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Dear Kaylee,

You’re not technically 32 months old yet, but I’m writing your letter early this time because I’m pretty sure I’ll be busy on the 13th.  What will I be busy doing, you wonder?  Why, I’ll be getting you a 32-month birthday present!  To be honest, I’m not sure you’ll like it much at first, but once you get used to having this gift around, I hope you’ll learn to love it.  Oh, the gift?  Well, I don’t suppose I’ll ruin the surprise by writing it here, since you don’t know how to read.  We’ll be getting you a baby brother.  And while we’re doing that, you’ll be spending a couple of days with Grandma, who is sure to spoil the hell out of you.  Hopefully that’ll make up for your homecoming, when you’ll suddenly find that you have to share your parents’ attention from then on.

I had my last doctor’s appointment on Friday, when we scheduled an induction for this coming Wednesday.  And as relieved as I felt to know that your baby brother WILL come out in the near future, I also suddenly felt very guilty.  When I picked you up from Gram and Papa’s house later that day, I just wanted to snuggle you and make you understand that you’re still – and always will be – my beautiful baby girl, no matter how many siblings you end up with.  Because that’s probably the thing I worry about the most, that by deciding to give you a baby brother, we’re going to make you feel cheated.  Now you’ll have to share our time and attention and love with this wiggly little interloper who cries all the time, and Mommy and Daddy will no longer be able to drop everything the moment you need us, every time.  Of course, logically, that is one of the reasons we want you to have a sibling.  To be a good person, you have to understand that the world actually does not revolve around you and you alone.  But it still seems like a harsh lesson for a two-year-old.

This month has been pretty good, packed with holidays and a ridiculous number of new toys for you.  Daddy took a bunch of time off work, and we’re only just now getting back into the old routines and getting used to seeing him off every morning again.  (Good time to add a baby to the mix, huh?)  This was the first year we really talked to you about Santa Claus, and by Christmas Eve, we had you so excited about him that you were simply dying to meet him when he stopped by that night.  … Oops.  We’d forgotten that a critical part of the Santa explanation is that you have to be in bed, sleeping, when he stops by on Christmas.  You were disappointed when we made you go to bed that night without getting to sit on Santa’s lap again, but it helped that you got to make cookies for him first.  I guess that’s one thing we’ve learned lately – we can make a lot of things up to you by plying you with sugar.  Maybe I should stock up on cookies for the day we bring home your brother.

One of the big lessons we’ve been learning lately about parenting you is that we have to be careful how we explain things.  We often tell you something thinking you’ll interpret our words exactly as we mean them, only to find that you’ve got a completely different idea in your head.  When we took you to Denver to go shopping several weeks ago, I told you that we had to drive for a very long time to get there.  I completely forgot that the last time I told you we had to drive a long way, we were headed for Texas.  So when we got to the mall and you said sadly, “I want to see Nanny,” I was caught completely off guard.  I had no idea you were expecting to see your great-grandmother, and all I was prepared to offer was the holiday crowds at a shopping mall.  Gram and Papa got a glimpse of this last week when Gram decided to make you a cape out of some shiny red fabric that you discovered.  A cape sounds like such a silly, fun little dress-up toy that no one saw the meltdown coming, because no one realized that you thought a cape would allow you to actually fly.  When Papa refused to allow you to jump down the stairs, you were very upset at his cruelty.

You’ve also gotten very good at explaining things to us – and very elaborate, I should add.  Lately you’ve been slipping into your storytelling mode more and more often, usually when we’re trying to get you to go to bed or something equally unappealing to you.  You’ll have spent a good 20 minutes telling us an involved tale about Dora the Explorer, ice cream and rabbits, and then when we try to tell you it’s time to wrap up this adventure and go to bed you’ll say, “Just a second, I’m talking,” and then continue as if we hadn’t said anything.  There will be arm gestures, sentences punctuated with a chuckle, little questions to involve the audience, etc.  It works extremely well as a stalling tactic, because it’s just so cute that we can’t bear to make you stop talking and go to bed.

Well, kiddo, I don’t know what else to say right now, so I guess I’ll call this letter finished.  I know I keep saying this, but I love you, I love you, I love you.  This letter really will be the last one I write to you as an only child, and I hope the next one isn’t filled with tales about how mad you are that we ruined your life with a sibling.  It’s going to be an adventure, and I’m so glad I get to share it with you.

Love,

Mommy