Sock It To Me

Dear Mackenzie,

I always know that there is a toddler in the house when I constantly find little toddler socks scattered around every room. There is just something about toddlers and their sudden need to take off their socks and leave them wherever they are. Just this morning, I found pairs of your socks in the living room, in JieJie's room and in the attic!

Love,

Mom

Awesome Autumn Day

Dear Mackenzie,

Just four months after you were born, the coronavirus arrived in the United States and the entire country had to go into lockdown and shelter in place for a looooong time. Instead of leaving for school every morning, your older siblings were suddenly home all day, every day and the two of us no longer had our quiet weekdays alone together. I loved that you had more time to bond with your brothers and sister (and I didn't mind the help when I had to do housework) but I did miss our one-on-one bonding time. Fast forward to this fall when your siblings returned to in-person school and you and I once again have seven daily hours of Mama-Mackenzie time. I am so grateful that we can have this quiet time together again, especially since you will (already!) be starting nursery school next fall.

Today was especially nice. It was an unusually warm November day (we didn't even need jackets) so I ignored the huge piles of laundry in the hampers and the layer of dust on the furniture and took you out for a walk after breakfast. We went to a few stores and then to a nearby park where I loooooved watching you play in the leaves all afternoon! You were so cute and full of joy as you ran through the leaves, kicking them around and giggling while jumping up and down in them. Your peals of laughter as I chased you around the park were also so heartwarming--and reminded me of a similar warm, sunny November afternoon when I chased a 2-year-old JieJie around the same park and heard the same heartwarming peals of laughter.

One of the cute/sad things about our walk, though, is that you insisted on wearing a mask. You didn't have to wear a mask because you just turned 2 and we were outdoors most of the time but you always see your parents and siblings put masks on before leaving the house, so I guess you didn't want to be left out. You were actually really good about keeping it on but it fell on the ground during our walk. I picked it up and obviously didn't give it back to you to wear and you got upset, crying "Mah! Mah!" Luckily, I was able to distract you with the leaves in the park.

I had such a fun day with you today!

Love,

Mom

Big Steps

Dear Mackenzie,

After I finish bathing you, I pick you up out of the tub, wrap your towel around you, dry you off and carry you to your changing table to put on a clean diaper and pajamas. But now that you are a whole two years old, I guess you are too big to be carried. For the past couple of days, after I dry you off, you insist on "wah wah"--you want to hold your towel around you and walk to your room. And so I let you. I walk behind you and all I can see is the back of your hooded towel and your chubby toddler legs scampering toward your room--you look so friggen cute! But it is, of course, bittersweet because you are that much more of a big girl and that much less my baby.

Love,

Mom

You're Two Years Old!

Dear Mackenzie,

The baby of our family is no longer a baby! Happy 2nd birthday, Kenziebear!

You are growing so quickly and I am trying to drink in everything about you these days because I know how fleeting this chubby, playful, funny, innocent, unfiltered toddler stage is. For instance, I sat next to you on your floor a few nights ago and watched you pretend to mix things for a good 10 minutes. You had set out 10 plastic cups in front of you and you picked up one after the other and pretended to mix something in each one with your plastic green ice cream spoon. You look so focused and content and I was legit entertained just watching you play as only a mother could be!

You are the cutest two-year-old! I love your chubby cheeks, dimpled hands and beefy legs. I love the dimple in your right cheek and your joyful giggles. I love the way your eyes light up when you see me. I love how excited you get when you see anything related to Frozen and how you exclaim, "Anna! Anna! ANNA!" over and over again. I also love how "Anna" seems to be a catchall for any princesses you see. And sometimes when we watch the news, you point to the female news anchors and say "Mama," so "Mama" seems to be a catchall for women . . . unless you think I look like Savannah Guthrie! 

You are wearing size 2T clothes and size 6 diapers. You grew a whole five inches since your last birthday and it feel as if you gained 10 pounds in just the past week--I used to be able to carry you easily up and down the stairs but now you suddenly feel a lot denser and I can't hold you as effortlessly. You are learning how to say so many new words, including knock knock, arf arf (what you say for "dog"), me, mine, cold, hot, mall (small), egg-uh (egg), boyel (bottle), uppah (up), light, Bar-ee (Barbie), fa fa (flower), mote (remote), hold, bite, gate, on, off, back, eat, noonoo (noodle) and Ernie (and you growl when talking about Cookie Monster). And this isn't technically a word but when something is gross, you say "eeee-EW!" You are also stringing multiple word sentences together more often, such as "Dada home," "PoiPoi go" and even "GuhGaw me out gate" (translation: GuhGaw opened the gate and let me out.").

You are so expressive and animated. When the rest of us are laughing a lot about something, you cover your mouth and laugh really hard along with us. If, say, a box falls over, you put your hands on your cheeks and shout, "Oh NO!" And you have so many other cute mannerisms. You faux-sing songs from the Frozen soundtrack, "Elmo's Song" and the alphabet song. You gasp when you hear "Levitating," "Beautiful Mistakes" and "Kings and Queens" and immediately wave your fingers in the air and start dancing. You ask me to play "Levitating" on my iPad by saying "Oh oh oh oh." You point to things with your middle finger. When I hand you your milk bottle, you tap it to your wrist (which you call your elbow) just like you've seen me do so many times to check the milk temperature (and sometimes, you even refuse to drink the milk unless you've made sure I've tested some on my wrist). You growl when you see dinosaurs, wrap your arm around my neck as you fall asleep next to me and get scared when I use the blender and cling to my leg whenever I turn it on. You like it when I read to you but more often, you take a book, hand me another book and prefer that we look at our own books while sitting together.

You also like to help me with the laundry, whether it is folding it or putting it in the dryer. When you see me taking clothes out of the washer, you stand behind me and hold your arms out for me to give them to you. And I forgot to blog about this when it happened, but a few months ago, I had put a stack of clothes you had outgrown on top of your dresser. It fell onto the floor and when you saw it, you started folding each piece of clothing by first taking an individual item, laying it carefully on the floor, smoothing out any wrinkles . . . and then crumpling it into a ball and putting it in a pile. Hahaha! I love how you were so attentive with each piece of clothing just to ball it up in the end anyway.

You constantly impress me with your independence and the way you insist on doing things by yourself by saying, "Do! Do! Do!" You constantly make me feel grateful that you came into my life. And you constantly make me happy by being you! Happy birthday, little girl! I love you so much!

Love,

Mom