To Babybel on the Occasion of Being Forty-Five Months Old and To Danjo on the Occasion of Being Twenty-Five Months Old

Dearest Daughters,

I think it’s safe to say that Danjo has mastered the English language. And not just words—nouns and animal noises. You speak in full sentences, just as I had predicted you would. Nay, you communicate in full sentences.

That is to say, when you’re surly or feel somehow slighted by something I or Bel said, you make certain that we dare not look or utter a word in your direction: “don’t talka to me!” Then the “thousand yard stare” Lolopop calls it; "she’s dejected" I like to say.

You quickly come around.

“I nee that! I neeeeee that,” you’ll cry out when Bel has the yellow marker that will clearly enable you to finish your scribbled masterpiece.

“I don wan tha, Mommy,” you’ll declare as you push the carrots off of your plate.

“I wan a-go with you!” you’ll demand slash implore as I put my shoes on to leave. “I wan a go a run too!?” you’ll plead.

“I have a go home,” you explained to Lolopop the other day, as we left Fried Rice Night to come home and take a bath. This was after you told Lola, “I wan a shoda” (soda) or “em an ems” (M&Ms) or a “matchmako” (marshmallow, duh.)

You’ve always known how to communicate your needs, wants, desires, with what little gestures and capacity you had. And words have made things worse, I mean, better! Right?

Then there’s Bel, who has so many words, hundreds of words. You say new words every day. You have entire books memorized.

And, yet, it’s always so difficult for you to express what you’re feeling.

Or even what you’re thinking. Sometimes I grow so impatient waiting for you to finish sentences. And I know it’s not because you don’t have the words or the intellect; it’s because your mind, like mine, is moving at a million miles per hour, figuring and calculating, measuring and judging and sometimes you just don’t know what word should come next.

You’ve grown more physical about expressing your feelings. And that’s just a euphemism for hitting, flailing, scratching, throwing markers, crumpling paper, etc.

And, oh dear me, does it take all my strength and sanity and grown-up-ness to not throw that wad of paper back at you.

We continue with emotional coaching... “I know you’re mad. I know you’re SO mad at me right now. But, it is not okay to throw things,” and I want to say, “GO TO YOUR ROOM FOR A MILLION BILLION YEARS!” but you’re usually already hysterically clambering into your closet to cry and hide and beat me to the punch by punishing me for a million years, first!

Note to Bel: I don’t feel punished by your absence when you’re acting like a—possibly rabid—certainly very angry caged ape of some sort—a poop slinging gorilla or those annoying howler monkeys or those tiny squirrel ones that out of nowhere jump onto the cage right in front of your face and start shaking the enclosure bars like there's no tomorrow.

In terms of this, your monthly letter, I suppose it’s also important to add that you’re becoming quite the manang, or older sister.

When it strikes your fancy, when no one is looking, when it’s most likely that you’ll get your bossy way—you are very kind to your sister. You try to teach Danjo things, like how to draw a rainbow. Or explain things, like why Daddy’s leaving (“because he has to go to work, Yelly; that’s where he does his job”) or the difference between a garbage truck and a street sweeper. You persist in your educational efforts despite the fact that by the time your explanation is done, Danjo has left the room, climbed up to the art/kitchen table and scribbled through a few thousand pieces of paper--which is something she does with about 87% of her waking hours.

Bel, you are also creative. And, of course, I encourage open-ended art and play. So, most of your little backpacks and bags are packed to go on exotic vacations and pirate adventures. You’ve mastered the use of the tape dispenser, so there are a half-dozen pop-up art galleries in our house—behind the door, next to the television, under the piano for your “baby cousin so when she comes she can see it.”

Danjo, you're also a very considerate child. Any time someone coughs or sneezes, you sweetly ask, “you okay, [insert name here]?”

We visited an elder member of our church recently who is confined to a wheel chair. You were okay with Grandma Anna until she started rolling around in her chair. You climbed into my lap, observing and slightly taken aback by the rolling person/contraption. And when she put her oxygen tubes in her nose, I thought you’d certainly run for the hills. But, you didn’t. You just stood there, at a distance, yes. But, then you finally asked, “you okay, Gramma Anna?”

You are a loving creature. Unfortunately, much of your loving gestures come after displays of, hmmm, shall we say very un-loving behavior?

You still hit, mostly your sister. You pull hair, mostly your sister’s. You grab toys, mostly your sister's. Anything to set her off, terrorizing her, often bullying her as she whimpers and is still figuring out how to not be bullied, terrorized, to not let you get a rise out of her.

And it’s my job, when I’m paying attention, to let you know what parts of your behavior are unacceptable and to teach you remorse and how to seek forgiveness—basically to prevent you from turning into a sociopath.

I never have to ask you twice to apologize. But, I think you’re a sociopath anyway. You are willing and eager to give your sister hugs and to say sorry. Like you didn’t just, um hello? PUNCH YOUR SISTER IN THE FACE. What. The. Heck?

You do tend to run pretty hot and cold and hot and cold, within moments, but STILL who does that? Wrongs someone one moment and in the next gives them a hug? Sociopaths, I tell you.

Perhaps, you see the hug-kiss-and-sorry as your hall pass, your free ticket. You know that you can basically do whatever you want to your sister and it’ll be totally fine as long as you pucker up.

Truly, you are a loving child. And funny. I don’t know how to explain it. You just give funny looks. And smile and laugh and it’s contagious. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m laughing at or why, I just know that you make the people around you feel wonderful.

Lolopop gave you your first haircut. And you tell everyone about it, pointing to your head, “Hay-cut! Hay-cut!” Thank God, the baby mullet is gone, but it makes you look like a kid. And it accentuates those mischievous looks. And makes me sad that you’re growing up so quickly, repeating phrases left and right, growing like a weed (of smaller-statured-Malay-descent, but a weed nonetheless)!

And so is Bel. Sometimes your daddy confuses your clothes and squeezes Bel into Danjo’s clothes. And I start to cry because your clothes don’t fit you and you must have grown six inches over night. But, then I check your tags that read 2T and decide I don’t need shot of vodka after all.

Bel, you’ve always been very independent. I recall a phase where I wriggled in my patience pants, waiting everyday for you to put on your own clothes, your own shoes.

Now, you test my patience, because you’ve regressed to “needing” my help to get dressed, to put your shoes on, to brush your teeth. Okay, I should probably be helping you brush your teeth. But, the other stuff. There’s all these things that I know you can do, but you play helpless.

And you’re only three (despite all your concocting of “my next birthday” plans) and you're still my baby. So, I play along.

Meanwhile, Danjo has begun to obediently put her own shoes on when I say we’re leaving soon.

Danjo, you have also begun to assert opinions about your shoes, your clothes, what you consider to be fashionable. You love wearing your “mina” which is what you call your “ballerina” dresses—which are less like ballet apparel and more like anything with a good spin to it.

Now, I don’t generally go around correcting my children’s language and grammar. I know a parent’s corrections have little effect on a child’s acquisition of a language—they learn more from listening to me talk in context, to them or to other adults.

But, in spite of my subtle suggestions, e.g. “You ballerina dress looks lovely!” you still call it your mina. And trains are evermore "choo choos," except for "Thomas a Train" because clearly to be a real train you have to be anthropomorphized, boring and pretentious.  And you call the doorbell a “ding dong.” And at dinner you ask for “bubble guppies” which is really a television show, but which we all understand to be your word for “bubble water” or San Pellegrino.

I guess you both share that in common. Your insistence. Your willfulness. Whether it is Danjo’s passionate conviction that toothbrushes are called “eeeees.” Or whether it is Bel’s always observant, sometimes logical, ever profoundly-held assertions about her own reality, like that when you were two you never cried or that “Mommy, you’ve never been camping,” when, dude, I TOTALLY have, but there's no point in arguing. You both are so self-assured, already so certain that you are living your own lives on your own terms.

And I guess I’ll just sit over here, in the corner, watching, supplying the scotch tape and bubble guppies.

Love you no matter what,

Comments

[terry bandy]

Hello, this weekend is nice in favor of me, as this moment i am reading this wonderful informative piece of writing here at my home.

[amy]

Love, LOVE your writing, as usual!

I still have to put on my patience pants to wait for Lindsay to finish what she's saying. She "overthinks her speech" according to the specialists at school. And yes, she is getting special ed (I am sorry to say I freaked a little when the process was finally complete and I realized that was what it was) which helps her in MANY ways.
We gave it 12 years, but there were some things that just didn't work themselves out.
I don't have any regrets--she's getting help she needs. I think with some kids, things like this work themselves out over time, and with some, they don't.
I think part of it is a NEED to be perfect. A fear that what she is saying isn't going to be exactly what she is thinking or wants you to understand. Part of the ongoing dialogue with her is to relax and get on with it, not to get too "inside her own head" about what she's telling you.
I know at three, that's not Bel's issue...it just rang a familiar bell with me.
I think having a little sister like Yelly will make a world of difference for her, too.