This is not a fancy, thoughtful post. It is just a quick list of things I want to write down for our children to read someday. I guess I’m just trying to do a brief snapshot of this moment in time in their lives.
Emmett, right now you are doing so many cute things! Here are some of them:
1. You love to pull pillows on the floor and bury your head in them while we say, “Night, night” to you.
2. If we ask you to make kisses, you do a very amusing attempt at a kiss that involves not quite a pucker, but a rubbing of your lips into a funny little shape.
3. If we ask you what a cow says, you concentrate very hard and say, “Mmmuh.” Then you smile with sheer delight when we clap.
4. So far, you’ve said, “uh oh,” “book,” “Awa” (for Ava), “mama,” “dada,” and “mmmuh” (for “moo”).
5. You are agile, coordinated, and fearless. You try to climb everything you can, and your latest trick is to climb up on our red ottoman, leap for the red chair, crawl over the arm, and then dangle from the other arm. You also love to climb on your sister’s art table because you are obsessed with pens and markers.
6. You definitely exert your will now. If we take something away from you or redirect you from an “urgent” baby task, you fling yourself backwards as hard as you can and start screaming in frustration. You do this often–though you still are sweet and funny, my love.
7. You want to walk, walk, walk everywhere outside, climbing the neighbors’ steps and picking up sticks and rocks as we go. You also love to pat and hug any dog that will come within reach (you and your sister must have inherited this passion for pups from the Palmberg side).
8. You can dance like a maniac, bouncing your knees and clapping your hands.
Ava, you are turning into a maddening, wonderful, intense, intelligent, perceptive, dramatic girl. You challenge and delight us every day:
1. You love horses to distraction and have checked out and read every possible book about them from the library. You can talk in great technical detail about them, and you took to your first horseback-riding lesson like a champ.
2. You are a very caring big sister, but you have a hard time balancing your love for–and jealousy of–your brother, which means that you alternate between smothering him with hugs and pinching him ALL THE TIME!
3. You’re a great dancer who picks up steps just by watching them. Recently, you saw an episode of “Angelina Ballerina” that had Irish step-dancing in it, and you figured out the steps on your own. You often give us mini dance recitals in the middle of doing something else.
4. You have an amazing vocabulary, and you’re reading at an end-of-second-grade level right now. You really enjoy “Magic Treehouse” books and “Little House in the Big Woods.” You’ve also delighted in lots of the Beverly Cleary books.
5. You love to write notes and grocery lists, and you tackle tough spelling words on your own; you never want help. You don’t always get everything right, but you certainly understand the phonetics of it all.
6. You still won’t ride a bike, but you were fearless about getting up on a very big horse!
7. You are totally into stuffed animals and cloth dolls–and you have a new favorite every day.
8. You love making art and acting out imaginary scenarios, no matter where we are or what we’re doing.
Emmett and Ava, we love you beyond reason. You are two of the most beautiful souls in the world, and we couldn’t have asked for better children than you. We are lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky–and we don’t know what we did to deserve both of you.