We were so pleased with ourselves for getting our birthday letters written to Jubilee by her actual birthday, but somehow it's still taken me 3 months to post them!
December 18, 2010
Dear Jubilee,
Early this morning, from your snug bed, you suddenly shouted out, “Hi! Love you!” Zephyr and I paused a minute. “Are you talking to me, Jubilee?” I asked. No answer. “Is she talking in her sleep?” Zephyr queried. “I guess she is,” I answered. “We should have named her Love,” Zephyr insisted. It was a suggestion he first made when you were just a few months old, and evidence mounts every day that he’s right.
For instance, every day you say things like “I’m a love* machine,” “I’m just a lot of love walking around in a body,” and “Mommy, I’m so full of love for you, I’ll never run out.” One of your favorite activities is running up to give us kisses, but, if you don’t feel like making the effort to come close, you just start kissing in the air when you see something or someone you like. Given the chance, you always choose to wear your clothes with hearts on them, calling them your “love pants” or “love shirt.” And, every time you’re on an imaginary call with anyone, you end the conversation with “Bye! Love you!”
Indeed, one could say you wear your heart on your sleeve, dear Jubi, and just as you are so quick to offer boundless love, your feelings can get hurt astonishingly easily. For instance, if you ask me to read you a book, and I tell you I can’t, because I’m cooking dinner, you’ll weep and ask, “Why are you speaking so harshly to me?” Dada told me about a time recently when you asked for an extra bedtime story, he said no, and you sobbed, saying, “Why would you want to hurt your precious little Jubilee?” As the story goes, you ranted and screamed, stamping your feet in what now has become your signature move, and then, suddenly, soaked with tears and sweat, turned to Dada, put up your arms to get picked up, and started air-kissing. He says it was like a switch flipped, you worked out your rage, and were ready to love again.
Zephyr continues to be a tower of influence in your life. He is both your best playmate and your worst enemy. (Does that go without saying when it comes to siblings?) He and Grady have taught you how to use a Nerf gun, and you delight in shooting one of the adults when we play “10-second war.” You will follow just about any of Zephyr’s suggestions, which is why, when I came into your room yesterday and found you in your bed with Zephyr aiming his Nerf gun at you, I asked him if he had received your permission to shoot at you. “Mom, this game was totally her idea,” he said, and you corroborated his statement. You two will hug and wrestle like puppies and giggle with delight, or, conversely, cry out at the injustice and cruelty if one of you accidentally brushes against the other one. I read this year that all siblings have conflict, but, generally, their long-term relationship depends on whether they were able to have good times together. I think you two have great potential to be friends your whole lives through.
You have been independent from the time you were an infant, squirming away from my attempts to nurse you when you were upset, in favor of crying on your own until you were ready to settle down. This year, you and your brother made the transition to sleeping in your own beds, and for you, it was a relief. Early on, Dada rushed to your bed when he heard you crying in the middle of the night. He picked you up and tucked you in next to him, only to hear the crying increase. “Put me back in my bed!!!” you yelled, before struggling out of the sheets and stomping off to your room. Yesterday morning, I asked if you wanted slippers or socks for your feet, as the mornings are chilly in our home. “Yes,” you answered. “Which would you like? Both?” I asked. “Well, I’ll take care of it on my own, so I actually don’t have to tell you,” you replied.
Lately, I’ve noticed how much you seem to want to be just like me. When I cook, you want to help me cook, or at least cook in your little kitchen at the same time. (Yesterday you were making “grape, water, and pepper soup.” Yum.) When I jump rope, you get out your own little jump rope, and do it in your own special way. You invent your own approximations of the calisthenics and Egoscue exercises you watch me perform each morning. You tell us all the things you learn at “Little Kid Massage School,” and you have started texting on your play phone. Zephyr even calls you “little mama,” sometimes. I try to always remember that you’re watching me, Jubi, and I want to be someone worth emulating.
Here is a little list of things I want to remember about this time of your life:
1. That when I call you from school to say goodnight, you always ask me to kiss your “wittle paw” when I get home.
2. The way you nurture everything you can get your hands on, whether it’s a dead bee (I remember the time I asked you why you liked dead bees so much. “Because live ones would sting me” you answered,) a coupon your brother gave you, something you built from the erector set, a special book, or a piece of plastic you found on the ground.
3. Your odd but persistent preference for tepid, at best, baths.
4. Your continual task of creating mail for Fionna, Ainslie, and Grady, which involves putting sundry items in junk mail envelopes.
5. The way we’ll often find you standing on a stool in the bathroom, smiling at your reflection as you perform some random act of grooming, like brushing your hair or teeth, washing your face, or chewing on some dental floss.
6. That you spend countless minutes every day reading a book outloud, usually to yourself, and fall asleep doing this almost every night. I asked Zephyr recently what it’s like to fall asleep to your sister noisily reading a book every night, and he shook his head and said “very difficult” in a good natured sort of way.
7. How breathtakingly gorgeous you are to me, with your big, shining brown eyes, so full of life and sparkle, your warm and sturdy little body which has lost all its baby fat and is now healthy muscle, your sweet, raspy voice, always blurting out items of interest and excitement to you, and your soft, kissable face with all its many expressions.
8. You currently have an imaginary friend named Aloose. (“You need to eat some lunch before you can have dessert, Jubi.” “No, I don’t, Aloose gave me something to eat.”)
9. When we told you you were about to turn 4, you said, “I’ve been a great 3-year-old.”
Jubilee Love Claire, it is an outstanding gift, joy, and honor to be your mommy. Thank you.
More love than you can imagine,
Mommy
*At this time in life, you pronounce your "L's" as "W's," which makes words like little, love, and Aloose that much more adorable.
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