Dear Charlie,

You poor thing– I am really not helping with this whole “middle child syndrome” thing. I meant to write your letter a couple days after I wrote Alex & Emma’s… then it just slipped my mind. For months. :-X I’m so sorry!

Last time I wrote, you were a few months shy of turning 3. Now you’re coming up on 3 1/2, and truth be told 3 has been a great year for you so far. Therefore, it’s been a great year for me & Dad, as your parents, so far as well. You’re still stubborn, strong, and fearless… but you have a fair bit more common sense and are more likely to listen to authority than you once were. Since we don’t have to keep our eyes on you 24/7 like we had to before, we’ve been able to breathe a bit, let you enjoy your independence (of which you have MUCH more than either of your siblings combined), and even take you out to do more fun things in the great big world. 😉

Your first year in preschool was a huge success. You adapted to it really well, your teachers adored you, and I think the experience played a huge role in your social/emotional development. We did have to end the school year a bit early since we moved out of state, but I think you’ll have no trouble picking back up where you left off when school starts again in the fall. I did observe that you didn’t seem to make any close friends in your class (at least not that you didn’t already know from outside of class). I think part of this is because you’re so independent & part of this is because Alex is so boisterous & outgoing that he usually does all the of the “social legwork” involved with making your friends outside of school. I will be curious to see how this skill evolves for you as time goes on.

You’ve grown a ton in general, but honestly I think your heart has grown most of all. You’re very sweet, loving and thoughtful, especially with me, your brother, and Papa. All 3 of us hang the moon to you, as does our dog Annie (who lives with Papa & Grandma these days). Lately you’ve started to enjoy your sister’s company more often than not too, which honestly I was starting to think would never happen! However, I think I have Alex to thank for that. He adores Emma, and you want to be just like him.

The only downside to age 3 with you, at least at the moment, is the SCREAMING. Your “fight or flight” mechanism is quick to kick in lately, and you escalate to a high pitched scream VERY quickly. We’re working on it though. Potty training has also been a struggle. You were more or less potty trained over Christmas break and things were great for a few months, but you’ve regressed in a big way since we moved to MD. It’s been frustrating, but things like this are normal for the age/circumstances & we’re trying our best to be patient.

Your likes and dislikes have not changed much, although I’d say you’re more specifically into trucks & construction equipment than “cars” in general these days. That being said, Hot Wheels are your favorite toys to play with & they are scattered all over the house/car/my purse/etc. 😉 You’ve also really taken to a show called Blippi on YouTube, which reminds me of a more modern and slightly less annoying version of Peewee Herman (which was popular when I was a kid). Cat is still a constant and necessary presence in our household, and you also love all things purple. It is very hard to find things cat & purple themed that aren’t specifically targeted at girls, which is frustrating. I recently very excited to find a non-girly purple t-ball glove (that even came with a purple t-ball!), only to discover that you’re probably going to need a left-handed glove. It’s still too soon to tell for sure, but you seem to prefer your left hand for most tasks. You are DESPERATE to play t-ball with your big bro, and I think when you’re finally old enough next year you’re going to be fantastic at it! You have a lot more hand-eye coordination than most kids your age.

It is becoming increasingly evident how smart you are. I think you are different from Alex in that you’re both “book smart” and “street smart” — you seem to be more proficient at logical thought and problem-solving. You’re very independent and intent on doing things yourself. You’ve been quicker to start asking the “Why?” questions and you get pretty deep with them for a 3 year old (much to my dismay, LOL). It amazes me how much you are able to retain/remember. For example, I think you know more than me at this point about construction equipment. When we go to visit the construction site of our new house, you love pointing out and naming all the various equipment that’s on site. “Look Mom, a skid steer!” 😉

You are my biggest little helper, and are quick to volunteer to help with just about anything I’m doing. Almost as soon as walk in the kitchen to start cooking something, I hear the scrape of a stool being dragged across the floor behind me and have to jump aside so that you don’t plop the darn thing down on my feet. You’re so very helpful, in fact, that we once had this conversation at bedtime after I’d yelled at you for breaking some closet doors here in the apartment:

You: I’m sorry I broke the closet, mom.
Me: (Scooping youinto a tight hug) It’s okay, sweetie. Now you know to be more careful with the doors. I’m sorry I lost my temper with you.
You: (Leans out of the hug and looks at me with concern) You could borrow my temper, Mom!

You say & do unknowingly funny stuff like this all the time. Nine times out of ten you come shuffling into a room rather than just walking into it, waving your elbows like an old-timey stage act. You dance, run and jump big & sing very, very small. With your loved ones you talk up a storm but with strangers it’s hit or miss. At the pediatrician’s office the other day, you answered her questions so quietly that we were both inches from your face, straining to hear. A couple hours after that you were shouting to be heard over your brother when you were both trying to tell me & Dad a story at the same time.

They say it’s easy to forget about the middle child, but despite my fail at your last letter I think you are anything but forgettable. Your spunk, your silly, your sweet make you easily stand out from the crowd in this house. You light up my world in ways neither your brother or your sister do quite the same. Thank you for being YOU, my sweet Charlie Bean! :-*

All my love,
Mom

My beautiful babies —

There are few sort of “side note” letters about various topics I’m hoping to write for you as I have time, and now seems like a good occasion for one of them. Today, Alex & Charlie ran their first race with me. I chose this particular race not only because it was super kid-friendly (pumpkin decorating! cookies! face painting! moon bounce! rock climbing wall! LOL), but also because it was put on for a cause that has become very near & dear to my heart since I became a mother… postpartum mental illness. The beautiful mother who this race is in honor of tragically lost her battle with this illness, leaving behind her husband and three young children. I was especially touched by her story because, frankly, that could have easily been me.

Postpartum depression, anxiety, and/or psychosis (for the sake of my typing fingers I’m going to say PPD from this point out) affects 1 in 5 new mothers as of when I’m writing this letter (I hope & pray the statistics are better by the time you read this). There are a number of factors involved in how & why this happens (physical as well as environmental), but I believe that the extraordinary pressure women of my generation, especially mothers, put on themselves to “have it all” and do everything Pinterest-perfectly by the book is a huge factor. The ridiculous lack of postpartum support in this country has a lot to do with it too. But the fact is that PPD can happen to any new mother within the first few years of their child’s life, no matter what their circumstances are. I think I’m a pretty good example of that.

PPD nearly broke me. Well, the truth is that is DID break me– several times really, starting from when Alex was a newborn. It began as mood swings and anxiety, which I chalked up to hormones and exhaustion. Over time it became more severe. I was crying all day and awake with anxious thoughts all night. I kept telling myself that I needed to “snap out of it,” that this is how parenthood was and I was being weak. Those thoughts eventually lead to me thinking that I wasn’t fit to be a mother. That you three deserved better. That you would be better off without me. You can probably imagine where those sorts of thoughts lead to. 😦

I am blessed to have Dad, who saw what was happening & helped me put the pieces back together every time I fell apart. He is the one who dealt with me in my darkest days and weakest moments, even when that meant that I treated him poorly, or I was too broken to function through normal daily life. He is the one who wrestled the phone from my hands so that he could call the suicide prevention hotline while I sobbed and begged him not to because “I’m NOT crazy!” and I was convinced that such a phone call would brand me with that label, get me “drugged up,” separated from my babies or worse. He is the one who was eventually able to push me into seeking help from my doctors, friends and family. And of course, he is the one who has been an amazing partner and father to you three from the moment I showed him our first positive pregnancy test. And with each new baby he’s gotten more & more awesome at it.

I am blessed to have your grandparents, who did not hesitate to help when I finally started to ask for it. It took me awhile to get to that point because the anxiety made me feel like I needed to do everything myself, even though that mentality was drowning me. We’ve since set up a system of regular support in the form of your monthly grandparent visits– raising you three without any family or close friends to rely on nearby makes dealing with PPD that much more difficult, and frankly those regular stretches of time alone to “recharge” have become key to my sanity.

I am blessed with a multitude of “mom friends,” both online and locally, who understand my situation and are always available for words of advice, support, and empathy… when I have the courage to reach out to them. I didn’t for a long time, you see, because I didn’t want to look weak. I didn’t want to appear “abnormal” or “less-than” and ESPECIALLY not “crazy.” So for a long time, only a few people knew I had PPD, and even fewer knew the full depths of what exactly I was going through. With time and many conversations with these friends I’ve come to learn, as I mentioned before, that PPD is a lot more common than most realize. I’m not alone in this fight, and that knowledge in & of itself has put me in a much better place.

I am blessed to have access to medical care, although it did take a great deal of phone calls and independent research to figure out what I needed and where to go to get it, which is unfortunate to say the least. And I didn’t even get to the point of admitting that I needed that kind of help until Charlie was over 6 months old, so by the time I finally started receiving medical care for my PPD it had gone untreated for almost 2 years. Nevertheless, I still consider myself more fortunate than many others in my situation.

Even with all that, I broke time & time again. It’s still a very precarious balance, a fight against the darkness that even now is always in the forefront of my mind. And even when I’m past this “baby stage,” past the hardest part as far as PPD goes, I think it will always be at least a small part of who I am.

So why am I telling you all this? Why did I want to write you a separate letter about it? Well, above all else it’s because these letters are part of our family’s story. I promised in the beginning to share with you how raising you was from my perspective, and this is a big part of it… even though it’s not sunshine & rainbows & cute baby pictures. I also wanted to tell you about my PPD experience because if you ever become parents yourselves someday, I want you to know that this is something that can happen, and it’s not such a crazy, weird thing. It doesn’t make you a bad parent. And should this happen to you or someone you love some day, I hope this letter can help you recognize it for what it is, and seek help accordingly.

I also wanted to use this letter as an opportunity to let you guys know that it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, my body, and my particular set of circumstances. And above all else, I have no regrets as far as becoming a parent goes. I’d go through it all again in a heartbeat to have you three. I know I say this in my letters a lot, but you guys truly are the lights of my life. Despite its challenges, I have no doubt that I was put on this planet to be your mother. And I thank God everyday for it.

All my love,
Mom