Dear Lulu,
You have tiny blonde leg hairs. You got your first professional haircut, about five inches off. You're over 41 inches tall. And you’re always negotiating.
In short, you are four and officially a little girl.
This past year is the one your Papa has been waiting for, and I get it. It’s so darn fun. Some mornings I chuckle at the first ten things out of your mouth, one zinger after another, improv comedy at its finest.
Like Papa, I want to freeze you here forever.
This is my fourth "birthday" letter to you...somehow. Time astounds me.
Yes, you’re a negotiator, a strategic business person.
“You can have that for dessert.”
“How about I dust have two bites now, and the rest for dessert?”
(toward the end of a woods hike, we see another trail leading away from the entrance)
“Lulu, this way.”
(wide eyes, coy smile, sneaky tone) “No Papa, this way!”
“Nope. We’re going this way.”“Acksee…weaw goin this way.” (hand beckoning us like small children) “Come on, come on!”
You finally submit with the most dramatic “UGH!!! FINE!” and march to the entrance.
What’s big right now? Imaginary play is HUGE—taking care of your babies, your “gowls” (girls) Anna and Elsa, your stuffed animals. You can play for more than an hour in your pretend—I’m sorry, your “weaw” (real) world. We hear you talking to them, singing to them, telling them to listen and that it’s time to go, playing out your experiences. I’m not sure how I feel about some of your portrayals of the Mama figure. She sounds pretty bossy sometimes. Nah, not bossy. In charge. That’s it.
Sometimes we play “big sisto, liddo sisto” or “little baby and sisto baby.” “Pwetend weow sistos…” Your drawing of Elsa and Anna brings me to tears, your desire for a sibling palpable. Looking at the page of a bedtime book, I say, “Maybe they’re friends, or siblings…” A few beats later, you ask, “What’s a sivling?” I explain, knowing what’s coming. “I wish I had a sivling.”
I choke on guilt.
“Newbohn babies” are big. You’re often a newborn baby, kitten, turtle, butterfly…
“Puppet shows” are off the charts. You sing a little song, using a puppet or simply standing behind your dress-up chest which has become the stage/barrier between you as the performer and us, the audience. Then you come out from behind the chest, take a little bow, and run into the kitchen. I make the mistake of following you once, and you exclaim, “Yo the audience, I’m the play! So you can’t see me when I’m on bweak!”
Some favorite words:
Yeah: Nyeahhhh (How I’ll miss this.)
pitsahmas: pajamas
Gwassawoots
sowpin: sharpen
pitsos: pictures
Sben (Sven, Olaf and Christophe’s friend, still)
Fohdeman (Ferdinand)
Tsoles (Charles)
Baowbie: Barbie (exactly how I used to say it)
So!: Sure! (as in, “Would you like _____?” “Oh! So!” Still going strong with this one.)
I should put on more lip balm because this is lookin funky.
At dinner: How was yo day, family?…My day was about crayons and accessories and plans and rainbows and shoes.
Cwiss cwoss applesauce, spoons in the bowl!
Me: You’re so fast at doing that puzzle!… You: That’s because my spirits tell me to go fast.
Mama, why do we buy ohganic? (The first time you asked, it was “Taughannock”)
Sowwy- I missed some powts. (movie bathroom break)
I didn’t espett that would happen!
Uh oh…I have anotho ankle soh (canker sore).
You get what you get and you don’t tell a fib.
(Watching a movie, you’ve been waiting for a specific part. When it arrives, you get a coy smile on your face and whisper): Dis is da powt.
(hiking Smith Woods) I’m a masto of this!
(frustrated in the car) My name is Wally, not Emmylou. You have lost yo gowrl, Emmylou.
Papa, I know that alweady. I know evewyseeng!
Me: Can I choose? Lulu: You can give me choices! (brilliant)
(Overheard, playing with baby dolls) It’s vewy daynjo-us but Mamas can go there because they don’t mind geddin huwt.
(During every pre-dinner grace the week after Mama and Papa return from our long trip): I’m so naku for Mama and Papa comin back and Mema and Pops leavin.
Cheyenne [a guide/assistant teacher at school] isn’t kind to me…Sometimes she waises ho eyebrows.
Mama, can you help me with this? It’s bein weawy stubbohn
Papa, yo welcome to choose some wocks! (He chooses a few and says he needs to take a shower.) Okay, yeah, take yo showo. You can take yo time!
One morning, you ask to help me put on my eye cream. You stand very close to me and carefully dab it on. Then you say, 100% honestly and kindly, “Mama, I love the popo undo yo eyes!”
You and Papa go head to head:
We’re going this way.
(calm as can be, shaking your head, raised eyebrows) Nope. We’re goin’ this way.
Nope, this way.
Nope, this way. (waving us over) Come on! This way!
A big phrase these days, whenever one of us gets a little upset or asks you to do something or otherwise doesn’t let you completely run the show: “Yo huhdin my feelins!”
An even more recent development is your go-to response of, “Oh...” So simple, yet hysterical.
And your repetition—constantly repeating words and phrases. "We could play a game!"..."Yeah, we could play a game!"..."Let's clean up."..."Let's clean up." It's hysterical. Such a mini grown-up.
Your fairy mailbox is going strong, though you’re getting pickier. You carefully trace all the letters in a note that Papa writes:
Dear Fairies,
Please don’t bring me any more crayons.
Love, Emmylou
You know numbers and love counting. One day, you and Papa are playing monsters. Papa says he’s going to take one of your three eyes. You exclaim, “Then I would have two eyes!” Math genius.
Your gabbing, singing voice is a constant accompaniment to car rides.
You love to carefully put my hair behind my ears and gently play with Mema's hair behind her neck when she holds you.
You have the most precious bouncy walk, always on a mission.
Papa teaches you War (“Wo”), and you love it. A few days later, you shout, “Mama, come hee-o!” You’re sitting on the floor of your room in your underwear, surrounded by a deck of Winnie the Pooh matching cards. You say, “It’s tsus like Wo! Encept you get matches.”
You’re so interested in letters, rattling off more and more phrases like “Apple starts with A…” I ask what different words start with, and you get most of them. (Letters like H and G are tricksters.) I look at the artwork you bring home from school and sometimes every drawing or painting has your name. So stinking cute.
You do so much incredible work at Namaste, no longer the youngest there. You bring home drawings and coloring (such coloring skill, I have to say) and oodles of "metal insets" (tracing metal shapes in preparation for writing). You're more and interested in writing and recently showed us your "cohsive" (cursive) name you traced.
Zaza suggests a drinking game: take a shot every day we see a photo of you making quick bread at school. It happens about three times each week. We also see many photos of you doing fledgling work—the term for the oldest children in the class. Your proud smirk when you explain the "fredgerin wohk" is the best.
We bake together, we sing songs in bed together—one night the entire Baby Beluga song—we snuggle together every morning.
However, fashion keeps a strong hold on your passionate heart. We look forward to the “Big Reveal” every morning. You go into your room, close and lock the door, and proceed to spend 10-20 minutes getting ready. You emerge with a coy-slash-proud look on your face, and we can’t help but give an over-the-top reaction every single time. It’s just too good.
We have an eventful final month in threedom. You stay with Mema and Pops while Papa and I take our longest trip away from you to date: eight days in Paris. I return with COVID (but, of course), and we miraculously manage to contain it to me. How painful to have to mask and maintain my distance when I want to consume you after over a week apart. Still, we persevere—and somehow succeed.
We celebrate your Namaste birthday, Papa and I both teary throughout. First, the general circle song: We ow nake-yo fo eatsuzzo (We are thankful for each other…) Then, you take your walk around the candle “sun”—pausing after each one as I share a photo from that year. You choose a beautiful stone from the basket to hold all the birthday blessings. Several friends say, “I love you, Emmylou.” You pass out the cupcakes we made, with purple smiley faces because we couldn’t purplify the light brown color. Oops. I hope they weren’t disappointing.
On the way home, you say, “Cheyenne didn’t waise ho eyebrows at all today!”
We celebrate at home with Mema and Pops, the Russells, and Amy and Willoughby: tacos and ice-cream, sweet gifts. Among our gifts to you, a Jellycat cat in a cloth basket. You have been eyeing it for months: “Maybe fo my berfday!”
Two days later, we head to Lake George and come full-circle: You the flower girl in cousin Christina’s wedding, as I was the flower girl in Aunt Lisa’s wedding. As we’re leaving, you say, “Can we go back there and visit all those people again?...Can we do everything we did?”
It was a most magical weekend. You successfully did the long walk with Carly and Kurt, holding Kurt’s hand. After the ceremony, you had your first official entrance with them for the reception. He twirled you both, you smiled coyly, and everyone screamed for you. I cannot imagine a more joyful energy. The DJs played one crowd-pleasing song before the first dance, and you FELT. IT. I thought you would enjoy dancing, but I had no idea. The spirit moved you until 10 pm. Complete joy radiating from your grooving body for hours on end—and some surprisingly good dance moves!
You were, in short, the life of the party. Everyone we saw afterward commented on it. At one point, I looked over and you were dancing with someone we didn’t know. The party shot you out of your shell like a cannon. An image forever ingrained in my mind is you dancing, beside yourself, in the middle of a circle to Dancing Queen.
That wedding truly captured you in a nutshell, my often-shy-at-first but mostly full-of-exuberant-light daughter.
Thank you for four years of heart-shattering beauty, unadulterated joy, baldness-inducing challenge, and constant reminders to pause and take it all in.
I love you, my dancing queen.
Love, Your Mama
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