creating

Dear Bone,

It is always a good day when I find you perched on the edge of your bed using the window sill as a workspace for creating. Today, as the rain clouds rolled in, I found you making stickers (you didn't ask to use my sticker paper -- like I have told you 100 + times you need to do --  but I forgive you).

It still amazes me how much these little moments of quiet and creativity mean to me. They make me proud to be your Mama.

raspberries

Dear Bird,

You are blowing a lot of raspberries lately (by the way -- your father had never heard the term "blowing raspberries," and was very confused why I referred to the farting sound you made with your mouth (and drool) as a fruit).

Dear Bone,

You ate over 1/2 of the above raspberry coffee cake this morning (and you would have eaten the whole thing, had I allowed you). I was (very) surprised your stomach did not ache.

Love,

Mama

rain walk

Dear Bone,

Sometimes it is nearly impossible to get you to leave the house. Even promises of puddle splashing, coffee cake, and a breakfast screening of the Muppets aren't enough to get you off your spot (next to your chess board) on the living room floor. And on (the many) days like this, I make our adventures required, not optional. I am not sure if this is a good parenting tactic, but usually (although not always) forcing you out of the house results in fun.

Today was one of those days. You might have "hated" the farmer's market, but you had no problem devouring an entire raspberry strip from Tag's or extreme puddle splashing along the curb.

I hope it is these little (fun) things you remember, and not the fact that you had to be forcedout of the house when you would much rather have spent the morning lazily lounging on the rug.

I love you more than rain puddles and coffee cake.

you're in kindergarten

Dear Bone,

You're in Kindergarten!!!!

Not really. It's actually almost the end of 1st grade, but while painting and cleaning your room yesterday, I found your kindergarten time capsule. A small plastic paint bucket with your picture from the first day of school, a twine string measuring your height, your handprint cut out of scrapbooking paper, and a list of your favorites. It is very likely (even with plans to put the string into a perfect vintage memory box I will find at a flea market soon) that I will lose everything.

In the (likely) event that I loose everything, here are your kindergarten favorites:

Animal: Monkey

Color: Blue

TV Show: Ben Ten

Movie: Up

Subjects: Art and Math

Sport: Basketball

Vegetable: Carrots

Food: Cheeseburger

Ice Cream: Marshmallow Gelato

Favorite Thing Your Did on the First Day of School: Drawing

 

 

When I showed you your time capsule, your were thrilled. Especially about the piece of string, because you have most definitely have grown. And even more about the picture of you eating TWO ice cream cones from Hartigan's. (Did I really let you do this?). You also asked where your time capsule was for 1st grade. Oops.

I love you more than two scoops of ice cream.

bestfriends

Dear Bird,

You adore our cat, Henry. Really, besides Bone, nobody but that cat can get so many laughs out of you. You do a whole lot of grabbing and pulling and even gnawing (which is gross).  And (most of the time), Henry puts up with it. Even seems to enjoy the fur pulling and tail grabbing and paw eating (again, gross). He purrs and rubs his head into yours, bats at your long hair with his paw (claws in), and rolls over lovingly as you yank the clump of white fur on his belly.

True friendship.

shrimp boil

Nothing beats a shrimp boil on a warm Monday evening. Or a dining room screening of Tron. Or a dish full of Cherry Garcia for dessert.

beach baby

Dear Bird,

Yesterday was your first time at the beach. No perfect it's-a-beautiful-day-and-your-in-a-matching-hat-and-itty-bitty-sized-swim-set photos for you. Your hair was slick with sun screen (I am not even sure it made it to your head), and you promptly did a face plant in the sand  (resulting in cold water being dumped over your head and a good deal of crying and eye rubbing). I didn't take a single "good" photography, but I reminded myself that it didn't matter. It was the warm sun, the chips and salsa, and this first day at the beach I wanted to remember.

You recovered quickly from the above sand/water incident, taking quickly to the beach toys and the cool breeze and the tiny twigs along the shore line. And the sand. You loved the sand. You ran your little hands through it, grabbing fistfuls and shaking your tiny hand like a salt shaker -- watching the grains of sand scatter through your fingers.

Bone played Frisbee with Dad. Baby Reid (whom we affectionately call Hippo, and is the closet thing to a cousin you have) ate sticks.

All in all it was a good afternoon -- the kinds that brings the promise of summer, and sun (and sun screen) soaked afternoons beachside.

Love you more than picnics on a plaid beach blanket.

to market to market

Dear Bone,

You have been known to devour  have five croissants in one sitting (you did, however, puke three hours later). Croissants are your favorite. Especially from the Farmer's Market eaten with scrambled eggs on a Saturday morning. You were also pretty dang excited about the popping corn on the cob I brought home from my market trip this morning . You were much less excited about the baby spinach and asparagus.

I love you more than strawberry rhubarb pie and fresh baked croissants from the Farmer's Market.

belly crawl

Dear Bird,
Today you started belly crawling. It's a big step for you. Your physical therapist says you're slightly delayed, your dad says you're lazy (like him), and I just like to think that you know better than to subscribe to some pediatric guidelines that dictate when you should do what. You're a rebel.

Anyway, back to the belly crawling. You did it. You really wanted to get your hands on my make-up bag. Your crawling -- on the ground, army style -- reminded me of the time that I was caught breaking into a swimming pool (in high school, not recently).

How, you might be wondering, did your belly crawling remind me of pool trespassing with my friends in high school? Here's how:

After we successfully scaled a ten-foot wire fence (and discovered that the pool was not kept full after hours -- crushing our dreams of a midnight/moonlit swim), we manged (as we ran around like idiots) to trigger some sort of alarm (or simply attract the attention of nearby neighbors). The police arrived. There were big lights and a lot of uniformed men. My friends and I, thinking we had a chance to make it out unnoticed, got down on our bellies and slithered through the dirt and poolside plantings back towards the ten-foot fence.

If you are reading this before adulthood -- don't get any ideas (about breaking into swimming pools OR successfully evading multiple police officers) -- MY STORY DID NOT END WELL. Even though we belly crawled like crazy  -- WE GOT CAUGHT. And you want to know something else? Breaking An Entry is a pretty serious crime. We were arrested, parents were called, parents were ANGRY, and we had to get a lawyer to represent us in Court.

This is a story for you to laugh at. And learn from. Even if you remain an expert belly crawler, please, PLEASE don't break into any pools (or into any any places).

With Love,

You (Juvenile) Delinquent Mama

shrugs and all

Dear Bone,

A few mornings ago I told you a story.  A story about discrimination and injustice and unfairness and unkindness and ignorance. It is this story. The story of a Boy Scout Troop Leader (and mother to a boy your age) who was outed from her position because her family was made up of two moms. I tell you how I didn't know Boy Scouts was exclusionary (and I explain to  you what this word means), and how this upsets me because it is WRONG -- in Boy Scouts and in the world. And you just shrug.

It doesn't phase you. I ask you if you think this is a fair, and you say, "sure." I know your only 7, and that you are thinking only about how badly you want to build a slingshot and go camping with your friends, but I hope that one day you don't just shrug your shoulders, claim that your feelings have never been hurts, and state that you don't care because, "it isn't you who is being excluded."

I guess it is partly my job to teach you this. But I hope this lesson is not one that I simply "teach" you. I hope as you grow and change and see and do that you learn this on your own. I hope that you find room in your heart for compassion, empathy, fairness and justice. I hope you find room for fight and change. I hope when you see exclusion and judgement in the world it breaks your heart (even just a little). I hope you embrace all forms of families and people. I hope you love freely and easily and equally. I hope when you do make mistakes, when you do pass judgements, and when you do exclude or hurt someone else -- that you learn and grow and rethink and reconsider.

I hope one day you don't just shrug.

I love you always (shrugs and all).

weekday morning

Right now our mornings go something like this:

Bone wakes (always a little bit cranky, rubbing sleep from his eyes). Bird wakes (always a little less cranky, with a coooooo or two and an easy smile). There is breakfast (egg sandwiches, scrambled eggs, sometimes smoothies, almost always something). There is mess making and boardgame playing (by Bone), and there is always plenty of laughing (mostly baby Bird at Big Brother). And coffee for me. We walk Bone to school, and then me and Bird walk back, and then it is naptime for baby Bird and mamatime for me.
 

Mornings are my favorite.

dear bone and bird

Bone and Bird,

School is over in twenty-five minutes, so I have only ten minutes to write something I have been thinking about forever. Mulling over. Debating the best wording for. I have made promise after promise to write each of you letters (each week, each month, on your birthday -- whenever), and I have made promise after promise to take more pictures (on Christmas, on Easter, on any day) -- but something always stops me. Laundry, fuzzy and  unfocused thoughts and words, perfectionism, lack of photography skills, a new episode of Revenge, crying, a LEGO alligator shattering in Bone's bedroom. But I want to write you. I want to save memories somewhere other than my mind. Somewhere other than your minds. And this matters to me. It really does. It matters so much.

I want to share stories with you. I want to share life lessons, photographs, recipes, the hissy fit you had because you couldn't watch a certain TV show at a certain time. So I am done trying to snap photographs that look professional. I am done trying to make eloquent sentences  about love and motherhood and raising a growing (too quickly) boy and a brand new baby. I am just going to write. Even if there is laundry to do and an episode of Revenge I haven't yet watched. I am going to write and photography anything and everything that matters (when I can) to me (and will hopefully one day matter to you). I want, more than anything, to give you a place to look to for answers and for memories as you grow older. I want to give you a place that will make you smile and laugh and remember.

I love you both more than goat cheese. More than the smell on the morning after a spring rainfall. More than margaritas. More than anything.