Dan here. I've hijacked the blog while Haley is out of town. Grammy, Kate, and I are holding down the house. We've been busy baking cookies. As you can see, Kate's having fun.

On the eve of Kate's third birthday, I share with you this video taken this weekend while Dan, Kate and Dan's Mom, also known as Grammy, baked cookies. To my child all occasions present a perfect opportunity to burst into original song, complete with dramatic hand motions. That is why I think of this as the quintessential Kate video. Enjoy.

Dear Kate,

One recent Saturday morning, we were all getting ready to go somewhere. You were putting on your little pink Croc shoes when you stopped and said that they hurt and you didn't want to wear the shoes. I checked, thinking you were just being a drama queen, but sure enough your pinky toes were hitting the ends of the shoes. It surprised me because you had worn them the day before without any problem. You literally grew out of the shoes overnight. Just like that.

Oh, Kate, if you would only grow out of a couple of other things that quickly. For instance: My recurring daydream right now is that I am going to wake up one day and you are going to decide that you are done wearing diapers. I'm not going to dwell on what a horrendous failure I have turned out to be at potty training. I try not to be one of those moms who tells people about her kids' diapers and if you one day happen to read any of this, I don't want you to be humiliated. But sometime right around, oh, the minute your little brother was born, you went from being really pretty close to done with the whole process to completely refusing to have anything to do with it. If I were judging purely on your level of interest right now, I would swear you are going to be wearing diapers to first grade, that is how adamantly you reject all attempts to discuss the matter. Our fabulous pediatrician assures me this is a reaction that a lot of kids have to the change of a new sibling. She tells me that you will do it when you are ready. I believe her, but only because I have to.

And then there's the pacifier -- another thing that I really thought you were almost done with before The Big Event. A couple of months before Isaac was born, you went to your first dental appointment, where I confidently assured your new dentist that you were mostly using the pacifier at naps and night time and surely it would be phased out on its own by your next checkup. Well guess what? We're going back there tomorrow, and you're going to walk through the door with that thing firmly wedged in your mouth. I just hope you'll take it out long enough to let them look at your teeth before they confidently assure me that you're going to need braces.

Photo by Lorrae Wachdorf

I bring all of this up mostly as an introduction to what I feel is the main theme of our last three months together -- mommy guilt. The constant nagging feeling that I am underachieving as your mother since your brother was born. For the most part, you are doing just fine these days. We had a bumpy time right at first, but things really smoothed out after the first few weeks. Now it's like you don't even remember that Isaac wasn't always with us. Moreover, you love him. The first thing you want to do every day is go and see him. You come running to tell me if he fusses or needs something, and when we are out in public you are very vigilant about making sure the sunshade on his stroller is put down -- you seem to think it's meant to protect the baby from outside threats, like a little shield. You're very protective of him, and I love that. But there are also days when you're really clingy and hard to deal with, and it makes me feel like I must not be giving you something you need.

A few weeks ago, we left Isaac with your dad and went to the museum, just you and I. Since then we've gone to the zoo together, too. We had such a good time, and it made me realize that most of the conflicted feelings I have lately are probably about missing all the time I used to spend just with you. I know you miss that too, I just don't know what to do about that. Maybe in a few years someone will have come up with a mom cloning machine so there can be finally be enough of me to go around. In the meantime, I'll try to have more of those dates with you.

Having mentioned that you've got for pacifier in your mouth 24 hours a day, I should also say that it certainly isn't holding back your verbal communication skills. You've always been pretty articulate, but now you are really a fully conversational person, and it gives us more and more insight into how your mind works. It doesn't work very rationally, but that doesn't impede your total conviction that you know everything there is to know about the world. Lately you have developed this especially authoritative tone that you practice by pretending to teach your stuffed animals. I am pretty sure you picked this up from the hours and hours of PBS Kids television that you watched this summer during the hours and hours that I nursed Isaac. (More guilt!) Between shows, there is this woman that does little projects with a cast of adorable children pretending to be in some kind of school setting. You do a pitch-perfect imitation of the tone she uses -- authority and total confidence. But here's the thing, Kate. You don't know much. So you just make stuff up. Here is an actual transcript of the kind of utter misinformation I heard you preaching to your stuffed animals the other morning:

"OK! So today we make yogurt from squash! You take the seeds, like this, and you put them in the dirt! Good! Then you stir it. Like this. Now it's all done! Yummy!"

Your expertise extends beyond the recipe for squash seed dirt yogurt. You are also the reigning expert on bugs. This is partly because you have developed a phobia of them lately. I have no idea when this started, but you are currently terrified of any and all insects, and the way you process your fear, as a complete raving extrovert, is by talking about what you know about the bug in order to reassure yourself that it is not dangerous. The other day, we went to your friend Lily's house and when we were getting all our stuff unloaded from the car, you saw a lone ant on the sidewalk. You froze in fear, refusing to walk near or around it. I eventually had to come and pick you up so we could go in the house, but before that you delivered the following soliloquy on ants:

"Mama, it's a ant! It's a ant! Oh no! He not bite me! He not have a mouth, so he not bite me! Ants carry food! We have a ants in the back yard but I not touch them! Oh no! It's a ant! He not bite me!"

And so on until I physically removed you from the peril of the ant. You would have stood there and talked about it all day.

Photo by Lorrae Wachdorf

Your need to verbally express yourself is spilling out in song, too. Oh, yes. You write original songs now. When I'm putting you to bed at night, we usually sing a couple of songs. These days, after I sing, you will announce that you want to sing a song to me. Then you sing me one of your own compositions, and they are hilarious. The one you sing most often is called "The Elephant on the Moon" and it concerns an elephant on the moon and a "monster on the stars." That part about the monster is kind of dark, but I am not going to censor you.

You have created your first imaginary friend. Her name is Skeeka. No, I don't know what kind of name that is, but you are sticking with it. Skeeka does a lot of things. Sometimes she has to go to school. Speaking of school, this week you went to your first day of preschool. Back in the spring when we were waiting for your brother to be born, I signed you up for a two-day morning preschool program. At the time I felt like it would never be August, we would never have a baby boy and you would never actually be three, but to my total shock and amazement, here we are. On the first day of school I had no idea what to expect. We had talked about your new school and visited and met your teachers, and you seemed excited, but still I had this fear that you might hate it. But you walked into the classroom last Thursday like you owned the joint. You never even glanced at your dad and I as we stood there signing you in, putting your things in your cubby. We tried to wave goodbye to you and you didn't even notice. It was like you had been waiting your whole life to go to preschool. I got the feeling I was embarrassing you by hanging around too long. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen until at least junior high.

Photo by Lorrae Wachdorf

It felt so strange to walk out of that building without you and even more surreal to hear from you hours later about what you did that morning, how much fun you had, how much you like your teacher. I was proud of how well you handled the whole thing and really glad that you had so much fun. And I was a little sad, too, because you really are growing up. I think one of the hardest skills to master in this whole mom thing is to be patient about the hard things and remember that someday when you are a little bigger, potty training really will be over, but so will your sweet little almost-three ways. So I'm going to try not to rush you too much. You'll get there, and when you do, I bet I'll cry and feel all nostalgic about what a big girl you are. On the other hand I doubt I will miss the feeling of sinking a second mortgage payment into diapers for two kids each month.

So, you know. Hurry up. But take your time too.

I love you,
Mommy.

I started writing this letter to Kate weeks ago. Since then, she has actually turned three, and several things I mention in the letter have changed. First of all, that dream I was describing about Kate waking up and being potty trained appears to have come true. She had a major breakthrough about the whole thing last week when I was away on a trip and my mother-in-law Lorrae magically persuaded her that using the potty was the coolest thing since Disney Princess underwear. Lorrae should go into business and call herself the Potty Whisperer. She could write a book and the desperate mothers of toddlers everywhere would buy it and revere her. I surely do. Meanwhile, after her initial love of preschool, Kate has resisted going for a couple of mornings, only to have a great time once she's there. I considered updating the letter to reflect the new world order, but I decided to leave it the same to remind myself how fast things can change in the world of Kate. And when it's time to potty train Isaac I think I will just send him to Lorrae's house for a couple of weeks, assuming she isn't too famous to fit us in between her TLC show and her appearances on Oprah.

Last weekend was a busy one for us. For starters, we held Kate's first official big girl birthday party. Prior to this year, my philosophy about the birthday party thing has been "Yeah, but she doesn't know it's her birthday." When she was one year old, we gave her a cupcake and then went out on a date night by ourselves. When she was two, we gave her a cupcake, blew up some balloons and let her open some presents. It was pretty sweet being a negligent mother. But the gig was up this year, because Kate went to a few birthday parties and wised up. She started talking about her birthday party MONTHS in advance. It was obvious she knew I had been holding out on her and that she expected me to make it up this time around. From the way she was describing this party, it was starting to sound like something out of Cirque du Soleil, but with more cake. I knew I was going to have to step up my game.

But here's the problem: I have no game. You can ask anyone. When it comes to making cute crafty things or planning a theme for a party, I am useless. One time I tried to be a good sport and sew a Christmas stocking for Kate with my friends Erika and Summer. Their stockings were perfectly respectable, with tops, and bottoms, and closed toes. Mine looked like a violent crime had been committed against an elf and this had been left behind as a warning to the others.

So I did what anyone without a shred of party-planning skillz would do: I told everyone (in an email!) to meet us at Chuck E. Cheese. Then I went to Target, bought some party hats and goody bags, and called it a day. And it was actually a pretty fun little party. Here are some photos and a quick video clip of Kate blowing out the candles on her cake. Notice how adorable the cake is too -- it's a little princess castle, and it was made by the super-talented Mrs. Erika. Kate was in love with it.

Here is Erika taking on three-year-old Lily, who is a few months older than Kate, in air hockey while holding Owen, who is a few months older than Isaac. I think Erika won, which is pretty impressive with a baby on one arm.

Kate's friend Bonnie proved to be the adventurer of the group, taking on the giant hamster wheel. Her mom, my friend Lynne, was pretty brave about it too.

Isaac, meanwhile, snuggled with Mrs. Carol. I think they were both happy.

Speaking of Isaac, the next day it was his turn to have a cake made for him.

Isaac was baptized at our church, and it was such a happy occasion. Dan and I agreed that a second time around, we were humbled both by what we are charged to do as Isaac's parents and by remembering all the ways God has met and aided us as we have tried to raise Kate to His glory these three years. Here are some photos.

Kate found the whole thing really fascinating. We started trying to explain it all to her a few days beforehand and it made me realize again that it can be really challenging to talk about these things in a way that a three-year-old would understand. I think she basically understood it eventually, but along the way I answered some really funny questions like what color the water they put on Isaac's head would be (umm, clear?) and if we would put him in a bathtub.

Isaac had his eyes open during the prayer. Incidentally, these photos were all taken by Erika, who apparently does everything for us. Thank you, Erika!

And then we smiled for a family photo, which reminded me why I never try to take one for Christmas. I always end up with my mouth wide open, not because that's how I mean to look, but because I am loudly instructing Kate to "Look at the camera! Smile! We will have cake in a minute!"

Isaac is five months old today! As expected I have been a slacker in documenting his life as a second child, but I do want to take a minute to say here that we have all fallen just completely and utterly in love with this little guy. He is the sweetest, happiest, smilng-est piece of baby heaven the world has ever known, and we cannot get enough. When I was expecting him, I remember asking a lot of people if it was really true that you could love all your kids as much as you love your first. Even though everyone said yes I think I was still skeptical. But it's true -- it's all true, and I realize it every day when I go to get Isaac out of his crib and he does that awesome baby full-body happy dance. Some morning I am just going to pass out from cute overload. Join me, won't you?

My kiddos. I think they are pretty cute. I may be biased.