Dear Mateo,
Buddy, I last wrote you when you turned six. Now that you are almost seven, it seems time for an update.
You are a big first grader now! You started school a few weeks ago and have already gotten comfortable with your new teachers, new building, and new expectations. You generally love school and learning, although you are pretty exhausted by the transition from our lazy summer!
Some of your favorite parts of school: language time, music, woodshop, PE, art, math, and really just about everything. Your teachers say that you are good at paying attention and focusing. You got a chance to learn some Mandarin Chinese at the beginning of the year and were very proud to get to write some characters. You don't always share what your day was like right away, but we are always amazed by all the things you have done when the details start to come out.
Socially, the year started off a bit rockily for you. Your best friend from kindergarten moved away for a few years and then you were put in a class with a bunch of kids you didn't know well. You didn't know who to play with at recess and felt lonely and sad. Luckily, with some support from your teachers, your naturally social personality has come through again and things are starting to go better. You have been involved in a couple of incidents in which you have been accidentally hurt by rough housing kids on the playground, which is probably just part of the process of growing up, but has been tough for you and us.
One new joy in your life is swimming. Early on in the summer, you decided you were ready to put your head underwater and hold your breath. Since then, you have turned into a little fish! You took lessons during the summer and loved them so much that we have continued them this fall. You have swimming twice a week after school and you love it. You have come a long way in a short time, and now you are working on arm strokes and side breathing. As a family, we have been going to a nearby rec center on the weekend and playing in the family pool there. It is pretty cool to watch you confidently motoring around underwater!
Mateo, the highlight of your life continues to be the same thing. Can you guess what it is? Reading! You love books more than anything and will instantly say so if someone asks you what you like to do. You read more books than we can count this summer, from picture books to graphics novels to chapter books to books for much older kids. Some of your favorites have been the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians book, any TinTin book, and any zany graphic novel about a detective or superhero that you can find. You still love to be read to, and you get some Spanish reading time with Mommy every night, too.
You also love reading non-fiction and particularly history books. Grandpa has given you a few books on various topics out of a series he read as a child and you have devoured them. Your favorite and most-talked-about of those was the one on the Wright brothers and the beginning of airplane flight. You have read so much and absorbed so many facts that you come out with unexpected facts all the time. Not too long ago, you spontaneously volunteered that the London Bridge goes over the river Thames. You randomly, and correctly, used the word "pilloried" in a sentence. You seem to have a natural affinity for spelling and love to try kid crossword puzzles. We are excited to see where all this learning will take you someday!
Mateo, you are one snuggly kid and prefer to spend much of each night cuddled up with your moms. You still let me give you a hug and kiss when I leave you at school. You hold hands with us frequently. And when you are upset, you calm down best when we lie down with you for a few minutes.
That being said, you had a tough summer with a lot of temper flare-ups. You had a really short fuse and kept blowing up without much warning. You really gave us a run for our money at our family reunion at the end of the summer. We finally figured out that you kept blowing up when you hadn't eaten enough. Maybe you were growing? We started paying a lot more attention to feeding you frequently! And, luckily, with the start of school and the return of more structure, you have settled down a lot. You have had explosive periods throughout your life and we are working on navigating them when they happen.
In terms of food, you would prefer breakfast for every meal. Your favorite food right now is the raspberry pancakes I make you nearly every morning. You also like toast, bagels, waffles, French toast, and fruit. Basically, if it can be eaten for breakfast, you will go for it. However, you also like veggies pretty well. Your favorite are carrots, bell peppers, and cucumbers. I have started sending bento boxes filled with little bits of various finger foods for your lunches (grated cheese, sliced fruit, nuts, crackers, veggies, etc) and you like that pretty well.
Outside, you love to ride your bike and play on the swings! You became quite a little monkey last year and mastered the monkey bars, which impressed your parents. You also really enjoyed playing under the sprinkler this summer. We have some hilarious photos of you and your siblings standing under the water drops in 80 degree weather with your umbrellas out! We think that means you really are Oregon natives!
Mateo, you are our most favorite boy in the entire world. We are just bursting with pride that you are our son. We love you just exactly the way you are, now and always.
We love you!
Mama and Mommy
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Letter to Natalia
Dear Natalia,
You have just started full time school and it seems like a good time to write you a letter! You have changed and grown a lot, lot, lot since the last time I wrote you.
You turned five this past summer. Five! Five was a big deal for both you and your parents! For you, it was a huge and much-anticipated milestone. You and your preschool friends had been pretending to be five all year and you were unbelievably excited to be "real five," as you called it.
For your moms, it seemed almost impossible to believe that our tiny baby had grown so big! I admit to getting teary thinking of when you were newly born and how I held your little foot as the doctors worked on you. They were getting you all healthy so you could go and meet Mommy, who was waiting to snuggle you. I held your tiny toes so that you would know we were there with you in that moment and always. Now that you are five, I look back on that time and am just in awe of getting to meet you for the first time. You are such a special girl and Mommy and I are the luckiest parents ever to have gotten you as our daughter!
Natalia, when I think of you, I think about your sweet cuddles and your musical laugh. You love being close to your moms more than just about anything. You love to be held, to hold hands, and to be right next to us. Sometimes this isn't the most convenient, such as when we are rushing to get somewhere and you are yanking on my pants, but most of the time it is the sweetest thing in the world.
As well, your laugh is just magical. It is like a wind chime or part of a symphony. I am serious. We could record it and play it for sad people and they would feel better. You find humor in a lot of things, especially your siblings' and friends' antics, and you just bubble over with giggles.
In fact, you love to be silly a whole lot. You make up silly words, you give yourself silly nicknames, you answer questions in made up gibberish. You LOVE knock knock jokes and making up your own. You are a gloriously silly kid and we love you for it. You help all of us take ourselves a bit less seriously.
On a more serious note, though, we so admire your bravery. You find situations involving new people or lots of people to be pretty overwhelming. It takes a lot of time and energy for you to "warm up" in a new situation. You don't always want to do things that are uncomfortable, but you almost never complain. You are such a brave girl and such a good sport about constantly expanding your comfort zone.
A year ago, you were still very nervous about school and often hardly said a word in your little preschool. However, as the year went on, you began to try coming out of your shell. By the end of the year, you had debuted the wacky, silly, loud Natalia in public for the first time. You were in your element at your tiny, outdoor-focused school. We were so happy for you as we watched you grow and engage with your friends and teachers.
This year, you started at a new school, where your brother also goes. We decided to give you one more year of pre-K before you started kindergarten, but you are in a nearly full time program at a school that will take you all the way through high school. You have been loving it so far. You already know kids in the class who are younger siblings of your brother's classmates, so that has helped with the transition. You have informed us emphatically that your friends are "only girls!" This is true, but we think you must be buddies with every girl in your class by now. You are a girl-centric kid, but you love your brother to pieces, too.
You have been listening intently to your teachers and learning a lot about being a good friend. This has already started to counteract your tendency to get very close to one friend and want to exclude others...only to get close to someone else the next day and exclude that original friend. This was an issue with a lot of girls at your other preschool, but seems much better in your new class. You have delighted in informing Mommy and me that "no secrets are allowed at my school!" if we ever whisper something to each other!
Natalia, you have learned a lot since I last wrote to you! You can read all kinds of stuff now, including signs, parts of books, and even some words in Spanish. You have mastered a lot of simple addition and are a counting pro. You can write all of your letters and even some numbers. Your fine motor control has always been impressive and it continues to be so. You love to cut paper into tiny pieces and topretend to knit. It won't be long before you are doing it for real!
Other favorites include riding your bike (a real two-wheeler!) and jumping on our new trampoline outside. You also love to play with your siblings. You and Mateo are in a good spot recently. Especially on weekends, you have been know to make up your own games and giggle hysterically at your own antics. You and Rosie have a special connection and you just light up when she rushes into your classroom at the end of the day. You heave her off the ground (she's pretty close to your size!) and beam as you spin her around and the collapse on the ground together.
Of course, like any siblings, you three have your conflicts during the day. However, at the end of the day, you literally end up in the same place! You and Mateo have chosen to share a room and both seem to take great comfort in having the other just a couple of feet away.
You still love your red blankie and sleep with it every night. It gives you comfort and security and helps you feel better when you are sad or tired.
Finally, you have quite a mutual admiration society (as your great-grandma would have said) going on with our new kitty, Iris. You love her and she loves you. She lets you hold her like a baby and fawn over her and you love to nurture her. You are going to be an amazing mom someday, but for right now you give a lot of love to Iris!
Natalia, you are a wonderful girl. We love you more than a CAT (as you once told Mommy!). We love you so much that it makes our hearts grow. We love you just exactly the way you are now, and we will always be there to hold your hand and cheer you on as you grow.
We love you!
Mama and Mommy
You have just started full time school and it seems like a good time to write you a letter! You have changed and grown a lot, lot, lot since the last time I wrote you.
You turned five this past summer. Five! Five was a big deal for both you and your parents! For you, it was a huge and much-anticipated milestone. You and your preschool friends had been pretending to be five all year and you were unbelievably excited to be "real five," as you called it.
For your moms, it seemed almost impossible to believe that our tiny baby had grown so big! I admit to getting teary thinking of when you were newly born and how I held your little foot as the doctors worked on you. They were getting you all healthy so you could go and meet Mommy, who was waiting to snuggle you. I held your tiny toes so that you would know we were there with you in that moment and always. Now that you are five, I look back on that time and am just in awe of getting to meet you for the first time. You are such a special girl and Mommy and I are the luckiest parents ever to have gotten you as our daughter!
Natalia, when I think of you, I think about your sweet cuddles and your musical laugh. You love being close to your moms more than just about anything. You love to be held, to hold hands, and to be right next to us. Sometimes this isn't the most convenient, such as when we are rushing to get somewhere and you are yanking on my pants, but most of the time it is the sweetest thing in the world.
As well, your laugh is just magical. It is like a wind chime or part of a symphony. I am serious. We could record it and play it for sad people and they would feel better. You find humor in a lot of things, especially your siblings' and friends' antics, and you just bubble over with giggles.
In fact, you love to be silly a whole lot. You make up silly words, you give yourself silly nicknames, you answer questions in made up gibberish. You LOVE knock knock jokes and making up your own. You are a gloriously silly kid and we love you for it. You help all of us take ourselves a bit less seriously.
On a more serious note, though, we so admire your bravery. You find situations involving new people or lots of people to be pretty overwhelming. It takes a lot of time and energy for you to "warm up" in a new situation. You don't always want to do things that are uncomfortable, but you almost never complain. You are such a brave girl and such a good sport about constantly expanding your comfort zone.
A year ago, you were still very nervous about school and often hardly said a word in your little preschool. However, as the year went on, you began to try coming out of your shell. By the end of the year, you had debuted the wacky, silly, loud Natalia in public for the first time. You were in your element at your tiny, outdoor-focused school. We were so happy for you as we watched you grow and engage with your friends and teachers.
This year, you started at a new school, where your brother also goes. We decided to give you one more year of pre-K before you started kindergarten, but you are in a nearly full time program at a school that will take you all the way through high school. You have been loving it so far. You already know kids in the class who are younger siblings of your brother's classmates, so that has helped with the transition. You have informed us emphatically that your friends are "only girls!" This is true, but we think you must be buddies with every girl in your class by now. You are a girl-centric kid, but you love your brother to pieces, too.
You have been listening intently to your teachers and learning a lot about being a good friend. This has already started to counteract your tendency to get very close to one friend and want to exclude others...only to get close to someone else the next day and exclude that original friend. This was an issue with a lot of girls at your other preschool, but seems much better in your new class. You have delighted in informing Mommy and me that "no secrets are allowed at my school!" if we ever whisper something to each other!
Natalia, you have learned a lot since I last wrote to you! You can read all kinds of stuff now, including signs, parts of books, and even some words in Spanish. You have mastered a lot of simple addition and are a counting pro. You can write all of your letters and even some numbers. Your fine motor control has always been impressive and it continues to be so. You love to cut paper into tiny pieces and topretend to knit. It won't be long before you are doing it for real!
Other favorites include riding your bike (a real two-wheeler!) and jumping on our new trampoline outside. You also love to play with your siblings. You and Mateo are in a good spot recently. Especially on weekends, you have been know to make up your own games and giggle hysterically at your own antics. You and Rosie have a special connection and you just light up when she rushes into your classroom at the end of the day. You heave her off the ground (she's pretty close to your size!) and beam as you spin her around and the collapse on the ground together.
Of course, like any siblings, you three have your conflicts during the day. However, at the end of the day, you literally end up in the same place! You and Mateo have chosen to share a room and both seem to take great comfort in having the other just a couple of feet away.
You still love your red blankie and sleep with it every night. It gives you comfort and security and helps you feel better when you are sad or tired.
Finally, you have quite a mutual admiration society (as your great-grandma would have said) going on with our new kitty, Iris. You love her and she loves you. She lets you hold her like a baby and fawn over her and you love to nurture her. You are going to be an amazing mom someday, but for right now you give a lot of love to Iris!
Natalia, you are a wonderful girl. We love you more than a CAT (as you once told Mommy!). We love you so much that it makes our hearts grow. We love you just exactly the way you are now, and we will always be there to hold your hand and cheer you on as you grow.
We love you!
Mama and Mommy
Letter to Rosie
Dear Rosie,
It has been a long time since I wrote you a letter. Sorry about that! You just turned two and a half and it seems like a good time to write about what you are up to.
You are an independent, energetic kid now, but you still like to know exactly where your people are. This past summer, you loved having Mommy, Mateo, and Natalia around all the time. Since school has started again, you have been doing a lot of wondering out loud about where they are during the day. "Where Mommy?", you will ask, out of the blue. "Where Te Te? Where Tali?" You are happiest when our whole family is together and accounted for.
One of your highest recent priorities has been doing things "BY SELF." You want to go potty by self, try to dress yourself, climb into your car seat, run out in front or dawdle behind the rest of us, and so on. You have always had strong opinions on things!
Speaking of that, you have a lot to say and are getting better and better at telling us what's on your mind. You like to chat with us at all hours of the day and night. When you wake up at night, you call out "Mama, where are you?" When you are hungry, you can tell us that you want food and specify what you want. In addition to basic requests, you are an incredible mimic. You repeat what your parents and siblings say and then make those phrases your own. For example, you learned to repeat "ahhh, coffee!" after me when we get something at the drive-through coffee place. Then, you started saying "ahhh, chocolate! Rosie drink hot chocolate! Ahhh, chocolate!"
Many things you say, especially with your adorable little voice, are just too cute to describe!
You have developed a love of dresses since this past summer. Mommy and I misunderstood you the first time you asked for a fancy dress and thought you were saying "dancey dress," which is what we now call your dresses. You wear a dancey dress nearly every day. If we forget and put you in something else, you remind us that you need a dancey dress ASAP. You are the very image of cuteness as you run around the world in your dancey dresses.
That said, you continue to be our most rough and tumble kid. You go full bore at most things and love to climb, slide, run, jump, and explore. Your expression of the summer was "Mama, I need to RUN!" You went through a phase of sprinting around the side of the house and into our court without warning, which you have now mercifully learned not to do anymore!
You love going to the park and swinging and are equally happy in a baby swing or a big kid swing. We have tried the balance bike with you and you're not quite ready, but we know you will be soon. You are going to be a force of nature once you learn to ride a bike!
In the past few months, you have started to adore books and you love to be read to. You especially love it when your siblings read to you. You just absolutely idolize them and they return your affections (except when you have just destroyed one of their prized creations!).
We all had a really fun summer together and you had a particularly fun time at the family camp we always go to. You were adopted by a pair of pre-teen girls and we hardly saw you that week. You LOVED your friends and kept asking where they were when they would leave you with us for meals and such.
One thing we love about you is how perceptive and compassionate you are. If one of your siblings gets hurt, you will come up and ask "Why Te Te or Tali crying?" and then you will give them a pat or a hug and even ask if they need ice. You are a snuggly little bug with them and with your moms. We love your caring heart and your cuddly little body.
Sadly, you haven't quite absorbed the idea that pets need caring concern, too! You love our new kitty, Iris, with a burning passion that causes you to SHRIEK in delight when you see her, which then causes her to flee, with you in hot pursuit. You have been found pulling the cat's tail and dragging her around by her hind leg. Thank goodness she has a lot of patience with you. We think she may need to get better at hiding, though!
Quick update on eating and sleeping:
You sleep on a big kid twin mattress in your own room now. However, you really don't like sleeping alone and much prefer to have a mom sleep with you after the first time you wake up. For now, we are happy to oblige. You are just so sweet and snuggly (and insistent!) that we can't resist you. And, we are very aware that you are our last baby and we need to soak up this phase of your life before it speeds past us.
You love to eat and will try some new things, but you have established preferences by now. Fruit, milk, yogurt, cheese, pancakes, bagels, pizza, salmon, chicken, and many other things will make you happy. You love to help make things in the kitchen and will remind me that it is "ROSIE TURN" to put in various ingredients. In fact, as our third child, you know about taking turns incredibly well and seem tounderstand about sharing most of the time, even if you don't always want to do it!
You still usually nap, especially now that school has started and the house is quiet during the day. You and I have been enjoying our mornings together, doing both errands and fun stuff for you, and then coming home for quiet time before school pick-ups start.
For now, Mama prefers to call you by your nickname, Rosie, and Mommy and your siblings like to call you Rosa. Luckily, you answer toeither, although you mostly call yourself Rosie. You have several other nicknames, all of which stem from "Roo," which we started calling you as a baby.
Rosie, you are an incredibly beloved part of our family. You make us laugh with your cute antics and you bestow cherished snuggles on all of us. You keep us on our toes with your energy and astound us with your smarts and gorgeous deep brown eyes. We love you with our whole hearts and even more than that!
Till next time,
Mama and Mommy
It has been a long time since I wrote you a letter. Sorry about that! You just turned two and a half and it seems like a good time to write about what you are up to.
You are an independent, energetic kid now, but you still like to know exactly where your people are. This past summer, you loved having Mommy, Mateo, and Natalia around all the time. Since school has started again, you have been doing a lot of wondering out loud about where they are during the day. "Where Mommy?", you will ask, out of the blue. "Where Te Te? Where Tali?" You are happiest when our whole family is together and accounted for.
One of your highest recent priorities has been doing things "BY SELF." You want to go potty by self, try to dress yourself, climb into your car seat, run out in front or dawdle behind the rest of us, and so on. You have always had strong opinions on things!
Speaking of that, you have a lot to say and are getting better and better at telling us what's on your mind. You like to chat with us at all hours of the day and night. When you wake up at night, you call out "Mama, where are you?" When you are hungry, you can tell us that you want food and specify what you want. In addition to basic requests, you are an incredible mimic. You repeat what your parents and siblings say and then make those phrases your own. For example, you learned to repeat "ahhh, coffee!" after me when we get something at the drive-through coffee place. Then, you started saying "ahhh, chocolate! Rosie drink hot chocolate! Ahhh, chocolate!"
Many things you say, especially with your adorable little voice, are just too cute to describe!
You have developed a love of dresses since this past summer. Mommy and I misunderstood you the first time you asked for a fancy dress and thought you were saying "dancey dress," which is what we now call your dresses. You wear a dancey dress nearly every day. If we forget and put you in something else, you remind us that you need a dancey dress ASAP. You are the very image of cuteness as you run around the world in your dancey dresses.
That said, you continue to be our most rough and tumble kid. You go full bore at most things and love to climb, slide, run, jump, and explore. Your expression of the summer was "Mama, I need to RUN!" You went through a phase of sprinting around the side of the house and into our court without warning, which you have now mercifully learned not to do anymore!
You love going to the park and swinging and are equally happy in a baby swing or a big kid swing. We have tried the balance bike with you and you're not quite ready, but we know you will be soon. You are going to be a force of nature once you learn to ride a bike!
In the past few months, you have started to adore books and you love to be read to. You especially love it when your siblings read to you. You just absolutely idolize them and they return your affections (except when you have just destroyed one of their prized creations!).
We all had a really fun summer together and you had a particularly fun time at the family camp we always go to. You were adopted by a pair of pre-teen girls and we hardly saw you that week. You LOVED your friends and kept asking where they were when they would leave you with us for meals and such.
One thing we love about you is how perceptive and compassionate you are. If one of your siblings gets hurt, you will come up and ask "Why Te Te or Tali crying?" and then you will give them a pat or a hug and even ask if they need ice. You are a snuggly little bug with them and with your moms. We love your caring heart and your cuddly little body.
Sadly, you haven't quite absorbed the idea that pets need caring concern, too! You love our new kitty, Iris, with a burning passion that causes you to SHRIEK in delight when you see her, which then causes her to flee, with you in hot pursuit. You have been found pulling the cat's tail and dragging her around by her hind leg. Thank goodness she has a lot of patience with you. We think she may need to get better at hiding, though!
Quick update on eating and sleeping:
You sleep on a big kid twin mattress in your own room now. However, you really don't like sleeping alone and much prefer to have a mom sleep with you after the first time you wake up. For now, we are happy to oblige. You are just so sweet and snuggly (and insistent!) that we can't resist you. And, we are very aware that you are our last baby and we need to soak up this phase of your life before it speeds past us.
You love to eat and will try some new things, but you have established preferences by now. Fruit, milk, yogurt, cheese, pancakes, bagels, pizza, salmon, chicken, and many other things will make you happy. You love to help make things in the kitchen and will remind me that it is "ROSIE TURN" to put in various ingredients. In fact, as our third child, you know about taking turns incredibly well and seem tounderstand about sharing most of the time, even if you don't always want to do it!
You still usually nap, especially now that school has started and the house is quiet during the day. You and I have been enjoying our mornings together, doing both errands and fun stuff for you, and then coming home for quiet time before school pick-ups start.
For now, Mama prefers to call you by your nickname, Rosie, and Mommy and your siblings like to call you Rosa. Luckily, you answer toeither, although you mostly call yourself Rosie. You have several other nicknames, all of which stem from "Roo," which we started calling you as a baby.
Rosie, you are an incredibly beloved part of our family. You make us laugh with your cute antics and you bestow cherished snuggles on all of us. You keep us on our toes with your energy and astound us with your smarts and gorgeous deep brown eyes. We love you with our whole hearts and even more than that!
Till next time,
Mama and Mommy
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