Two years ago, Caroline Rose Reid pushed her way in to the world. She looked around the room with wide eyes and did not say anything. The nurses pinched her, rubbed her, washed, poked needles in her and still she looked at them and did not say anything. Then, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Two days later and she still had not cried. She was in a warming bed in the Special Care Nursery where, when she woke, a nurse was right there to change her, call me to come feed her, and otherwise hold her to keep her calm.
But Caroline was calm. She was taking it all in. The lights, the noises, the comfort. Why would she cry? She had it all.
The nurses laughed when we expressed concern over her lack of crying. “She’ll figure it out,” they insisted.
Were they ever right! Caroline is a bundle of energy and noise, a package of life and emotion. She laughs, she screams, she loves.
And we love her. Her first words each morning are a call for Paul. His first words are the question, “Can I go talk to Caroline?” (when her door is still closed in the morning).
Caroline follows us around and insists on “I do it!” and “Me!” She knows the concepts of “mine!” and “Share!” and won’t hesitate to tell you what she wants. She won’t hesitate to tell you want she does not want, too, and if she does not want what you want her to do, she will not let you do it.
She’s sensitive and selfish, crying with others who are sad (or asking “are you okay?”) and screaming if she does not get what she wants in any given moment.
She’s wiggly and cuddly, wiggly when it’s a quiet moment (such as sacrament meeting) and cuddly when the lights are low and she is sleepy.
She’s a bundle of fun, as she pretends: her fork is a dancing monkey, or her sippy cup of milk is sleepy, and wants a lullaby or she is a fish swimming through the bathtub.
She’s as tender as a new mother when she holds her baby dolls, singing the songs I sing to her.
She’s as wild as an animal as she runs into the water, jumping and splashing and dunking her own head under, only to come up sputtering and coughing with a laugh on her face.
We love Caroline. I can’t wait to see how this already talking toddler baby becomes a little girl in the next year. Although, I kind of want to hold her tight and cherish her toddler-hood for the next twenty years!
While we were in Nauvoo, Caroline turned 9 months old!
Caroline loves people. She can be surrounded by toys but if there is not a person nearby, she will not be happy. She wants to be with people. Most of the time, it doesn’t matter who it is. If the person is smiling, Caroline is too. When she sees someone new, she’ll stop what she’s doing and wave “hi.” It even sounds like she says “hi” to them! Her big brother is one of her favorite people to watch. Even when she’s just waking up, if she hears her brother’s voice she is very excited and looks around for him. Caroline is a social creature. There is an exception: if Mama is in the room, she wants Mama and no one else! Not even Daddy is desired if she is sleepy: she wants her mama.
Caroline loves music. Caroline laughs and cheers and claps her hands when music begins. I’m begining to notice that she really does want that lullaby before bedtime. She loves to “sing” along during hymns at church, she loves to listen to Paul’s creative songs just for her, and she loves to hear Daddy play the piano. This is child who will treasure music in her life, even more so that Paul did as a baby and now as a child.
Caroline loves moving. Whether she isclapping her hands or army crawling to an attractive item or squirming and dancing to a song, Caroline likes to be a part of things. If she is down on the floor, she wants to stand. If she’s standing, she wants to move around the table and grab that shiny thing over there.
Caroline is petite. She’s in the 30th percentile for height and still 15th-20th percentile for weight. She’s 16 lbs and some odd ounces, and she’s rounding out like a baby should. But she is definitely not a fat baby. She is perfect sized, and I love that she still loves to cuddle. She fits in the corner of my arm just right.
Caroline is awake. She does not want to nap, and never has. But she’s getting better at letting herself fall asleep. Somehow we spoiled her and for a while she would not sleep without being held. She’d scream if she was put down! She wanted to nurse if she woke in the night and it was quite exhausting because she’d scream otherwise. If something was going on around her, she would not fall asleep. She’d stare at the moving TV screen til past 10 p.m., but she would not go to sleep. It was exhausting just watching her droopy eyes.
Caroline likes bling. Glasses, belt buckles, earrings, necklaces, shiny stickers, shiny keys: if an object is shiny or bright, Caroline makes a bee-line for it! It will probably end up in her mouth. The other day at a restaurant, Daddy handed her a few dollar bills. Caroline, amazingly, did not put it in her mouth. She had this look of amazement as she looked at Daddy and looked at the money and turned it over and over, amazed that she was able to hold it. She did the same with his credit card. But that did end up in her mouth. Dangerous! Let’s not love bling and money too much, dear little girl.
Caroline loves to nurse, and food is okay sometimes too. Some days, Caroline could not care less about food. She just wants to nurse. And now she does not even want a bottle anymore. But she is starting to expect food more and more. Yesterday she was very excited to eat food.
I love my darling girl. I can’t believe she’s nearly a year old already. I hope we can treasure these baby days a little longer … and that she does not start walking quite yet! She’s so cuddly and adorable, I love her.
Note: all videos recorded by big brother Paul during our Thanksgiving road trip.
Five years ago, I awoke knowing I’d be meeting my baby soon. It was time for him to be born. When he was first put in my arms, I was in love. He was long and slippery. His eyes were open and he was looking around at everything. He did not make a sound but just looked. Today, Paul is a tall, skinny, cheerful boy. I look at him and I am amazed at how old he is. Here are some facts about him.
Paul is a morning person. He wakes in the morning and comes straight to see me with a great big smile. He usually has a dream to tell me about. He will get comfortable and begin telling his story. Paul has things to do in the mornings. He’s generally excited about everything, from starting school work to eating breakfast. Sometimes, he’s even excited to do chores in the morning time! Morning is a delightful place for Paul.
Paul has an active imagination. He is frequently telling me about his imaginary friends that are arriving, calling him, and having their own adventures. I already mentioned that Paul has dreams. Sometimes these dreams are scary and it’s amazing to me the things he thinks of. (One nightmare entailed a whale who came across North America to attack him while he was playing on the beach of the Mississippi River…) Paul finds mirrors to be an entrance into a new world (Some day, I’ll get him to read Lewis Carroll with me!). He frequently talks to himself as he washes his hands in the bathroom, as we pass mirrors in stores or in public restrooms. But then, he clarifies that he is not talking to himself, he’s talking to his friend in the mirror.
And as we learn things for school, he puts his own imagination in to what may have happened. Take this paragraph he narrated to me about Columbus, for example. He had to act out the native’s response with gusto.
How Columbus Knew About North America
Once upon a time, there were people who wanted to go to Asia. They wanted to go to Asia because they wanted to get spices. They were in Europe. They sailed in ships West. When they got to land, there were many people. They thought they were over in Asia in India. Then, they started calling those people Indians because that is who they thought they were. And then many people died. Then, Columbus said, “We have new land!” And the Indians said, “No! We live here. Ehhhhhh, I’m dying.” And then Columbus lived happily ever after. The End.
Paul gets distracted. The opposite side of an active imagination is the fact that always imagining new things means he frequently gets derailed from whatever he is doing (washing his hands, getting dressed, cleaning his bedroom, doing a math worksheet) to have a conversation, rescue a friend from a fire, or telephone a friend. He is frequently saying, “Oops, I got distracted!” when I ask if he’s ready to go. But he is generally happy in his own world.
Paul is excited and energetic.I almost feel like he changed in to a new person about a month ago. He’s always had energy, but now, out of the blue, he is running in circles, jumping, dancing, singing, yelling, and otherwise expressing excitement all day long. Apparently, this is normal for five-year-old kids. It creates a bit more chaos in my life than I like but it is delightful to observe. On the rare moments when we are cleaning the house in the morning (usually we do it in the afternoons when he’s a bit more whiny) he is extra excited to help. The other day he said to me with lots of excitement: “Hey, Mom! I have an idea! Let’s clean the bathrooms everyday!” The day before, on the other hand, he cried and had a fit when it came time to clean.
Paul is curious and interested. He bombards me with questions: How does the traffic light know when to change color? How did God create the earth? Why does the car need fuel? How does a fish breathe underwater? Why can I see the moon during the day? Together we find the answers. He loves it. He loves to learn, and he loves to question. He is learning multiplication as well as addition and subtraction and he loves to figure things out (most of the time). He also loves to tell other people what he’s learned.
For example, I overheard this while Paul was playing with another 4 or 5 year old child in the library. Paul: “Well, our block tower fell down because of grabity.” Other child: “This one didn’t fall because it doesn’t have grabity.” Paul: “There still is grabity. Grabity is a force pulling every thing down. See? [He picks up a block and drops it from shoulder height.] That’s grabity!”
Paul loves his sister. He is constantly helping her be happy, laugh with her, teach her things, share toys and books with her. He loves her so much that she is often the first person he looks for in the morning (if she’s awake). He loves to tell me what she’s doing, what she needs, and why he loves her. Sometimes he’s a bit rough, but that’s just the energetic stage of life he’s in.
Paul is emotional. Again, I think this is partly just being a five-year-old kid learning to navigate strong emotions. On the other hand, he tends to have melt-downs when he’s overtired. I think there is some anxiety going on to, probably inherited since I have similar issues. It hurts to see him struggle, but I hope we can learn to deal with it together.
Paul is five! He just walked in and he wants me to add that. Now that he is five, he can get his library card!!! (tomorrow) He can jump really high.
Happy birthday, Paul! I’m so proud of all you can do … and all that you will learn to do in the coming year now that you are five years old!
Today was Caroline’s four-month doctor’s visit. She is 11 pounds, 7 ounces, and is 23 inches long. That’s the 10th percentile. She’s gained exactly 4 pounds and grown 4 inches since she was born. She’s petite but in normal ranges.
She is, for the most part, a very happy girl. Today is an exception. She was okay for the two hours after her immunizations this morning, but now she’s crying pretty constantly, wondering why she’s in pain. Paul is walking around with his hands over his ears. “Can you tell Caroline to be quiet?” he recently asked.
On a normal day, Caroline loves to see happy faces. She delights in being with others and demands that she be up in her high chair where she can see us eating our dinner and so forth. If she’s away from the action, she’ll cry very vigorously, demanding attention.
Right now, I’m in the midst of a de-spoiling process. This means that I’m letting her cry herself to sleep at night when I know she’s ready to go to sleep, and I’m trying to not feel guilty when I put her down to clear the dinner dishes or go to the bathroom(!) or otherwise let her be by herself for a few minutes. She’s a very social little girl so she doesn’t like being alone. It’s hard to let her cry, but she must learn, right?
Caroline loves to smile and laugh, and Paul is a central part of her daily joy. She loves to watch him walking around the room, to smile at his songs, and to listen to what he has to say and the stories he likes to read. I can already see her adoration of her big brother as she brightens when he approaches her with his love and attention.
The love and attention is not one sided. Paul loves to be near his sister. He loves to help her be happy, to tell her stories, and to read her books. He remembers to include her in every game and he cannot wait until she is a “kid”. Even as a baby, though, he’s tender and loving to her, giving her big hugs and kisses.
I love to watch these two special spirits interact. I know there will be plenty of times when they are tired of each other. As I mentioned, Paul does not like the loud crying and when she’s finally old enough to play, I suspect he’ll be a bit annoyed at her destroying his Lego creations or what not. But in general, I see love and adoration coming from both of them. Caroline will love her brother as she gets older: she doesn’t know life without him. And Paul, who did “long long ago before Caroline was born” (his words) live a life without a little sister, will certainly care for his little sister and protect her as much as he can. He will teach her important things and he will make her laugh throughout her life. He will find such joy in his role as big brother.
I look forward to the coming months as I watch these two special spirits interacting and learning from each other! I am so grateful that Paul can have a sibling to learn from and to serve! I’m so grateful that Caroline has joined our family. I wouldn’t have our family any different.
This post of celebration is a few days late, but there is still cause to celebrate! Caroline, who was eight weeks old yesterday, has begun to separate night from day!
On Sunday night, she slept for seven hours straight for the first time. The next two nights she slept for five hours and last night it was three hours and then four hours. These longer stretches of sleep have been wonderful for this mama. I was beginning to feel a bit insane in the two or three hours sleeps I was getting. After almost two months, such sleep deprivation is quite discouraging. Now I feel like a human again. Monday I celebrated by cleaning the house.
Yesterday I fell asleep again mid-afternoon. I hate taking naps like that! It feels great at the time but then I wake up feeling groggy and lazy. I don’t get things done that I intended! Ryan says drinking lots of water helps stave off sleepiness. Do you have any other suggestions?
Caroline smiles regularly now. It’s such a pleasant thing to go to my baby and be greeted with a happy face of delight. I have been awful at taking pictures of her. I find I’d much rather hold her and cuddle and coo with her than run get my camera! Caroline notices toys and has begun to enjoy her mobile, much as Paul enjoyed it at the same point in his life (see his video here!)
Caroline lays there staring at the mobile without moving. Then I turn it on and she smiles or kicks or flails her arms. She definitely likes it!
Here she is in a new dress getting ready to go to church! (April 15)
I had the force the toy into her hand but she grasped on to it for a while. I love her expression in this picture. (April 14)
I’ve been pondering home schooling for about a year now, although Ryan mentioned it to me as a possibility long before that.
“Oh, no. I could never do that!” I argued. I’d be too tired, I don’t know enough, it would be stressful.
Then last summer Paul taught himself to read. He’s probably at a second grade level now, at least if the text is large. (If it’s small text or too much on a page, then he still “can’t” read it.) If it was only reading, I may have let it rest. But that was not all.
Using his fingers, he began to put together the rudiments of addition. And because he has an analog clock in his bedroom, he wanted to learn how to read it. He loves putting coins in his piggy bank, and I found myself explaining how each coin has a different value.
In the fall, he started requesting books on different scientific subjects, firstly the planets. From October through December, he wanted to read everything he could find about the planets.
In about November, he began expressing an interest in the human body, probably because my body has been changing with baby growing. He became fascinated by digestion (pee and poop!) and by the heart (I feel my heart beat! I’m alive!) and his bones, which he can feel through his skin.
Around the same time as these science topics began to fascinate him, he began asking about maps. We printed a map to the church, and he wanted to follow it as we drove; he has always been fascinated to watch the GPS cursor on the map in our car navigation system. We’ve learned about map legends, the four directions of the compass, map scales (this is still a bit confusing to him), and some other things.
Because of his fascination and because he seems so advanced in his interests, I thought I’d experiment a little bit with just how interested he is: what can I manage to do with him as a stay-at-home mom? Could I possibly homeschool him?
I bought a handwriting book about ABCs and Numbers. It has a “Kindergarten” label on the cover, so Paul, being the reader he is, decided he was doing “Kindergarten School at Home.” We decided to collect his worksheets in a binder, and thus began Paul’s homeschooling. Now that we moved my office into the same room as Ryan’s office, we also added a space for Paul to be his “work space” or school desk.
We’ve been through two phases of home school now. The first phase lasted about two months, and it was exhausting. Paul wanted to spend every afternoon doing all the different subjects: ABC worksheets, number worksheets, more advanced math concepts (money or time or something new), science, and maps. Every day he wanted some of everything. It was so much fun! He didn’t want to stop for dinner! Needless to say, this was exhausting. We literally spent three or four hours every afternoon doing more and more worksheets. I couldn’t keep up in finding or creating interesting age-appropriate worksheets.
We’ve moved in to a new stage now. I should clarify that before we began “school at home” and before Paul practiced writing on the ABC worksheets, he found writing itself “too hard.” We set up a desk space for him. The numbers and the ABCs in caps and lowercase are on the bulletin board for him to refer too. Now, he does not mind writing, and in fact likes to spend an hour a day writing his own games and worksheets and activities. Some of these are for me to do, others are just for fun for him. He loves it!
A skeleton worksheet Paul made me: I was to label the body parts/bones!
So the new stage is much more balanced between Mom’s worksheets every now and then and Paul’s imaginative writing and creating. We still do some more “formal” school at home.
He loves finding things on maps, and we have been learning how there are seven continents. This month we have particularly been focusing on Antarctica and penguins for science and geography. (The human body is still on his radar, but he’s a little tired of it at the moment. Every few days he has a question and we find pictures in a body book.) In mathematics, we started learning about adding one to a number, but it hasn’t clicked yet that he doesn’t have to start at the beginning (1, 2, 3,…) to add just one more. (He regularly figures out basic adding on his hands, though.) We’re still practicing patterns, and he often makes up his own, which I hear is good for early math skills. He loves to do mazes. We’re learning about “greater than” and “smaller than” maybe once a week, and we practice reading clocks on the hour and half half hour about as frequently. Sometimes we get out the pretend money and set up a store where things cost pennies, nickles, and dimes.
And I’m trying to introduce him to the concept of “history.”
Although he still is intensely interested in learning, we’ve mellowed out to about 30 minutes or 1 hour a day of “school at home” before he’s ready to do his own writing or learning projects.
That’s just perfect for a four year old. He has preschool twice a week still to keep him social. He has gymnastics and swimming lessons to keep him physical. And he’s hard at work at challenging himself to learn and practice in his own imaginary activities as my teacher.
In the state of Illinois, school is legally required for all children beginning at age 7. Home schooling parents are not required to submit grades to the state, but they need to have records of some kind to show children are learning according to the state standards.
Paul, then, has another two years and eight months before I’m required to officially home school him. At this point, this is my plan: for the next two years, I’ll follow his lead. We’ll (probably) do three-day-a-week preschool again next year. The following year, I’ll either send him to kindergarten for 2 hours a day or I’ll join a co-op where he’ll play with kids his age. (I’m leaning toward the co-op, as I imagine that half-day kindergarten with 2 or 2.5 hours a day will not provide much time for socialization.) When he turns seven, and when kids his age are in first grade, I’ll determine just what kind of “curriculum” he needs and we’ll implement it. I suspect he’ll be far above first grade Illinois state standards come that point, if his present interest in learning about the world continues. And if he does slow down, I suspect we’ll be able to get in to a slightly more formal school routine (especially with co-op friends to support us) without too much trouble.
At any rate, I’m really excited to see where “school at home” takes us in the next two years. There are so many possibilities!
Paul asked me this as we passed a flag on our way to church this morning. I told him that ten years ago today some bad men stole an airplane and killed a lot of people. We fly the flag half way up to remember that lots of people died.
“Who were the people that died?” he responded. “Tell me their names.”
I didn’t have any names for him. I didn’t, in fact, know any of the 3,000 people who died that day. I didn’t even see the television coverage until after I returned home from campus a few hours after the fact. I found out about the towers as I walked in to my economics class at 9 a.m. Mountain Time, just 20 minutes after I’d finished reading the New York Times and heading out for class.
It struck me, though, that his first reaction is to connect with the people who died. He could have said, “Why would bad men do that?” but no, he knows that some people are bad in the world. He just wanted to remember along with me and all the others that put our flag at half mast. I had just told him that we lower the flag to remember. He was remembering through me.
(Ten years is, he informed me a few days ago, the definition of “old.” One is not “old” until they are ten. Then they are old. He is still not old. Apparently, the attacks in NYC are now “old.”)
It was somewhat reassuring that this year I didn’t have to have a discussion with him about the bad people. “Terrorist” is still not in his vocabulary. But “remember” is. We can all do that each September 11. Let’s focus on the good. Let’s remember.
Well, about these girls. They came as they were, unique, wonderful spirits and my blessing was to just unwrap the package to see who they were and to help guide them into who they could be. I didn’t ever feel like I had to mold them or make them into somebody different than who they were because they were so great when they came. It was a fun discovery to learn who they were. They are different, different people, but they are delightful fun daughters and I always enjoyed our children.
Julie B. Beck on her two daughters
I want to say that about my own children. I never want my son to think I don’t appreciate his own personality. I don’t want him to think that I expect him to be something he is not. That would be a painful thing, to feel like a disappointment. I don’t want my son to feel he disappoints me for being himself.
This means I need to never talk about his faults, or things I disapprove of, in front other people. I need to avoid criticism when he does things differently than I would do them. I need to make sure I don’t manipulate him into doing something I want, when his personality would do something differently. I need to always remember that he came to me a precious spirit, with his own personality. He will make choices different from those that I’d make, but that’s a part of his precious personality.
As his mother, I can help guide him into who he can be. I can help him discover his potential.
I don’t need to mold him: I need to unwrap him.
To listen to the entire conversation between Sheri Dew and Julie B. Beck and her two daughters, visit Mormon Channel.
In Paul’s primary talk, he said, “Jesus rose for us.” He then, in a different context, saw the picture of the Risen Lord appearing to Mary and said, “Look, Mommy! Jesus rose-ing!”
Normally during Sacrament Meeting, Paul sings “mah blah blah mah!” as loudly as he can in time with the music, as he or I points to the words on the page. Today, the speaker introduced the song, “Behold, the Great Redeemer Die!” Paul sang along with the correct words for the first two lines. I was amazed: he knows that song. I know that is because we go to church every Sunday.
Regularly, Paul stops playing to say, “Mommy, I say unto you, I love you!” This is how I know he really does hear the scripture study we do together, even though it seems he’s not paying attention.
Paul is regularly teaching me a lesson in humility and generosity, from his sharing his fruit snacks to his outpouring of love. From his example, I better understand the Savior’s injunction to be as a little child. I’m to approach life with sincerity, to love and give without thoughts of “scarcity” and selfishness, and to be honest in my thoughts, words and deeds. (Although I should mention that Paul has learned to lie, he is still for the most part a very truthful, loving, sensitive child.)
