Dear Kiddo, Bubba, and Charley,

On a monthly basis, I have plenty of honorable intention to sit down and write each of you a letter. I don’t like making excuses, but I can honestly say that life gets in the way. Charley starts crying, dinner needs to be cooked, or Bubba and Kiddo end up in an “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt” spat. My days seem full of tears and angst and time-outs, whiny voices saying things over and over and OVER, but I have got to tell all three of you: I LOVE THOSE DAYS.

Every day there is a “little moment”. A precious little sliver of time that makes me stop, and smile, and wish I could take a mental pictures. I know I can’t, though. I KNOW I will forget, so I whip out my iPhone and snap something with that. My iPhone is laden with memories, photos, and video clips of you guys.

The little moments are different for each of you. Lately, for Kiddo, it’s been almost complete sentences. Kiddo, yesterday you pulled a chair over to the light switch, flipped it on, and then hollered at me (three times) “Light is ON?” In the car, you spotted a “green bus” and an “orange bus” on the drive home, and also informed me when Charley had fallen asleep by redundantly stating “baby night”. I told you to say “garage” when you were saying something about my car, and you said it! You can say “cookie” clear as a bell. And then you took my phone and played Peekaboo Barn, listing every animal by name: cow, duck, horse, mouse, and my favorite, wabbit. One caveat to that list: I guess you can’t say chicken because when the picture of the chicken came up, you said “egg”. Close enough.

Kiddo, you LOVE your Thomas trains. Every morning, it’s the first box you go after as soon as you wake up. You ask us, “Trains with YOU? Trains with YOU?” inviting us to play with you. Sometimes you’ll add another sentence: “Trains with YOU? And ME?” It’s precious. Also slightly amusing, when you burp, and I tell you to say “excuse me”, you say “thank you” instead. At least you’re figuring out the manners thing.

Bubba, you do this darling thing where you back up to plant yourself on my lap when I’m sitting on the floor with you. You are precious, and sweet, and such a huggable, charming little fellow. You are saying a ton of words, and catching up to your brother so quickly. Every time you see a shoe, you announce that shoe as if you were presenting it to the Queen: “SOO!” You’ll say “all done” and “all gone” and yesterday you attempted a “thank you”. You HATE being left behind, if Kiddo gets to leave without you. Your poor head is still off the charts (over 100 percentile) and it really doesn’t balance out with your skinny little body, but you eat like a horse, almost anything we put in front of you. You get into EVERYTHING, and don’t seem to understand the word “no”. Precocious! And you mimic Kiddo exactly, standing in front of the TV and directing me to select the video of your choice by pointing with your little chubby finger, and then nodding ferociously no matter what I select.

And Charley. Charley, how on earth are you two months old? Stop growing! Last night you slept from 10:00 until almost 6:00. That’s awesome! Keep doing that. And you squeal. I think it’s because you already know that you’re the little sister, and by golly, you’ve got to keep up with those brothers making a rucus over there. Kiddo was a non-talking baby. We could barely get him to coo. Bubba cooed ALL the time, a completely chatty little thing. But you squeal, talking to the world and telling us ALL about it.

Kids, life is crazy right now. I can’t get everything done in a day that I used to, but I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve loved spending time with you all, and even though the hours can seem to stretch out forever, the days are flying by. I can’t savor them fast enough.

Love you all, SO SO MUCH,
Momma