Dear Madison – Toddler to a Little Girl

Dear Madison,

I had to look and see the last time I wrote to you was after the New Year. I can’t believe how fast time flies. I struggle with this post because of some things that Mommy is battling within herself. Do I go back to work, do I stay home? It’s not that I don’t want to be home with you and your little brother. I love nothing more than knowing I have that time with you. Someday you will see the reasoning behind all of my rants to you. Until then lets talk about you.

You are no longer a toddler sweetheart, I don’t think you have been for quite some time now Mommy is just in denial! I wanted you to stay two forever. Though I wasn’t a fan of the tantrums and frustrations I had no idea that three was even harder because guess what??!!! You are learning how to “feel”. Who would have thought that watching a little person learn how to feel would be such an amazing time in my life but also such an emotional time in my life because I see you battle things that I can’t help you with. You hate going to school. Well once you are there you have fun, I see you go off and play with friends. I’ve also seen you sit alone and play too (which you never do at home) your teachers say you are so quiet and barley say anything, that’s not the Maddie I know! You are so loud and free at home. I guess that’s a good thing, you are just more yourself when you feel comfortable, nothing wrong with that. One day this winter you fell and your face when right into the snow. You then said to Daddy, “Is it OK for me to cry Daddy.” When your daddy told me that I cried because you were so confused on when to cry and when not to. So now we try to explain more to you. We have to remember your older now and you understand more than we think you do. So we talk about happy feelings and we talk about sad feelings and whatever feelings may come up, like if you fall and get hurt. All I know is I will promise you that I will raise you to be a sweet, caring, thoughtful Little Girl.

When you belted out the ABC’s the other day perfectly I beamed from ear to ear. I couldn’t have been more proud. Now if we could just tackle your sleep problems then maybe we’d all be better off 😉 You have an active active imagination, it’s a fun stage, listening to you walk around the house “talking” on the phone, having conversations with Grampy, Memere and Aunty JoJo. However it’s tough at night when you wake and you can’t fall back to sleep so you “read” your books to your babies, which then wakes up Drew and Mommy. (Never Daddy he could sleep through a war zone) Yes you have to read your stories like your teachers do, nice and loud!! You are getting better with your indoor voice though I have to admit.

Another thing we’ve been doing is having Mommy/Maddie Date night. It’s been so much fun!! You love going to the Nines. You are always such a good girl too. In the next few months I have some fun day/nights planned with you, I’ve noticed since I’ve been planning this separate time with you, you’ve been acting out less. Daddy spends so much time alone with you, it just happens a lot at night or on the weekends, but Mommy is carving out that time more to make sure you get your Momma time! How about Build a Bear, painting ceramics or an Ice Cream night??!! All things we are going to do soon!

We also went to the movies one morning just us two, well we met your friend Olivia there but it was nice for us to get away just the two of us, plus you were such a good girl. Your very first movie and you loved loved loved it, though when we bought it a few weeks later you wouldn’t watch more than 5 minutes of it but that’s OK!

We’ve recently been to the library so we could show Drew where you and I used to go when Mommy was pregnant with him.

You go the store a lot with Daddy too, you are such a little helper, all you want to do is help all the time. You just want to be with him and do all of the things he does, it’s super cute, though I wish sometimes you followed me around like that sometimes. Though it does make me feel better that when I do leave the house, your always asking Daddy where I am, I’m trying to get out more often because it’s healthy for us to miss one another. I’ve noticed that you reach for me more and you want me more when I’m not always here 100% of the time. So what if you prefer tools over girly things! Look how much fun your having! You always help Daddy work with his tools hence the always wanting to be like Daddy. You want to wear T-Shirts like Daddy, you want to wear pants with strings like Daddy and you want to wear a hat like Daddy. I’m realizing that your happier wearing T-Shirts and sweatpants than Mommy trying to push dresses on you but please know I’m probably never going to stop trying 🙂

You were helping Mommy a lot in the kitchen for a while but it comes and goes! It doesn’t seem to catch your attention for too long, but every now and then you ask for the stool and you climb up to help. I’m going to keep at it though because when you do try you always have fun and Mommy loves having you by her side. Even if you do just stand their and eat the ingredients!! 🙂

We’ve had a rough winter with it NEVER going away and everyone being sick over and over again. One thing I’ve come to realize is that you are such a little trooper! You always have been sweetie. You’ve been sick the least of all of us but have been slammed the past few weeks and you just get up and get going again, gosh what I’d give for your amount of energy my love. I don’t know if you remember me saying at some point that you aren’t big on cuddling or touching. I have to say you’ve come such a long way. For me you’ve become a little cuddle bug. You climb into my lap when you get tired (which is a lot these days since you aren’t sleeping too great) You snuggle when you don’t feel well. You are also the first to remove my arm off your back if you don’t want it there either LOL! That’s OK though I like that you have your own little personality and you know what you like and dislike.

Your hat for instance, I can’t get you to go anywhere without it. I know your hiding behind it.  Your incredibly shy. I try not to worry that it’s not going to become a long-time problem however that’s what Momma’s do….we worry. At least you look so gosh darn cute in any hat your wear. I will give you that! I just sometimes wish you knew how much beauty you are hiding. How beautiful those big blue eyes are……maybe someday.

Spring is approaching……I hope!! You are dying to get outside to the yard, the park, the camp! We all are honey. The snow is still melting but we go out. We go for walks around the block, you ask question after question. What is that? What does it do? Where does it go? All about the water drains. You are pretty fascinated by them LOL, you throw sticks and leaves down them then we walk to the next one and you want to know where the leaves go…..you crack me up, your curiosity just makes me smile and tell you the best explanation I can, sometimes I don’t even know where I come up with them!! It’s part of this age that I love the most. Your imagination, the innocent curiosity and the way your mind works. It’s so amazing, I try and concentrate on the good parts of this age instead of the testing and the little attitude you have developed lately! You like bossing your Daddy around I’ll tell you. I lay in bed on Sunday mornings, I’m in my glory because I don’t have to rush out of bed, Daddy is in his glory because he’s with his babies and I’m listening to you boss him around, do this, do that, I want this. Oh man he doesn’t even see it my love, he’s just so smitten by you and loves being around you that he doesn’t see sometimes it can turn into quite the attitude when we are in public or around others! OH well he will learn, just like Mommy did. We will continue to teach you and guide you the best way we can Boo.

Next time I write we will be into full Spring by then, hopefully the snow will be gone and we will be making our way up the Camp since we didn’t get to spend too much time there last Summer. Until then my sweet girl.

XOXOXO Love you,

Mommy