My Favorite Juna Words, Age 2-3

A running list of words that make me smile, laugh, or surprise me the first time I hear them:

bullsdover
old/bad/dead (interchangeable) (the sticker is dead when it doesn't stick anymore)
Ramstutin
lovely
amazing
incredible
wonderful
knick-knack sand (magnetic)
gampa & gamma
polite (taking care of someone well)
don't matter, don't bother ("I don't matter." meaning, I don't care, it doesn't bother me)
I promise
tareful (careful)
Otay
aprised (surprised)
cited (excitied or decided)
cada (cicada)
chiminey
noculars
tool (cool)
interesing
sunscream
invesigating
toot (cute)

Big Love

Does a mother's love just grow and grow
like a hot air balloon being filled
then traveling to where ever it goes?
Over vast lands of amazement
like my baby's head down to her toes?
Watching you grow is like 
the best ride at the amusement park,
the sound of crickets in the night air,
snow falling on my nose,
never-ending musical chairs,
a walk in the park on the perfect sunny day,
the sound of soft rain, or the crash bang
of far away thunder... I wonder
does a mother's love just grow and grow
bigger than the biggest and higher than the highest?

Yelling, Crying, Screaming

Dear Juna,

You turned three.  Coincidence?  You also turned over a new leaf of yelling, crying and screaming, of hitting and kicking and tantrums in stores.  I would ask, is this my child? but you are, you are still my child.  I looked up three year old, and it said, you would be doing this, along with not going to sleep at night, which is when most of the yelling, crying and other stuff happens.  So, I know, you are having a really hard time.  You are struggling.  You are finding your way.  You are learning new things.  You are big and you are still small.  You are older and still young.  I love you just the same.  It is the same for me.  I am struggling.  I hope you love me just the same when I am yelling and crying, things like, "Why won't you go to sleep?"

Love,
Your Mother

Journey Away From Co-sleeping

 A work in progress....

Dear Juna,

You are three years old now.  You have been sleeping with me since the day you were born.  It has been one of the sweetest experiences of my life.  I have loved feeling your warm little body next to mine, hearing you breath peacefully in the night, feeling that you are safe right next to me, being able to respond to you the moment you need me, night nursing, waking to your face on the pillow beside me and morning cuddling.  Now that you are three, your father and I have decided it is time to transition you into your own room and you own bed.  If it were just up to me, I probably would sleep with you for longer, but because there are various factors, I do think it is the best thing to do.  I do think you are ready, or will be by the time the total transition takes place.  It will be a process, as every change and development has been.  

First, we redid your room for your third birthday...

But I also think of you, my little child, in the big bed, in the big room all by yourself, all night long, while the big people, who need no care, are sleeping together in another room, and it kind of doesn't make sense to me.  I also know, this will be a transition for me as well, and that it might be difficult for me to sleep well with you so far away.  I might have to get up during the night to check on you.  This may be completely normal, but I know I also have some over-protective feeling, partly because three children have passed away in our family, and this makes me more nervous about being away from you.

Day 1 - July 28

I just left Juna in her new room, in her big girl bed, reading books to herself. The room isn't completely finishing and I wasn't planning on her transitioning for another week or so, but she said she wanted to go to bed all by herself, read books all by herself, sleep all by herself tonight and not nurse. WOW! That, of course, doesn't mean that it will happen, but it does mean she is excited about it and her new found independence in her big girl room!

Two minutes later... I didn't think to turn on her nightlight, so she read her books, then turned off her light and found herself in the dark (she is used to sleeping in the dark, but in her hew room, she is going to have a night light). So she came out to get me.  Then she wanted to try sleeping in her loft, which I did not foresee.  It has a sleeping bag but not the foam mattress yet.  She climbed in, I left her nightlight on, and two minutes later she came out to tell me she wanted to sleep in the big bed with me.

 Day 2 - July 29

Well, the bedtime routine just got a lot longer.  Juna's been having a difficult time falling sleep the last two weeks.  First it was just taking longer (usually takes 20-30 minutes but started gradually taking up to fifty minutes) and then for three days she was screaming and crying (about going to bed, then when I stopped nursing her), until last night when she went to sleep fine but still took a while.  So, not a great time to be adding to our bedtime routine.  

Our usual routine is long enough and goes like this: 

8:15 - 10 minutes of TV (8:00 if bath)

8:30 - Jammies on, potty time, brush teeth

8:45 - Read books

9:00 - 9:20 - Lights out, What we did today? (review & preview), nursing & songs

9:20 - 9:30 - Roll over and fall asleep (except this is taking until 9:50 or so these days)

Now, we are adding in:

8:45 - 9:10 - Practicing going to sleep in own bed, practicing sleeping in loft, going into big bed

So, she wanted to try again.  Own bed, loft, then big bed.  This transitioning is exhausting.

August 13

Juna and I have been sleeping in her bed for 3 nights with no trouble.  The last step was getting a new air conditioner for her room.  I still need to fix the window so it is dark in there, that has been a pain.  Of course, it is a real pain sleeping in her little twin bed with her... the first night we just had the cheap thin mattress on it and I woke felling so sore and awful, but I put a big blanket and mattress cover on it and it is a little better.  Juna loves her new room and likes sleeping in her own bed.  She had been under the impression that it meant her sleeping alone, and she was having some trouble with that, of course, she has no problem with me sleeping with her.

Holy Cow! You Are Three!

My dearest Juna Finn, today you turn three years old
and we have had three lovely, sweet, inspiring years
together, full of smiles and happiness, tears and falls,
challenges for both of us, and we have weathered them
together.  I truely can not believe that it has been three years
since the birth of you, since the first time I held
your new little body and looked into your eyes, since
my heart over-flowed for the first time of many
hundreds of times during all of the moments of
watching you grow so beautifully.

Then You Were Two

Two

                                                       July 2013

For the first few months of 2, I thought, mistakenly,
"Maybe we won't go through what they term the "terrible twos"?  
Ahhh, and then, there it was.  "Hello TWO."

One of the times of greatest change,
absolutely awe inspiring and
painfully challenging at the same time

However tough it is on us, we remind ourselves,
it is tougher on them, and that we should take a lesson
from how easily and quickly they CAN recover
from the immensity of the intensity
of new and confusing emotions
as they navigate this complex world
with all of the new skills they are learning
and honing every minute of every day

You are 2
and you are absolutely amazing
in all of the things that you do

                                         5 days to 3

Because You Have Emotions and They Are Real

I can not say NEVER,
because I know it is something
that I have done,
and that I will do it again,
and I apologize,
but I promise to try
to listen to, validate and respond
accordingly to your feelings,
instead of dictating what they should be.
You are a child, you are young,
you do not have all of the language yet
to identify, understand or express
all of those very strong emotions
that you have, and it is my job
to help you learn how to.
You are a child
and this does not mean
that your emotions do not count,
that they should be ignored
just because you do not have the words
to explain them, or because
they are so big, you can not contain them,
that they are not REAL
just because they seem "over-the-top"
to the adults around you who have learned
to "control" or dull their own feelings.
I do not want to teach you that
some feelings are GOOD and some are BAD
that some are RIGHT and some are WRONG,
I don't want to applaud your unbridled excitement,
your exuberant joy, your uncontainable love
and then frown upon your anger,
your frustration, your fear, your sadness,
because all feelings have a place
and all feelings are valid,
and you will feel them all in your life
and that is as it should be.

Because it is my job
to help you identify your feelings
I will try not to confuse
what you learn about the world
by telling you that what you feel
is the WRONG way to feel,
with statements like, "Oh, that doesn't hurt."
or "That's not something to cry about."
because it may hurt and if you are crying,
then for you, it IS something to cry about,
because it is not my job to TELL you HOW to feel,
it is my job to help you understand how you feel,
to process those strong emotions and
learn how to communicate them.
I do not want to confuse your learning process
by telling you that you are NOT feeling sad
when you are feeling sad.

Because I do not want to teach you
not to feel, not to express your feelings,
and not to be able to talk about them,
or that what you feel is WRONG
because someone else thinks
you should not feel the way you do,
I want you to be confident in your own feelings
and not let anyone dictate your feelings to you.
Because I do not want to teach you
to feel ashamed, embarrassed, or silly
for feeling what you feel.

I want you to have a voice.
I want you to feel powerful.
I want you to feel confident and proud.