“How do you want to celebrate your birthday tomorrow?” I asked her.

“Maybe swinging,” she said.  Donald built and hung a tree swing in our backyard a few months ago.  Nearly everything about toddlers is perfectly lovely – the phrases they choose to express themselves, the way their hair smells after hours spent running at the park, the pride in their eyes when they grab your cheeks and plant an impromptu kiss on your lips – but the way Charlotte beams every day when she rediscovers her tree swing tops the list in this house.

My father had the good fortune to stumble across circus tickets recently, so last weekend five of us piled in a car and drove into Los Angeles to watch the performance.

We read circus books and sang circus songs for two weeks before seeing the circus.  Charlotte was so excited on Sunday morning that she could barely stand to nap before we left.  And in every way, the circus exceeded her expectations.  The clowns!  The animals!  The elephant who could paint!  The woman who did flips while riding a horse!  The motorcycle on a tightrope!

She fell asleep within minutes of us piling back into the car and then slept all night and slept in several hours the following morning.  When she woke up, she rubbed her eyes and looked at me.  “Momma?”  I nodded.  Yeah, baby?  “Can we tell Grandma and Grandpa thank you for taking me to the circus?  It was so much fun.  Can I maybe come back there some time?”

Time together and memories built really are the best gifts.  Charlotte spent the rest of the morning making her grandparents elaborate glitter glue art to say thank you.  It took four days for the pools of glitter glue to dry.

Grandpa told her that criss-crossing her velcro would make her run faster.  I probably do not need to mention that we have not had straight-velcroed shoes since!

Sometimes she is a tempest.  She is wild and savage and angry, but there is something beautiful about her, something amazing, and even in the worst of rages I look at her and I see my baby, my darling, my star.  She is always a little magic to me.

Other times she is calm.  She is peaceful and thoughtful, compassionate and empathetic, observant and inquisitive.  I see glimpses of the woman she will become in these moments.  I can see that she has her grandmother’s adventurous spirit and her grandfather’s love of stories.  She has her father’s curiosity about the world and her mother’s fascination with language.

SWOOSH!

A few days ago, I buckled the carrier around my waist and knelt down, waited for her to climb on.

“Yes,” she announced.  “I want to be carried on your back.”

Then she approached me and thought it over.  “But then I cannot have milk,” she said thoughtfully.  “Maybe I will go in the front.”

We all laughed and I turned the carrier around and picked her up.  Away we walked, her strapped to my chest, the way she was the day of her birth, and she nestled in to suckle.

Her feet dangle so low that I can no longer grab them and tickle them while I walk.  Her arms can reach around my body and tug on my hair as it tumbles down my back.  She sometimes breaks the latch to ask a question about something we have just walked past.  She sometimes just lays her head against my breasts and tells me that I feel like love.  Still, carrying her and nursing her feels right.

And today she is three.

Today we are modeling with beeswax and making puppets to recount the tale of Poseidon and Andromeda.  We are building with Connectagons and planting sunflowers in the garden.  We are reading the songs of the flower fairies and making up tunes of our own.  We are singing songs and sharing pomegranate seeds and learning what to do with our new kefir grains.

Two was cuddles and tears.  Two was breastfeeding in silent moments.  Two was a child clinging to my back, telling passersby that she’s like a baby koala, but cuter.  Two was crazy outfits and strong opinions.  Two was stories and books, chalk and paint, scraped knees and colorful bandages.  Two was independence and dependence.

I wonder what three will be like.  I can’t wait to find out.

Still “baby"wearing - with a three-year-old and a six-month belly!