Dear So and So,

Dear Smiley Baby,

Can you please tell me why you have decided to stop eating real food and start nursing through the night again? You make me so tired. It is hard on a mama to wake up every two hours to feed you. You were sleeping through the night just a few weeks ago. You have even started turning down your favorite food, bananas, and instead of eating them think they are something fun just to mash onto your tray and in your hair and on your clothes. You are so adorably cute and I love you so much that can't deny you anything you want even when I know you are giving me your "fake cry" (when you are peeking at me through almost closed eyes to make sure I am paying attention to you while you whine at me), and especially not when it is your real "I want my mama" cry. You are the happiest baby. You rarely cry, except during the night when you want us to come get you so you can have your milk fix. Please please please just stay asleep during the night!!!

Love,
The tired one


Dear Pretty Girl,

I am so sorry I hardly noticed when you came into our room this morning. I do vaguely remember hearing you talk to daddy and him telling you to go back to bed, but I was so tired I didn't even realize that you brought your pillow and blanket in and made a bed on the hard, cold, wood floor just so you could be near us. I want to be near you too. I love your hugs and snuggles and the funny jokes you have started telling. Your latest goes something like this, "There were two monkeys in a car with some bananas and oranges." And then you laugh hysterically. I love you! I love your obsession with all things pink and becoming fancy just like Fancy Nancy. I am so happy that you are so excited for preschool, although I want you to just stay little forever. Don't grow up to fast babe. You keep telling me all about your plans for when you are a mom and living in your blue brick house and are married to your brother Sammy and have three little girls. Slow down. Stay my little girl a little bit longer.

Love,
The one who would keep you little forever.


Dear Train-Plane-Truck Boy,

I do love to have you climb in bed next to me in the early morning hours, and to feel you little arms wrap around my neck and to feel your contented sigh on my cheek as you settle in next to me to go back to sleep. What I don't like is when you don't go back to sleep. Instead you wiggle, you giggle, you hum, you play, you climb, you tickle, and you basically just refuse to go back to sleep, and refuse to let me go back to sleep too. Your daddy said it was around 5:00 when you came and climbed in our bed, but somehow it seems to me like it must have been much earlier. And once you climbed in, your sister felt like she needed to be in the bed and then Benson woke up and wanted to nurse and with 5 in the bed the daddy one said "I'm crowded" and went in and spent the remainder of the morning on the couch and slept while I got to wrestle with you. I think you and your siblings planned this to test your mommy to see if she could be happy after no sleep. She failed. Sorry about that, dear one. It doesn't mean I love you any less. I think you are so funny wanting a "potty train," but not wanting to go potty in the potty. You make me laugh when you come crawling up to me pretending to be a puppy or a baby. You ask me about 50 times a day to sing you the temple song or the church song or the song about water on your leg (which is a song that your grandpa used to sing to me when I was a little girl). I love to watch you do head stands against the couch or summersaults all over the house. You don't ride your bike, you run behind it and push it. Your grin lights up your whole face and I love it! You really are a delightful little boy and sometimes I just need you to remind me of that when I haven't slept. You are all boy and it is so fun to have you around.

Love,
The luckiest mom of 3 in the world.



Dear Dirty Laundry,

I have asked you not to come around my house any more. I don't like you and don't know how to get the message through to you that you are not welcome here. "I take no leave of you, dirty laundry. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased."