Thirty-One Month Old Newsletter

Dear Cian-Cian and Liang-Liang,

You just turned thirty-one months old and we’re now heading into our second Spring together. Without a doubt, the four of us are having….well...The.Best.Time so far. You two are chatting a mile a minute, you’re laughing-running-bouncing around, you play together for hours at a time, you’re both healthy…and just seem to be having a lot of fun….

All of us are simply in a really good place right now....

Yep, you’ve really both been a picture of health recently (hope I don’t jinx us by saying this….). You both weighed-in at 25 whopping pounds last night, you are 33 inches, size 5 shoes, and wearing 24-month old shirts/18-month old pants (and sometimes still 12 month pants). Oh my goodness, you are both so cute.

Kelly...look below....does Sammi not look like Katie here? Look at how similar their facial expressions are....

You are both chatting away these days…and sometimes even in complete sentences. Sammi, after we read your new Honey-Bunny book last night, you put your arms around my neck, looked right into my eyes and said “Mommy, I like that book”. Wow!! I almost fell off the chair. And, then, this morning, Nicki, as we were eating our breakfast, you looked across the table at me and said “Mommy you are eating apples, too”. Wow. Whole sentences and sometimes even with the proper pronouns! Hip Hip Hooray!….Other things I’ve written down lately:

Nicki: “Mommy, I’ll be right back”, “”Here’s my ticket, Mommy” (Rony and Anne-Marie, this is from the Polar Express…..it’s all about tickets tickets tickets in their pretend play….).

Sammi: “Mommy, I go play now”, “Mommy, my baby needs blanket”, “I want a surprise”, “I want lav-ee-oh-lee” (ravioli)

Both: “Sister did it”. (Yep, this is funny to me. You both address each other as Sister with a capital “S”. You’ll say, “Sister, take this”. “Sister, that’s mine”, “Nitey-night, Sister”.)

The other notable change over the last few months is that you two will literally play together for two hours with no intervention from me. Wow, I didn’t even know that two-years could do that!! You want me in the same vicinity as you are but you are no longer incessantly imploring me to play with you every minute. You two are perfectly happy playing “pretend” by yourself.

Last weekend (Ed was off on his big ski trip), when I was cooking for hours on end, the two of you played “kitchen” with a few old Tupperware props, paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. You happily frolicked from the kitchen to the breakfast nook to the screen porch and back again. We had my Izzy CDs playing (the Hawaiian with the angel voice), the house was opened-up, and you two played and giggled and scampered around happily for hours. It was pretty-much a magical time for the three of us and I think that all three of us knew that. You would occasionally stop-by and hug my knees and look-up and laugh at me or you'd come running over and slam into my legs….or you would chase each other around and around me and our kitchen island…and then you’d dash away to the "kitchen" you had set-up on the screen porch.

In fact, I remember standing at the kitchen sink thinking to myself that I never wanted to forget the feeling I was having that very minute....the deep-down to-my-core joy of realizing that so many of my dreams really have come true...I have an incredible marriage to my oldest and best friend, I have two beautiful healthy and thriving toddler girls (and twins…wow oh wow), we all have terrific health, we are blessed with amazing simply-amazing friends, good jobs, financial security, a lovely home..oh oh oh….our bounty and blessings stops me in my tracks and takes my breath away.

Oh Liang-Liang and Cian-Cian, I so love you two!

Love,

Mommy