Letter to my Two Year Old

Sorry for the long hiatus. Work has been b-u-s-y. There have been several times when I've wanted to sit down and post, but have been derailed for one reason or another (i.e. the pager goes off, a size 7 foot lands in the middle of the keyboard, children decide they need to be fed, husbands decide they need to be fed. . . you get the idea.) I've been thinking and praying a lot lately on parenting, and decided to start taking pen to paper, as you know that helps me sort things out. Logan, age 2, is just starting to put thoughts and words together into sentences, and I finally feel like we're engaging once in a while. Of course with that comes all of the excitement of "engaging" with a two year old. This morning we're coming off of our first successful bout of a flu bug gone through the house, I spent 2 hours rocking a feverish 15month old yesterday, and this morning the world came crashing down because after Logan asked for a banana, I picked out the wrong one to serve to him. So here's a small glimpse into our lives lately.

Letter to my Two Year Old

Dear child,

First of all, I’m new at this. Up until this point, I think I’ve been delusional, thinking that your behavior and mannerisms were a reflection of my parenting skills. What I didn’t realize was that you were on auto-pilot, and that parenting hasn’t really required much skill. Now however, you are a toddler. You are impressionable. You seem to have developed several opinions, and we frequently seem to disagree.
This parenting thing is stressful. We want to teach you so many things, and we want to help mold you into a healthy, respectful, faithful, smart, successful, compassionate human being. That’s a tall order! We want to do things right. We want to you to be somewhere between spoiled and deprived. We want to set boundaries while letting you test the limits once in a while. Often I feel like we are on completely separate pages, and some days I think I could leave you in “time out” more than “time in.”
I do appreciate the person you’re becoming. I love your demeanor, and you’re such a loveable kid. You adore your sister, and I love watching your relationship develop. You’re smarter than I give you credit for, and your little brain is a sponge, picking up new words and ideas and skills every day.
While I’ll never admit it when you’re older, I have no idea what I’m doing. So here we go, on this journey of parenthood.

I love you with my whole heart and I always will,

Mom


And I imagine, if he could reply, he'd come up with something like this. . .

Dear Mom,

First of all, I’m new at this. Every single day I’m learning more about you and about me and about this crazy world that we live in. Up until this point, I’ve been eating and sleeping and learning to get around. Those things are boring now (which is why I occasionally decide not to eat) and there’s so much to see and do! I get so excited about things and about figuring out how they work, and I just can’t understand why that’s not okay sometimes.
Quit trying so hard. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to teach me everything. Trust me when I tell you that I’m watching everything you do and listening to everything you say. There’s lots I can learn, just by watching you! Remember how sometimes you used to get in trouble with Grandma when you were little? I have to learn some of those things the hard way, too.
Don’t worry Mom, we’ll figure this thing out. While I often try to make the rules (I’ll warn you. . . this is gonna get much worse before it gets better) I need your guidance, and I need you to set limits for me. Sometimes though, I just need you to be completely silly and giggle and tickle me and pretend that there are no rules.

I love you with my whole heart and I always will,
Child