am I a mom, I have been one for almost three years. How can the years fly by so quickly, yet the minutes until bedtime drag by at an almost unbearable crawl?

As her birthday approaches, I keep thinking how much I want to document so much about this age. I want to write a variety of posts about all of the many facets of Britta girl. For now I’ll focus on her temperament and personality.

The argument surrounding nurture over nature battles in my head each and every day with this fireball. I wonder how much of the way she acts is an innate part of her character and how much of what she does is a reflection of her age. As she is my first, I have no one to compare her to, so I wait with bated breath to see if we are going to outgrow the “terrible twos” or if she is always going to be dramatically stubborn and fiercely independent.

Britta is not for the faint of heart. Britta does nothing halfway; and I feel like her personality is a mirror of my relationship with her. I have very strong feelings for this girl. I alternately want to strangle her or just squeeze her silly. There is no middle ground.

She is 100% an emotional being. She vacillates from ecstatically happy one minute to beside herself devastated the next.  It is not uncommon for her to have thrown herself on the ground in an all-out meltdown five times before 8:00 am. Conversely, if it is 8:00 am and she hasn’t been singing and dancing for at least an hour you know there is something wrong. Just this week at church, an older lady in our ward told me that her and her friend used to make bets on how many times and how long it would be before we would have to drag a screaming Britta out of Sacrament meeting. The cause: usually that her pencil had fallen on the floor or some equally devastating tragedy. This lady told us this as a compliment, because we now can make it through the entire hour and fifteen minute service without the walk of shame out to the hallway.

She is all girl. If I let her dress herself it is pink on pink on pink. Every.Single.Time. She wants to be a princess, plays dress up, asks for her nails to be painted and wants a kitty for her birthday. She even flirts with older men. We are in for it.

Her currency is TV. I could not feed or bathe her for a week, but as long as the TV was switched on she wouldn’t even notice. Lucky for me, the promise of watching a show proves to be a very effective motivator. Bet you didn’t know that your two year old could empty the silverware from the dishwasher in 30 seconds flat, with complete accuracy, did you?

She is very literal. Things are what they are. Silliness is lost on her. He name is Britta—not “bud, sweetie, young lady, etc.” and don’t you forget it. Sometimes we really tick her off with our teasing.

She loves her sister. I mean, she LOVES that baby. She is going to a force to be reckoned with if Elodie is ever picked on.

Lately she has developed quite the attitude. When I ask her to do something she doesn’t want to do. She lets out an overly-dramatic sigh/moan and falls to the floor as if my request has drained her of all energy and will to live. She has also recently been very sweet. She will look up from her toys or coloring and say “Mom, I love you” for absolutely no reason at all. Those are the moments that make it all worthwhile. She craves my attention and affection. The more I get frustrated with her the more I realize that a lot of the time she acts out because she wants me to love on her. It’s hard to love on someone who has just dumped your green smoothie all over the carpet, but I’m working on it.

I have spent more time on my knees and in tears asking for forgiveness for my impatience with this sweet girl than I thought possible. Every time I think I’ve had a parenting breakthrough and I know how to handle her she throws me for a loop. And every time I think I’m at my wits end, she says or does something that makes me fall head over heels for her all over again.

I love you, my girl. You made me a mom--something I will always be, and something I will never stop learning to be. You are smart, funny, and beautiful. I am in awe sometimes that I actually made you and you’re mine. I want to keep you small forever and protect you from all the scariness in this world, but at the same time love to see you grow and learn and explore the world around you. Thank you for loving me and unconditionally forgiving me for all the mistakes I make on this ride called motherhood.

Five Months

Remember when all you had was a baby? One baby. Babies are a breeze. Two year olds? Whole different story, especially when you add an 'easy enough on her own' baby into the mix. I have all these good intentions to write about Elodie so that in my sleep-deprived, diaper changing, nursery rhyming stupor I can remember every little thing about her—because she is so worth remembering every little thing about.

I love that each one of my girls came hardwired with their own unique little personality. Elodie is a mover. Britta was a sitter. I loved that Britta was a sitter. I have mixed feelings about Elodie’s desire to be mobile. The second you lay that girl down she flips onto her belly to get a better view of the world and spins around in a circle or rocks her legs up underneath her. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to swipe those little legs out from under her to buy myself some more time before I have a crawler on my hands. 

Elodie goes wild for the Jumparoo. Britta only ever had mild interest in it. Britta was a talker. Elodie is a smiler. When she looks at you, she takes you in for a second and then the most beautiful, genuine smile bursts across her face like she just can’t hold it in any longer—as Britta puts it, “Mom, Elodie made me a smile!” 

Elodie is a mama’s girl. Britta only had eyes for Daddy. Elodie just wants her mama. I secretly love it—unless I’m doing dishes.

Elodie took longer than Britta to sleep through the night, but she is pretty solidly sleeping for ten hours straight now. She is tired by about seven, and wakes up about five. I would love it if we could get her to bed later and thus waking up later. We’re working on it. She is so easy going about naps, which is nice because I am not keeping her on nearly the same routine schedule as I did with Britta.

She is ready to start solid foods, but I am dragging my feet because A.) I don’t want her to grow up and B.) spoon feeding a baby takes foreverrrrr…. I am holding out hope, though, that a full belly will help her sleep longer at night.

At her four month checkup she weighed 13 lbs 12 oz (40^th percentile) and measured 25.5 inches long (75^th percentile). Her head was in the 25% percentile—it’s a good thing she has all that hair to cover her tiny noggin.  Aside from head size, she is pretty much exactly the same size Britta was at this age.

She is all around fun. Her giggles and smiles are the bright spot of my morning, and her kissable cheeks are the reward for this thing called motherhood.