Dear Shiloh, 

I am flooded with gratitude that you are here, three years old, chatty and sensitive, observant, healthy, strong and thoughtful, silly, loving, smart as a whip, grounded, and good. You are so good. You want to be understood, you want to make helpful choices, and you sincerely want to please us, but you get stuck in your exhaustion from trying to keep up! 

 

You have a  sharp ear that keeps tabs on everything going on in the house and you have a strong desire to have control over the things that matter to you. 

Currently those things are,  having the correct color bowl (and matching utensil), determining when you get out of the car… whether it’s with help or by yourself… making sure we know you like oat milk and NOT cow’s milk, being the first one to push a crosswalk button, and going toe to toe with Cedar regarding anything you both want to play with. 

You are very smart and it makes me laugh that you decide to talk louder and longer when Cedar is asking for a turn to speak. This makes Cedar crazy and while it’s not nice of you, it does make me chuckle. You get his goat every time. 

Two was a fairly breezy experience with you. In the past few weeks as you approached and turned three a more defiant and vocal version of you has joined us. Even in your defiance and ear piercing screams, you are adorable.  I think your defiance comes from your deep desire to be seen/heard/honored. You know you are the youngest and you have a fighting energy that drives you to push so hard, until you crumble in a tired toddler heap. 

I have to remember that despite your energy, we cannot be fooled, you ARE exhausted and if we don’t intervene, you will keep going until one of us puts our foot down and makes you go to bed. You are similar to Sage in this way, a party animal who gets more wound up the more tired you are. 

Having three has been such a gift and the best thing to happen to my parenting. It all fell into place with you. You have encouraged me to relax. With the experience of raising your sister and brother comes the confidence that every challenging phase will pass. All you need is love and connection and you will get through it. I know you will eventually do all the things you need to do (sitting at the table, saying please and thank you, cleaning up your toys, etc) so instead of pushing those things,  I just chill and enjoy you. 

Watching you thrive is my greatest privilege and also the source of so much grief. So much grief, that I pause, put my hand on my chest and cry (while making birthday Mac and Cheese). I cry because you are no longer a baby. I cry because you might be our last. Oh please don’t be our last. I cry because nothing has ever been more important or more enjoyable to me than raising children.

 I had no idea how much I would take to motherhood. How much pride I would carry in my parenting and our lifestyle choices. I am so proud. And more than anything, I just want to keep doing it. That being said, it would be terrible and weird if you never grew up! My parenting journey is such a tug-o-war between wanting you to become the amazing person you are meant to be and wanting to keep you little and snuggled up in my arms. 

You are wonderful and I want more of you. I want more sleepy mornings nursing you in the warmth of our covers (we are still nursing in the mornings and it’s the best!), fingers entwined, the smell of your hair, your beautiful green eyes looking up at me. I want more beautiful births and fierce first years when I feel like a superhero. I want more baby words, small voices, soft feet, requests to be picked up. I want more cloth diapers and snuggly stuffies and bedtime stories. I want more soft bellies, dimples, cries for mama. 

Because I want to remember it forever, here are some of our favorite Shiloh-isms

• We call you Shoosh, Shooshy, Baby Bear, bug bugs, Shy Shy, duggy dugs, gugs, and probably a few more I am forgetting. Typically you tolerate the nicknames but sometimes you say, “I NOT Baby Bear. I Shiloh! (Which you pronounce Dye-low)
• In June ‘21 I wrote these things down in our journal
  •  That you when you run to the toilet you yell at the top of your lungs “I POOPIN’!
  • You often yell “Yay Shiloh” when you do something you are proud of
  • You are the first of our kids to stay dry all night long (at a little more than 2 years old!) You wake up in the middle of the night to use the toilet. It’s something I certainly wasn’t’ expecting but am very impressed. 
  • When you want to catch up to the group you yell, “Wait me! Wait me!”
  • You like to say to me, “I love you tooooooo much” I think you mean “so much” but it’s very cute to say “too much”
  • You walk around the house and if you don’t know where I am you say, “MOM, where ARE YOU?”
  • I told you the other day, “Shiloh, Daddy is coming home.” and you said, “Who… Peter? It was so funny!
  • You have taken to saying, “I don’t yike dat” about many different things!
• We had a few months of drama dealing with our car. It felt like we couldn’t even go a few weeks without something happening and a car breaking down. Because of all this when we drove anywhere you would get nervous and say,  “car break down?” and then you would remind yourself that it was “all fixed.” But you would keep seeking clarification by saying “Tow Truck? Police Car?” You poor thing. You were really impacted by all the car issues!
• July/August ‘21 I wrote down 
  • You see animals and you say “Hi Pig, what you say? Hi fish, what you say?” It’s so cute. 
  • If you make a mistake you say, “I did not mean to”
  • As you are climbing something you make sure to tell me “I be careful”
  • If we are laughing at something you did you say, “Not bunny” and if you are even more angry you say “Don’t look me, don’t talk me”
  • I thought it was so funny when you said in the same sentence, “You best mommy in the whole world, best mommy ever. No cuddles ever again.”
  • You call a quesadilla a “pizzadilla” 
  • You call nursing “boobie time”

Fall ‘21 I wrote down that you

• Were in the car screaming that you were hot and simultaneously asking for a blanket
• When you ask a question and we tell you the answer you say, “Oh YEP!”
• You asked Daddy to read you a book by saying, “Read book me Daddy”
• As we drive into the village of Kings Ripton you say “I KING RIPTON!”
• On our sailing trip in Greece you called the buoy for the boat a “boobie”
• You say “mine” instead of “my” so it’s, “I hurt mine head.” or “I want mine owly”
• You still like your little owl blanket. I call it stinky owl and I love how much you love it. 
• At one point after looking for me in the house, you found me and you said, “I didn’t know where you is!”
• At one point you ran up to me with a drawing and said, “Sage gave it me! I put it in mine bedroom” and I adored seeing you run off toward your bedroom in your little pink bathrobe with the drawing in your hand

Winter ‘22 I wrote down 

• You went through a little hitting phase and Cedar said very clearly to you, “Don’t hit me one more time Shiloh!” and you said, “I hit you one more time if I want to!” That made all of us laugh. Even Cedar. 
• It amazes me how much attention you are paying to everything that goes on in our house. You were in bed and we were down the hall in the bathroom with Cedar helping him when he was sick and throwing up. You must have overheard everything because you appeared in the bathroom with a bowl from the kitchen and said, “I get Cedar a throw up bowl.”
• Last August when we did our bike trip across England, I fell twice with you in the bike seat. It was pretty traumatic for both of us and I promised you it would never happen again. 7 months later I was talking about putting the bikes in the van so we could bike ride during Sage’s drama class and you reminded me about our falls. You were still very anxious about that happening again. I am so sorry my love that I scared you!
• As your birthday approached, cards started arriving. You found a card addressed to you and you said, “Is my birthday in here?”
• You call double decker busses “decker bus”
• When you go to sleep you like to ask, “Rub mine back?”
• So say “bace” for “face”
• You call your stuffed hedgehog a “pinecone”
• You like to take your food, something like a piece of bread or a pretzel , hide it, bring it back into view and ask us, “broken or not?”
• I don’t ever want to forget pickle face!
• I also don’t ever want to forgot “Lock to Cedar, Lock to Cedar” This is something you borrowed from Cedar that he says when he doesn’t want to hear something someone else is saying. And now you say it and it makes us laugh so hard. 

Oh Shiloh you are just so wonderful. Its true I never want it to end and it’s true that I love watching you grow. You are a spectacular child and all of us adore having you in the family. Happy Birthday my love. I count my lucky stars every damn day and thank you, thank you , for coming straight out of my dreams.

Here are my favorite pictures of your 3rd year. When I look at these pictures, you started your year at 2 years old still looking like a baby! And you ended at 3 looking so much more like a little boy. It’s amazing how much one year does. We love you!

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