26 Months Old
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Dear Carlita,
My darling daughter, you had your first vaccination on the 18th. Your dad took you on his own to your 2 year well baby checkup, and he said everything went fine until you had to have your shot. He was very upset that you were upset - in a way I am glad I did not have to witness your delicious toddler thighs being so savagely violated, and the resulting tears and upset - but he also said that within minutes of having had the shot you went straight back to being your usual cheerful self.
There was nothing to comment on, you are as healthy as ever! You are within all the limits of what goes for “normal” these days, and besides being on track physically you are also catching up to the terrible two’s reputation of, well, being your own little person and wanting to do things on your own despite not having the fine motor skills required to perform whatever task you simply have to do. By yourself. Or you’ll JUST DIE, and what should have been a death rattle when you get this upset is instead a silent vortex until your lungs catch enough breath to stop a furious moose dead in it’s tracks with something that can only be described as “siren like”.
You did end up with a fever a couple of days after getting your jab, and maybe that is when you got spooked by something in the night.
On the night of the 29th you had one of your first real night terror.You have been scanning the bedroom now lately before going to bed, to make sure you know what every dark shadow is before lying down and relaxing. It has been awful to see you so distressed about this, but I am pretty sure this is something that you’re supposed to go through at your age. I had you curled up in my armpit, with the milky lava lamp on, the radio playing softly that night and it’s the first time in a really long time that the two of us were snuggled closely together while you drifted off to sleep. I cherished every single second of it.
You are in such a hurry these days, so that if I’m making you a sandwich on the kitchen counter you have to come check what is taking me so damn long to present this sandwich to you, so you go about the house to find your little blue chair and drag it all the way back to the kitchen so that you might climb it and see, with your own two eyes, that I’m doing it right. By the time you get the chair to the kitchen counter I am usually finished making whatever I was making, but you will have none of it because you want to SEE it being made, but only because it took me so damn long in the first place.
You no longer want to hold my hand when we’re out walking. It makes me both nervous, because you focus your eyes on where you want to go and the rest of the world could be desert mirages for all you care, and it makes my heart hurt just a tiny bit because my baby.. She is growing up so fast.
Sweetheart.. I will let you in on a secret. I read a lot of blogs. And every once in a while I’ll come across a post where someone says “My parents never understood me” or anything to that effect, and something inside me dies every time. I am so SCARED that you will grow up feeling like your dad and I don’t know you, or don’t understand you, or don’t appreciate you for exactly the person that you are and not someone we wish you were. You are exactly who we want you to be just by being you. But should you ever FEEL as if we don’t understand you, I still NEED you to know that we love you no matter what. Unconditionally.
Always and forever.
