Forty-One (41!) Months with Alvie Bean
My dearest Alvie,
This is the first letter I’ve written you since you turned three. I’ve really fallen down on the job, haven’t I?
I decided to write today for a couple of reasons.
- You are crazy and I need to write about all the things I love about you so I can look back on this and not sell you to the traveling carnival
- You started your new preschool today and did much, much better than I’d feared.
First day of school: Lightning McQueen shirt and introduced himself as his hero: Captain Barnacles
You are crazy. Seriously. You have the attention span of a fruit fly and the focus of a…very focused creature. Your hearing is incredibly selective, and your will is very, very strong.
Everything is orange.
You still hate most new foods. You love cheese sandwiches, pizza, cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, tater tots, french fries, cereal and most fruits. You despise anything that even begins to resemble a vegetable. You won’t eat mac ‘n’ cheese because you are obviously insane.
You love to garden but refuse to eat any of the fruits – errr vegetables – of your labor
You’re obsessed with Octonauts. You generally introduce yourself to new people as “Captain Barnacles. Your teacher at your former daycare gave you a going away card with the Octonauts drawn on it and you’ve slept with it every night.
Thanks, Teacher Sydney!
You are so smart. TOO smart. You like to tell people where their medulla oblongata is. You get frustrated when you cannot pronounce multi-syllabic words properly. You told me the other day that you had a large vocabulary. It’s all true. You’ve begun to memorize your favorite books and are recognizing words that aren’t attached to symbols. You try to write your own name, but don’t get very far, and that frustrates you.
Always with your nose in a book.
Everything frustrates you, in fact. Nap time is incredibly frustrating. Bed time doubly so. Foods that aren’t the right foods at the right time. Clothes that aren’t in the right place. Too much help. Not enough help. Everything.
Your life – it is so hard
You’re a fantastic helper when you want to be. You feed the cats every day, generally with very little prompting. You like to help me pick up (sometimes) or set the table (when you feel like it) or do laundry (unless it’s interrupting some Octonaut viewing).
I help you exercise! I am so strong.
You are so very friendly and open, but also endearingly shy from time to time.
This is not one of those times.
You are also very, very three. Oh, the willfulness! The temper! There has never been another human being who has frustrated me so quickly and so thoroughly. There’s also been another human being who has so quickly melted my heart.
I give you a flower because you are pretty and so is the flower.
I am very much looking forward to you calming down a bit. A lot, actually. But I love reading with you, and our brief snuggles, and how much you know about everything. I love touring the garden with you and I love that no matter how many times I correct you, you insist on calling tomatoes potatoes.
Tiny gardener
I could do without the throwing of stuff and the yelling, but if that’s what I have to put up with to get the snuggles and the “I love you, Kwazii Mommy,” I’ll take it.
You’ll always be the coolest.
Such a cool dude.
Love, Mommy (aka Kwazii the one-eyed pirate cat)
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