Just Like That

Before she was born I often wondered how it would be possible that I would love another child as much I loved my first born, how another child could take over my heart in that same way.  But as soon as I saw her, all screaming red mad, nearly 10 pounds of feisty girl opinion, I adored Eva.  And when she snuggled up to my chest and her wet, warm little head melted against my skin I knew it was possible to love more than one child with all my heart.

Last weekend I was in the kitchen cleaning (don’t so many of my blog posts start this way?) and I heard water running in the bathroom. I turned the corner to see Eva sitting on the toilet, her little butt pressed onto the potty seat and her chubby feet resting on the stool.  She had seen Sammy sit like this dozens of times, and while I was cleaning she had piled her black stretch pants and her dry diaper on the rug and placed the stool and the potty seat and crawled up to go potty all by herself.

When I told Jamie she suggested big girl underwear might be a good birthday present, and here we are two years after, as Sam says, “the doctor cut Eva out of your belly.”  Two years.  Just like that. 

We walked in to Gunderson Lutheran today to visit the pediatrician for her two-year well visit and Eva strutted through the doors and announced “I want see birdies.”  How she remembered the little aviaries set up throughout the clinic I do not know, but my highly verbal, independent, opinionated two-year-old lights up my life every single day. 

“I do it,” she says when I try to buckle her car seat.

“I want other shoes,” she says when I try to put on her blue shoes and she wants the black shoes.

“I no like ‘cado,” she says when I place dinner in front of her.  “I like ‘matoes.  I like ‘matoes, no cut.”

“Sammy no like bananas,” she says when I hand her breakfast in the morning.  “I like bananas.  Sammy no like bananas.”

“Kids no have it,” she says when she gets out of the car at Jamie’s in the morning carrying an apple slice or a Ritz cracker.

“Look mom,” she says as she stands on the arm of the couch and imitates her brother.  “I no careful.  Look mom.  I no careful.”

“I too little,” she laughs as she gets up from a face-plant into the carpeting because she sometimes thinks she can do everything her big brother does and living room gymnastics are part of his daily routine.

Every day with Eva brings new surprises that make me laugh, and when she and I read a book and rock together for a quick ten minutes alone before bedtime every night I sometimes want to slow it all down, pay more attention, memorize her face and her laugh and her adorable little voice before everything changes.

Two years.  Just like that.