Dear Olivia,

We have slightly less than 2 weeks before the imminent arrival of your new sibling.  I’m trying to take in every moment that is left of just you and me before things get awfully nutty around here.  I’m doing my best despite being the most exhausted I have ever felt in my life.  I feel like you have grown up leaps and bounds this past month and I constantly receive the comforting news how you will most likely act like a monster once the baby arrives.  Thanks, that’s really the reassurance I want to hear right now.  How about people just humor me and tell me everything will be a dream.  I much rather prefer to be naive. 

We were successful in transitioning you to a big bed which turned out to be a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I had this vision of dragging your screaming body several times at night back to your bed just to have you jump back out and run to my room.  Worse, I thought you would be roaming the house by yourself and I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking we were being robbed just to find you downstairs getting into drawers.  Your transistion was actually quite uneventful.  I told you to stay in your bed until morning – you could only get out if you had to use the potty.  You cried for about 2 minutes and then sat in your bed talking to your dolls.  15 minutes later you were sleeping.  You greeted us in our room the next morning at 7am with dry pants and this has been the scenario for the past 2 weeks.  I’m telling you, I get quite worried when things turn out to be so simple.  I feel this is a calm before the storm or I’m in for a rought time during your teenage years.  I feel nobody ever has it that easy.

I still think you’re one damn hilarious kid.  You pick up on habits and words so quickly that we really do have to watch ourselves around you now.  If you hear a phone ringing, you instantly put your hand up to your ear and yell ‘hello!’  You then proceed to have your own conversation with your hand that can last as long as 5 minutes.  You make the most random expressions and I swear sometimes you’re mocking me.  You’re obsessed with finding the moon each night and typically I can’t get you to settle down until we see it or I at least tell you the moon is sleeping.

Potty training is still my relentless fight with you.  Although your obsession with stickers is working in my favor.  We give you stickers when you go poop in the potty and you squeeze one out at every chance you get so you can receive your sticker du jour.  We really have to record you because you become a super sonic psycho midget when you make #2 in the potty.  You’re screaming stick stick STICKER while I’m trying to hold my breath at the monster truck driver poopie you laid out before me.  You’re pulling me and screaming in my ear while I’m trying to bend over and clean up the toxic waste spill.  We do this a couple days because you will do anything for that wee little sticker you will destroy in less than 5 minutes.  Whatever works, eh?

We just wrapped up your second birthday party a couple days ago which your father took over and made in to a Philadelphia themed party.  I recently read that the purpose of throwing children parties is to remind yourself that other people’s kids are far worse than your own and that really couldn’t ring more true.  Of course for the second straight year in a row, your birthday fell on the hottest day of the year.  We had a house full of people and it really did turn out to be a splendid time but next year I think I’m just taking you to Disneyland or something.  2 weeks before my due date was pushing it for me to host a party of that magnitude.  Not to say it was large by any means but I think standing for more than 5 minutes in a Starbucks line is exhausting.  You did receive your first kitchen set which you are loving.  This is very good news to me because you will stay upstairs playing while I’m downstairs enjoying the reprieve of hearing “MOMMA!” every 30 seconds.  Now I just hear it every 2 minutes.

Your favorite word is still ‘no’ and your favorite phrase of the moment is ‘you’re welcome.’  Typically it is used after we tell you we love you.  We say “I love you Olivia” and you respond with “you’re welcome.”  At least you’re a polite child – I really can’t argue that.  I’m second guessing the whole Gymboree thing after I witnessed a horrible boy push you so hard you almost flew off a seat.  You looked at me with an expression that asked, “Momma, was what just happened normal?”  I was about to grab that little brat by the hair when his mother swooped in and dragged him to the opposite side of the room.  At that moment I was suddenly whacked across the head with the idea that bad things could potentially happen to you and I won’t be there to protect you.  One of a mother’s worst nightmares for sure.  I might have a tough time as you get older – just to warn you now.

I am shocked that I have a 2 year old.  Time really has gone by too fast.  We have a lot ahead of us and some of it will be good and some will be not so good.  Know that I love you more than anything even when I’m screaming at you “IN A MINUTE!”  I mean those words with nothing but love.  I’m curious how you will accept your new sibling and whether these past 2 years have just been a honeymoon period. I’m going to wrap this up before the mood of this letter takes a turn for the worse because at the moment you’re driving me nuts screaming some randon blurb over and over again.  I love you O-bear and I’m damn proud of the little person you’re becoming.  I like to take majority of the credit for this 🙂

Love,

Momma