Hey Mom, Look! My Pants Light Up!

Maliana ~
Whew! I feel like we’ve been treading a sea of holiday madness. We had a blast though, and while it’s sad to see it end, I am looking forward to getting back to some semblance of normalcy in the New Year. However, not before recapping our shenanigans from this past week.

After the Christmas fervor had died down, we had a few days of relative calm this past week. During those quieter and everyday moments of our life, we all have the opportunity to relax and your little personality brings hilarity to even the most mundane tasks. Currently, you are in a copycat phase. It is particularly cute as you can see below.

washing your face like Mommy

trying on Mommy's sports bra

fixing the fridge filter with Daddy (shirtless like Daddy, of course)

3D movie glasses with Audrey Ayi

These quiet moments also bring some great conversations between you and me. You have the ability to chat up a storm, about all sorts of things. I love hearing your stories and lately, you have been very much into telling me about your “step-mom” or “step-dad” or brothers and sisters. I think you’re getting the “step” stuff from some of our friends who are stepparents, as well as from conversations about my own stepparents, and somehow mixing it with ideas about your birth family. Interestingly enough, sometimes you tell me that they have died and are in Heaven. Other times you tell me they are in China or Florida (not sure where you get Florida as a frame of reference because we haven’t taken you to Florida yet). You even pretend to show me pictures of them in your play cell phone. I try to keep asking you questions to stoke your imagination. I’m not exactly sure how to handle this properly though. I just know I want to keep the doors of communication open about ALL of your family. Soon enough, there is going to be real pondering, real questions, and real gaps you will have to fill in with your own story as you see fit. I just hope you always feel safe bringing it to your Dad and me.

And as for questions, you have been coming up with many other more benign ones lately too. You are especially good at doing it when trying to deflect attention from yourself when you’re in trouble. For example, I was asking about a difficulty you’d had at school one day when you looked at me and cocked your head, asking, “Mommy, why are little girls little, and grownups big?” Hmmm…nice try kid. Ha ha.

Speaking of trouble at school, while you don’t get in it that often, you have had your moments throughout the holidays (likely due to lack of a normal sleep schedule). As hard as it is to hear that you’ve struggled at school, the silver lining is that you get very upset and tear up when being reprimanded by your teachers. Truth be told, I was like that too. It really upset me when I got in trouble at school and I can still remember the lessons I learned as far back as first grade! What this says to me is that you are really taking their words to heart. You respond promptly to their redirection and are, more often than not, a stellar student and ever helpful in the classroom. We all have to learn somehow, as painful as it might be. Even in the midst of difficulties, I’m proud of how you sort it out and ultimately handle yourself.

As for the rest of the week before the New Year’s craziness began, we had some more quiet time where I eavesdropped on you and Daddy reading books one night. I was getting ready for bed after finishing your blog for the week before last, when I heard Daddy doing all of these crazy voices while reading “The Wide Mouthed Frog” to you, and your hysterical laughter with each turn of the page. It was heart-warming to say the least.

Audrey Ayi and I also took you to eat at China Garden this week too. You always love that place since the buffet allows you to get anything you want. I’m happy to see you branching out a little more in the foods you’ll try too. Anyway, you had us cracking up when they brought us our fortune cookies. We all took turns reading our own, and when it came to your turn, you read, “My fortune cookie says ‘Maliana Wilkinson is ALIVE!’” (Wow! That was a personalized fortune cookie! Ha ha)

As for New Year’s Eve, I was impressed that you actually stayed up until, not only midnight, but 1 AM! Wow! Lao Lao, Uncle Forge, Audrey, Forge’s friend Gabrielle, you, Daddy, and I all celebrated together. You were so incredibly silly all night long, positively giddy to have so many people over, most of whom spent the night. You even made Lao Lao lay down with you when you went to bed and it was SO hard to get you to finally go to sleep. Of course, I’d much rather have your laughter and unruliness keep us up, than throwing a full-fledged tantrum. I honestly don’t know where you got your extra boost of energy at around 12:45 AM but you had it!

group picture before Daddy and I headed out for dinner and
you stayed home to play with Lao Lao

all girl photo op!

kicking back with Daddy, watching Dick Clark

mmm...fancy hors d'oeuvres

showing that you made it past midnight...
but this is your "put me to bed NOW!" face

The next morning, you took Lao Lao hostage in your playroom and would not let me in, which was fine because I got to eavesdrop on you again. You played all sorts of make-believe games and listening to Lao Lao’s antics and your giggles made my morning. What a great way to start the New Year. Later you suited up in your police officer gear and went downstairs to wake up Forge and Gabrielle. You made us all take turns calling 9-1-1, with you responding to each call. It was pretty hysterical.

run!

playing with Lao Lao

Officer Mali going to roust the "vagrants" in our family room

giving Forge a ticket

"Yeah, check out my muscles. I'm kind of a big deal."

After everyone left that afternoon, you, Daddy and I laid down for a nap together before heading to Memaw and Papaw’s for New Year’s dinner. As I was drifting off to sleep, I had this nagging sense of sadness. I realized that when I was younger, beginning a new year was filled with excitement, hope and promise, a clean slate, a chance to start over from whatever I felt that I might have messed up on the year before. While I suppose it still represents all of these things, I realized that it represents something else since you’re in my life. I realized that this year you will be turning 4. It seems like just yesterday that you were first home, not even 2 years old yet. This New Year is a reminder of how fast life seems to be flying by. With each passing year, you need me less and less in the same ways you used to need me. You are getting so much more independent each day and while I love to see you grow and change, at the same time it is hard. It’s all bittersweet. I definitely didn’t expect this reaction to the New Year. It’s remarkable how nearly every perspective on life changes once you’re a parent.

Once awake, we all took off for Memaw and Papaw’s for our traditional New Year’s dinner of pork and sauerkraut. Aunt Beth, Uncle Kevin, and your cousins were there too and, Oh. My. Lord. ~ You girls are NUTS! I can’t even begin to express how much fun you have together. You all played the usual “Monster!” game, over and over and over again. You wrestled with Papaw and were generally silly. At one point, you even looked like you could have been in a rap video with all of your mannerisms after defeating Papaw and freeing your cousin Alex from his grip. It was so funny, if I had been drinking something, it surely would have come right out of my nose.

You surprised us all by choosing your own New Year's Day outfit of an
Easter dress, white knee socks, red tennis shoes, and purple sweater = FULL OF AWESOME!

plugging your nose to compensate for the leak in your palate,
but by golly you got that noise maker to work!

wrestling the "Papaw monster"

enjoying some ice cream

"Aagghh!"

you spotted a monster and Papaw is demonstrating the universal sign for
"Stay Away Monster!"

"Papaw, save me!"

all that excitement must have scared the poop out of you, ha ha!

silly naked monkeys

"and now we must DANCE!"

we all held our breath waiting for someone to
bonk their head during this game

bringing it down a notch, cuddling with Memaw

We stayed late and thankfully, you and I had another day off on Monday this week. Daddy had to go to work, but we slept in until 10 AM! We both needed it desperately. When we finally wiped the sleep from our eyes, we saw that there was a light dusting of snow on the ground and it continued to lightly flurry all day. What a cool sight to see!

"Look at the snow!"
(I personally love your little bedhead)

You and I decided to go to Easton for a bit, where you wanted to get some noodles for lunch, and then we spontaneously bought some tickets to see the new Muppet Movie. You chose to wear your soccer gear; little Sambas, soccer shirt with your name on the back, tie-dyed sweatshirt, and sweatpants with pockets. Boy! You thought you were hot stuff walking through that mall. Even other shoppers took note of your strut. It was so cute.

Super Star!

Noodles!

You chatted up a storm and were so excited to see the movie, looking up at me and grinning with your eyes twinkling in that dark theatre. I even got multiple spontaneous hugs and some stray kisses thrown in throughout the afternoon. I love those!

We relaxed some more and played your new Ladybug game once home, until Daddy called us with the news that his car had unfortunately broken down and we needed to come get him. We piled into the car and on our way there, you asked to call him. You proceeded to tell him, “We’re in the car and on our way Daddy! You be ok, we coming to get you. We pick you up and then you go to work, and your friend fix your car, ok?” Daddy had had a super rough first day back to work, and this call really helped put a smile on his face. You are such a sweetheart.

We all finally got back home later, and you were in rare form. Fighting going to bed since your body was on holiday break time. Once I finally lay down with you, you had gotten completely slaphappy. I said, “I love you” (like I do every night), but this particular night you asked, “Why you say that Mommy?” to which I replied, “Because I want you to know every day.” Well, for some reason you thought this was hysterical, so you began saying, “I knooooow, Silly!” over and over again, laughing to the point you could hardly breathe. Then it became some sort of game for the next ten minutes, involving lots of garbled speech that I couldn’t quite understand, tickling, and laughter, of course lots and lots of laughter. As hard as it was to get you to settle down, there are worse ways to go to bed than laughing yourself to sleep. The last thing you did, that got me laughing pretty hysterically that night, was give me a hint that I probably need to use more dryer sheets in our laundry. After going potty (for the umpteenth time), you hopped back into bed and exclaimed, “Mom, look! My pants light up!” As you crawled across the bed, sure enough sparks were coming off your pajama pants from all of the static electricity. You thought it was the coolest thing ever. And for whatever reason, I thought it was hilarious. Now it was my turn to laugh uncontrollably. Oh boy…did we make a team last night.

And finally, with all of the insanity of keeping up with the holidays and feeling like I was on a giant hamster wheel to make the best memories possible, you gave me the greatest gift by confirming that we don’t need a lot of hoopla to make things special. One night this week, I had asked what your favorite thing to do was. You quickly and simply replied, “I like when Mommy and Daddy play with me”. What a great reminder for me that sometimes keeping things as simple as possible, and just spending time with all of us together, is the best and most important memory maker of all. That’s a resolution that I will gladly take into the New Year.

Love,
Mama