dear charlie brown,

you are growing up to be a little boy with a mind of your own. this is no surprise. you have many opinions, and want to do things yourself, or at least dictate how they should be done. here are some of the latest things about you...

• you love swings. whenever we leave the house, you immediately head in the direction of the park. you like to try every swing available, switching back and forth between them at least once, and often more.
  
• you can climb up the play structure at the park and go down the slide by yourself with just a little supervision.
  
• books, books, books. you are crazy in love with them.
  
• this past week you have started to hug me alot. you just come up and press against me and hug my knees. you have also started kissing my cheek, not just blowing kisses anymore.
  
• it's pretty much impossible for you to eat without getting so dirty that we have to change your clothes. even with a bib, and even with a towel on your lap.
  
• a month ago you were obsessed with elmo. you have gotten over elmo and are now obsessed with ernie. and sometimes with cookie monster.
  
• you love apple juice and cookies (we only give you fruit juice sweetened fig bars, and even those are reserved as treats)
• last week at school you told your teachers, "i want to go outside". they were a bit shocked to hear you make such a clear and complete declaration.
  
• you want very much to be able to put on your own shoes and socks. you try often, but it's just too soon.
  
• the cats now participate in our bedtime ritual. you like having them in the room during storytime, and then when it's time to sleep you like them to leave.
  
• when the cats meow outside your door in the morning, you imitate them. i hear you through the baby monitor--you are not saying "meow" like you do when we read books, but instead you are trying to make the exact sound the cat is making, just as you do with the crows when we see them. you imitate and you say, "kitty cat".
  
• your favorite song is old macdonald. we have it on cd, by ella fitzgerald. you want to hear it every time we get in the car, often more than once. at night, you ask me to sing it to you as a lullaby. i remember when you were very little and i sang to you, that was the first song i could tell you really liked.
  

balloon

dear bunky,

this morning we went shopping at trader joe's, first thing. one of the employees gave a balloon to the little girl next to us, but not to you--so i went to the customer service desk after we checked out and asked for yours.

"what color?"

"yellow"

i had to tell you to look--you didn't know to watch the man inflate it for you. when you saw the balloon expanding with helium, your eyes and mouth opened wide. a full body smile. you accepted your first helium balloon with joyous awe, as if you could not believe you were receiving something so wonderful.

after seeing many pictures of balloons in books, seeing them at the supermarket, at Walgreen's, after pointing them out to me always, here was a balloon for you, at last.

all day you have played with your balloon. running around the house yelling "a-loo! a-loo!", balloon in tow, pulling the balloon down toward you, letting it go, batting it with your hand, teasing the cat with it, panicking when it drifted out of sight...

when i brought daddy home from the hospital in the afternoon (he'd been there for 4 days recovering from a minor operation, his ostomy takedown, which was a cakewalk for him after everything he's been through), you were quick to show him your wonderful treasure.

you had missed him, that daddy of yours, missed him with all your might. you were brave and persevered in his absence, and when he came home, you held out your very best offering. "a-loo!"

recent conversations

last week

me: how about some breakfast?
you: not today.


sunday

me: i like your cute tummy.
you: thank you.

a period of rest

dear monkey puzzle,

i have a picture of you on my cell phone. you are wearing your red baseball hat and green jacket and you look awfully grown up. i look at that picture of you throughout the day when we're apart and i feel connected to you.

daddy finished with his chemo last week. at least, we are pretty sure he is done--when his oncologist comes back from vacation we'll know for sure. daddy has another ct scan scheduled for monday, so next week will tell us a lot about what we might expect over the next few months: more treatment or a period of rest? based on daddy's last scan, we are both expecting another clean scan and a few months off, a period of semi-normalcy. you will be happy when daddy feels well enough every morning to get out of bed early and play with you while i brush my teeth and get dressed for work.

you continue to learn many new words each day. i was keeping a list until it became too difficult to keep up. at last count you had over 75 words. by now you have well over 100, i would guess.

you have also started combining words. you did this once a couple of months ago when i left you at daycare. "bye mommy" you said, and surprised your teachers. but you hadn't done it again until recently, when one morning when daddy did not get up to see you you said, "daddy tired." then you saw the cat sleeping and you said "kitty tired". you've had a number of other combinations since then, with "yellow turtle" being my favorite. you are also repeating multisyllabic words and multi word phrases like crazy. and you seem to understand just about everything i say.

you've also started to have some tantrums, and they're really no fun at all. you're usually so much fun and so easy to be around (active and exhausting, yes, but not difficult) that it's a shock when we're suddenly on opposite sides. most of the tantrums seem to happen when you are tired and you want to do something for yourself that i can't let you do (play with the latch on the safety gate on the stairs, for example). as you seek more independence, we will probably see more of these unwelcome flare-ups. one thing about you is that you are dramatic and expressive, and have been since the day you took your first breath.

i had hoped with these letters to write more often and to paint a clearer picture of your early life. but as daddy gets better, i am getting more and more burned out and i don't have the energy to think very well anymore. i use up my mental energy at work, and at home i do my long list of chores at night and finally collapse into bed.

i do give you lot of love when we're together. and you are very attached to me, so i must be doing a few things right. if i am unable to tell you your story in the detail i had intended, i hope you will understand.

i lu lu

dear monkey,

it's been a long time...

you have become very confident on your feet, and you are taking on new challenges such as climbing the stairs and climbing onto and off of chairs. you have happy to go up and down the front porch steps over and over again. working on mastery. now you are interested in the big staircase, and you also want to open and close and lock the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs all by yourself.

we are having some struggles with these wants of yours. your fascination with the safety gate is dangerous, but when i try to divert your attention and scoop you up the stairs you squirm and howl over the injustice of it. i know how you see it. you are growing up and you can do lots of the same things that we can. you have been watching us and you know how things work. now you want to try it for yourself. you are ready to get going. but you don't have the balance yet, the coordination, the judgment to know when you are headed for trouble. so now we are sometimes adversaries. very often, actually, and although it is typical and expected, it still makes me sad.

that said, have you ever loved me more? you want me all the time. you do not go as easily to your daycare teachers anymore. instead you keep coming back to me, knowing that any minute i will say goodbye and disappear out the door. when daddy holds you, you often reach out for me to take you instead.

you are a talker. i mean, a serious talker. here are some of the words you can say:

mama
dada
kitty cat
banana
apple
ball
yellow
flower
book
bird
shoes
jacket
blanket
stairs
star
moon
blue
poo poo
purple
yum
cracker
cheese
pizza
water
bottle
bubble
popper
bear
tiger
elephant
outside
backyard
hi
moo
baa
neigh
baby
quack
gobble
night night
bye
name
rock
light
yogurt
eye
elmo
door
turtle

you can also say the cats' names and the names of some of your classmates at school. and i'm pretty sure you also say "i love you," but it comes out more like "i lu lu" and sometimes the context makes it hard to tell.

last month i had a parent conference at your school. the director told me that you are doing well across the board, but that you are exceptional in your social skills--good at staying out of struggles and disagreements with your peers, and very willing to share with others. she said that your teachers just smile when they hear your name, because you are so good natured. she also said that you are very compassionate in the way you relate to the other children. she said she has never seen anyone your age act so compassionately in all her years of working with children, and that it brings tears to her eyes.

you bring a smile to my face too, monkey moo. i lu lu.

fever, mr. clean, and 12 other things

dear rumplehead,

you are asleep in your crib, finally at rest after battling all afternoon with fever. you roasted and parched with heat and when the tylenol didn't work i consoled you as best i could until it was time to try again--with motrin.

about life. other people seem to make progress, but for the past couple of years i have only been moving in reverse, so i took this last week off from work to catch up. (my sudden vacation was triggered by me almost burning the house down a couple of weeks ago while you slept in your crib. it was nearly midnight and i was multitasking so i could get some sleep. i put something on the stove and left the kitchen for minute, completely forgot about the stove stuff and 40 minutes later, "what's that burning?" i ran to the kitchen to find 2 foot flames licking out of the pan, managed to get the fire out while wondering why the smoke alarms--batteries still good--did not alert me. still haven't figured this part out. scared the bubblegum out of me and i realized i HAD to find a way to get some control of things.) anyway, my to-do list for my week off was much too long and i knew i would not get to everything, but i did my best.

things i accomplished:

-removing everything from the shed and installing shelving
-putting most everything back in the shed, in a more organized fashion
-cleaning a bunch of unused junk out of the kitchen cupboards
-organizing the two kitchen "junk drawers" (w/bamboo organizing inserts from bed, bath, and beyond) and learning they are not full of junk after all
-cleaning off the top of the desk (look at all those crumbs and dust bunnies!)
-cleaning out the desk drawers (more bamboo organizers) and finding the title to the purple car that i've been wanting to sell for more than a year
-taking out the trash and recycling
-grocery shopping
-getting some non-toxic nuby sippy cups for you
-taking daddy lunch at the hospital on chemo day
-taking 6 months of mail and other personally identifying whatnot to the paper shredding place where you drive in and they shred it while you watch

still on my list:

-sleep (since it's almost 11:00 on sunday night, i'm running out of time on this most important of tasks)
-get rid of all the shed stuff that didn't go back in and is just sitting around our yard for our neighbors' viewing pleasure from their upstairs windows
-get the cleaning people in for a thorough cleaning (especially the 4x vomited-on floors)
-call scott about carpeting the stairs to lessen the chance that if you accidentally fall down them you will die or be seriously injured
-call blue cross to see if the outstanding claims for $10,000 from the hospital have been resolved
-call the hospital to be sure they are providing blue cross with the needed information (blue cross said they had asked and asked but not received)
-find that other bill for $2000 from ?? and figure out why we have to pay that much
-find that several month old bill for $250 that i paid (even though i didn't think i should) and triple check with blue cross
-double check that your dad qualifies for social security disability and figure out how to apply
-fax in the medical and dependent care account claims so we don't lose that money
-find 5 or so slow cooker recipes to make during the week so we can eat well and at a reasonable hour, enabling me to go to bed earlier and not be so sleep deprived
-make a shopping list from those recipes
-make a chart of the dates my monthly bills are due so i won't continue to forget one or more bills a month
-call at&t and be sure they got my payment sent wednesday and won't disconnect my service like they threatened to in that mailing they sent me, and in the automated phone call they sicked on me on friday
-find out from the credit union why my at&t bill stopped coming through my bill pay account three months ago
-take the car in to get the window fixed, finally, so it will close
-make an appointment for a mammogram
-clean all the clothes out of my dresser that i don't wear or that look awful on me
-get a few new things to wear that don't have to be ironed all the time
-find an appropriate place for a downstairs smoke alarm and get it installed
-weed the yard before the mammoth interlopers squeeze the life out of every other living thing
-tell you about everything you are doing: walking very well; talking the ear off of anyone who'll listen; saying "no" or shaking your head no; reading and reading and reading (can't get enough of the books!); taking the same book first to one parent and then to the other to get a different interpretation; rolling/bouncing/throwing various balls (your favorite); pointing out balls in books, in other people's yards, etc.; napping well and sleeping well at night (when you're not sick); trying to feed the cat little pieces of whatever you're eating; telling me about the bird you hear outside; imitating me when i say "caw, caw"; trying to imitate me when i say "cock-a-doodle-doo"...
-and about 12 other things i can't think of right now

but here's some good news: daddy had a ct scan this week and it's clear. no evidence of growth. this is 5 months out from his surgery, and halfway through his chemo. something seems to be working. we are not celebratory. there's too much uncertainty for that. but truly truly truly, we are grateful.

rivers and tides

dear pumpky,

where do i even begin? how about with practical matters:

1) you've had a birthday! you're one!
2) you got very sick on your birthday. you were miserable for days and we had to cancel your party. when monday rolled around and the doctor was finally open, i learned that you had bronchiolitis and an ear infection. you had a 10-minute mist treatment with albuterol in the doctor's office (for wheezing, which i couldn't hear with my bare ears, but the np heard with her stethoscope), and got a prescription for an inhaler and antibiotics.
3) you are feeling just fine now and i'm really, really glad.
4) although you've been cruising around holding onto the furniture for months, and taking a step or two on your own for a few weeks, as of yesterday you are officially walking
5) you've been talking up a storm. some of your more recent words: bird, dirty, diaper, uh-oh, star, night-night, piggy, gobble, book, yeah
6) you've gotten to be pretty good at getting food in your own mouth with a spoon, and you have fun with it if you're not in a big hurry.
7) i love you.

and now on to philosophical matters:

daddy and i watched a documentary last night called rivers and tides, about the scottish artist andy goldsworthy. i ordered it from netflix, and when daddy heard what it was he teased me about ordering a "physics lecture." he said i would fall asleep in the first five minutes of watching it. so i wish you could have heard all of the "wow"s out of dad's mouth as we watched the movie.

i have seen pictures of goldsworthy's work before and i always liked it. but it is completely different to see it alive, in motion. a chain of leaves snaking through a stream, a stack of rocks drowned by high tide and then re-emerging as the tide recedes, a line of sheep's wool capping a long rock wall, the wool, in sunlight, a brilliant illuminated line curving up and down and around the line of stones at the top of the wall.

today i keep thinking about this artist's pieces, and the look on his face as he worked, and how sometimes when he was almost done with a piece the whole thing would come apart and he'd have to start over. that happened a few times, and it became clear that that is just part of the nature of his work.

i hope you will watch this documentary one day and listen to this man talk. then you will know something about what it is to be wise. i don't know if he is wise about other things besides the art he makes, but when he talks about art and about making things, he is deeply invested in what he is saying, consumed with undersanding how the elements of his work affect and are affected by their surroundings--wind, water, light, etc.--and time. listening to him talk, i learned something about what it means to look, to pay attention, to understand, to be.