Our wild child.
This is our third born. She rules this house with an iron fist, as two year olds do. On her birthday we let her eat a butter packet with a knife because both of us were too scared to take it away from her. This about sums up how life is right now.
She is tiny, but she is fierce.
June is a lot like her siblings were at this age. She talks a TON, she has already taken to calling me by my first name, “I so happy to see you Jackie”, she says. She loves music and anytime there are songs at story time or playgroup, she takes out her ponytail and shakes her head around until she falls down in a dizzy heap. Her favorite song to sing is Jingle Bells. The only line she knows is “Jingle bells, jingle bells”, so you can imagine what that is like for all of us.
She lives for Reese and James is her arch nemesis who she ocassionally likes, mostly when he gets stuff for her. She knows exactly how to piss James off and unfortunately he falls for it every time. She is the destroyer of lego towers, grabber of crayons, puller of hair, and the worst; a spitter. But she also wakes from every nap, looks around, pushes her curls out of her eyes and asks, “Where’s Jeems?” When they are at school she loves to play in their rooms and steal their most prized possessions, the ones she’s never allowed to touch when they are around. As a little sister myself, I can commiserate with this.
It is easy to tell that she is a little sister. She knows far too much for two years old, and is not afraid to chase down big kids and join their wrestling matches or soccer games, much to my horror. She has started potty talk much too soon thanks to her big brother, and her favorite thing to do is to yell “poopy diaper” and wait for the laughs.
She sits through soccer practices, swim lessons, is carted to karate and cub scouts. I imagine how this feels through her eyes. To be taken to places with cool looking things; games, toys, crafts, balls, pools, snacks etc. Then to be promptly removed without being allowed to touch anything, only to be taken back about an hour later and then removed again. She is totally aware that bigger kids are doing better things without her. Anytime we talk about going anywhere or doing anything, June will appear at my feet, pulling on my pants leg and yelling, “I COME!”
I promise you June, your time will come.
Favorite things include our dog Miles, who she follows and around and loves on/tortures relentlessly, her bubba (pacifier) which yes, she still has at 2 years old so shutty, her big sister and brother, her cousin Sam, Legos (which she pronounces with an Italian accent), Paw Patrol, Daniel Tiger, playing outside, riding her trike, apples, ham and cheese, the beach and the farm.
Despite the fact that she is the littlest, our life still seems to revolve around her in a way that it should. The kids are aware that we can’t always do certain things because we’ll have June with us and it just won’t work, or that there are times when she will need to go for a nap, or need to be fed. And to me, this is how it should be, because before we know it everyone will be on the same playing ground and there won’t be a little person there to remind us to take a break.
So thank you Junie, for keeping us on our toes. I think it was getting too easy for us for a little while there anyway.
Insurance will now give you a free breast pump (holler!) but I still use the one that I got when Reese was born, the Medela Freestyle. My insurance didn’t provide a pump when Reese was born, but I was working at the time, pumping three times a day, and needed something that was easy. I bought the Freestyle and I don’t think I could have lasted a year of breastfeeding without it. It’s hands-free so I could continue working while I was pumping and the pump itself is small enough to hold in one hand and walk around with if needed. The battery life is long, so you aren’t tied to a plug the whole time you’re pumping, and the bag and cooler that are provided are small and make transporting everything easy. When I had James I got the free pump that insurance provided but ended up donating it because I just continued to use the Freestyle. This time, after hearing that my pump was 5 years old the nurses at the hospital basically insisted that I get a new one through insurance. The Freestyle isn’t covered completely, so you still have to pay out-of-pocket for a portion of it (I’m not exactly sure how much.) But because of that, I just got one that was free, the Medela Pump in Style. I still prefer the Freestyle though and continue to use it, and after two years of pumping it still works great. If you are working and planning on breastfeeding I would definitely recommend paying more for the Freestyle; the bag, the hands-free option and the small size make everything SO much easier. If you won’t need something every day, I would just use the free one through insurance; the Pump In Style gets the job done it’s just harder to tote around and doesn’t come with a bag to carry all that crap in.
Our third born, June Powers, arrived on August 23rd, 2017 at 11 AM, one week early, via a scheduled c-section.
Letters To Reesie 