Letter to Marigold, Age 2

Dear Goldie-locks,

When you turned two a few months ago, we got you a tiny shopping cart to push around. We knew you'd like it because you were constantly filling up other things with assorted items and pushing them around the kitchen: things like flour buckets and laundry baskets and cardboard boxes. This shopping cart, we hoped, would curb those other, unauthorized, carting activities just a bit. Abraham put the cart together for you secretly on the back porch, and then since it was too big to wrap, we draped a towel and a blanket over it and told you to find out what was inside. I love the picture of you midway through the reveal. You've got such a happy, anticipatory look on your face, but you've paused to look back at the rest of us for—what, approval? reassurance? or maybe just to make sure we're all watching?—before you get on with your task. Whatever this thing is, your face seems to say, I already know I'm going to love it, and I want to make sure you're all fully invested in loving it with me! 

It seems like such a good depiction of who you are right now: the happy, excited, headlong rush toward what's next—along with the seemingly contradictory desire to make sure you're not doing it all alone. But I don't think it is contradictory. It's part of why I love two-year-olds: for all their famed "let-ME-do-it"-ness, what they really mean is "let-me-do-it-while-YOU-watch-and-marvel." And you, especially, seem to love being part of a group; one of the kids. (Probably a good desire for a sixth child to have.) When you get out the magnetic drawing board from the Church Bag (which you aren't supposed to do, but you do it several times a day anyway)—or when you gleefully draw on some paper, any paper, with the school markers (which you aren't supposed to get out either)—you inevitably hold it up in triumph and proclaim "I drew Baymax!" —or an airplane or a penguin or some other thing you've seen the others draw.

And your pursuit of this "I'm one of the kids" ideal seems to drive many of your decisions. It's not just the markers you get out without authorization. It's…well…everything. You aren't one of those destructive two-year-olds who makes messes just for the wild joy of it, but you very definitely know what you want and where it is, and are willing to persist until you get it. One of the first phrases you learned to say was "up high"—as in, "Put those markers up high so Marigold can't get them!" You've heard that so often that you sometimes walk around the room, pointing up at things and commenting, "Scissors up high." "Birdies up high." (Malachi's ceramic birds.) "Stories up high." (The pop-up books.) And so forth. You don't seem devastated by it or anything. You seem to be just…noting it. And then, when the opportunity arises and no one is around, you'll act. How many times I've found the bathroom stools out by the bookshelves (stacked on top of each other to make them that crucial inch taller)—or a handful of tiny fingerprints in the edge of the cake—or the hair clipper attachments out of their case and lined up end-to-end in the hallway—or a bunch of little nibbling bites out of a peach or a banana or a block of cheese—I can't even count. 

Daddy sent me a text the other day: "This little girl is the monkiest monkey that ever monkied." And I have to admit he's right! You are sweet. You are usually obedient, when a direct order is given. But like a little monkey, you are resourceful and too clever by half! You take it as your absolute, unassailable, God-given right to do everything the other children do, and you feel completely justified in going to any lengths toward that end. "Goldie! Oh DEAR! You're not supposed to poke your fingers into the cake! No, no!" I'll say, shocked (though I don't know why I am, any longer). And you'll look at me with a slightly furrowed brow and say, more in sorrow than in anger, "Yes. Ah DO wanta fingers cake." 

You also don't appear to be aware that you are not authorized to instruct your siblings in the finer points of (your version of) the Family Rule Book. "Ah-ky!" ["Malachi!"] you scolded the other day, when Malachi was howling over a pinched finger. "You don't hafta cry-bout dat!" Or, "Dai-sy! Say AMEN!"—after the prayer. If Teddy burps after nursing, you say "Pardon ME!" in scandalized tones, on his behalf. You dispense your wisdom judiciously, though. You give praise when it's warranted. My favorite thing in the world is when one of your brothers is practicing the piano in the morning, and they finish a song, and you call out from your bed in a loud, sleepy voice, "Dood job, Abey!" or "Niiiice! I yuv-dat song!"

You're sweet with Theodore. Really sweet. You sing to him and leave little toys (many, many lined-up little toys) in his bassinet, and when you're not being sweet to him you're being sweet to some other baby: your elephant, or Daisy's penguin, or your Taggie, or a little car. I guess it doesn't much matter WHAT it is, but if it's something you can carry, you can pretty much bet it's going to end up bundled up and bouncing to the music of the baby bouncy-seat eventually, swaddled with a blanket, being kissed and "shhh-shhh-shhh"-ed while you hold it and rock back and forth. 

Your favorite book right now is one of my favorites too, Babies by Gyo Fujikawa. Best of all, you love the pages contrasting the babies being naughty with the babies being good. You insist that I read it the same way every time, in appropriately horrified tones, pointing to each picture in turn: "No, no, baby, we don't tear pages from the book! Oh dear, no, we don't fight over the doll! No, no, baby, don't spill the milk! Oh dear, not supposed to eat jam from the jar!" Sometimes I notice you, silent and wide-eyed, mouthing along with me, "No, no, baby!" And then you beam the biggest, most relieved smile in the world when I turn the page and get to: "Oh, yes, yes, we do be careful with books! Yes, yes, baby, good sharing the doll! Yes, yes, we are careful with our milk! Good, good baby; wait for Mommy to give you the jam." You nod and settle yourself down deeper into my lap and sigh that satisfied little-girl sigh. Ah, yes. Babies doing what they're supposed to. Your virtuous soul is content.

You love company, and you love Daddy and me. I can't say it isn't flattering. The minute I set foot on the stairs to go down to the living room and kitchen, you come flying out away from wherever you're playing, like a whirlwind, yelling "WAIT-WAIT-WAIT-WAIT!" And then, "HOLD-HAND-WAIT-I-HOLD-YOUR-HAND!" When you catch up and calm down a bit, you usually correct that to a more polite (one might even say overpolite), "May I PLEASE hold your HAND-please?" (with the "please"s so high in your vocal register, they come out as squeaks). Heaven forbid I have my hands full already, carrying the laundry down or something—though luckily, I can usually get you to be content with just holding on to my shirt in that case. You come flying out the front door to wave goodbye in the same way, whenever anybody leaves. And you come running and yelling "ABEY HOME!" "MOMMY HOME!" "DADDY HOME!"—no matter who it is or how short of a time they were away.

But then…you don't always need an audience. You seem to be content in your own company too, quietly getting out of bed before your sisters are awake and playing (with self-narration, most of the time). You have a cute little serious look of concentration when you're doing something hard, and a sweet little "Did it!" that you say quietly to yourself when you've finally succeeding in stuffing the big bouncy ball into the small cup, or whatever other triumph-that-will-require-us-to-pry-something-out-with-a-screwdriver. 

You love manipulating things, sorting them, lining them up and dealing them out. When I walk into a room and see that all the plates have been gotten out of the cupboard and set onto the carpet and one Jenga block is set carefully in the very middle of each plate…well, I know you've been there, that's all.

You're not wild. Not rambunctious. You've got a very careful, thoughtful side. But…exuberant? Maybe that's the word I'm looking for. Everything you do is so joyful, exuberant, alive. 

Just this morning, Daddy asked me, "Why is this Goldie-girl so BRIGHT and VIBRANT?" You are! You're a bright, happy, vivid little Marigold, bursting with color and happiness, and overflowing with personhood. I don't know how your name could be right-er for you. I love it when you drop something from your highchair: "MY-BREAD-MY-BREAD; Aaaa, my bread!" you exclaim dramatically—or when your shoe comes off on the way to church: "MY-SHOE-MY-SHOE-MY-SHOE-MY-SHOE"—continuing for however long it takes us, as we keep dragging you along by the hand, to realize that you're not just dawdling and prattling on about some random thing, but that you are actually conveying information we need to pay attention to.

I'm sorry about that, and we DO try not to ignore you TOO often, but you just do so much TALKING right now, little Goldie, and much of it is (forgive me…) very repetitive. It is charming, of course, and adorable, but when you're standing by me on a stool while I make dinner, repeating, "Oooo making, Mommy? Ahmgurgurs? Ooo making? Ahmgurgurs? Ooo making, Mommy? Ooo making? Ahmgurgurs?"—well. I have to admit I make the progression from "Yes, sweetie, it's hamburgers" to "Hmm, what do YOU think I'm making?" to "You KNOW it's hamburgers, Goldie" to "Aaaargh, stop ASKING me that!" more quickly than I'd like.

But we can't resist you for long, any of us. You occupy such a happy place in this family right now. There are so many people who dote on you and delight in every little thing you do. Your brothers and sisters have been loving you from literally the very second you were born (and before!), and even more than any of the others before you, you were OUR baby—not just MY baby. 

Because there are so many of us, and baby Theo is still so small, when we go places I sometimes have to assign you out to your big brothers and sisters. We went to a big playground where I couldn't watch you, and Abe and Seb and Ky took you by turns, fifteen minutes at a time. I was afraid I might get some resistance from them, since they couldn't set off doing their brave, adventurous big-kid things while they were watching you, but then I realized that far from being disappointed when their turn came, they were fighting over you, each one hoping to be the one that got you next. Each brother sweetly held your hand and let you around to all the best places, and did everything with an eye to getting you to laugh or squeal with delight, and relished being the one you looked up at so admiringly and so trustingly. 

This is too blurry to even see your face, but you're laughing and clasping your hands with joy—you can see it in every line of your little body

The same thing happened a few days later at the swimming pool while I was nursing baby Theo. Malachi held out his arms to "catch" you while you "jumped" over and over again off the step of the pool to him (that was a sight to see: tiny you bending at the knees, brows furrowed in concentration, and then, with a mighty effort, heaving up your legs, leaving one or the other foot trailing along behind you as you took an awkward, hopping step down into the water—but just as pleased as if you'd plunged from the high dive). Sebastian put you on his back and ferried you into the deep water, saying "Hop like a bunny! Hop like a bunny!" as he bounced you up and down. (You repeated that little phrase to yourself a hundred more times that day after Seb left you in my care, no doubt trying to capture the same excitement you'd felt with him.) Abraham devised some racing, splashing game that had you breathless with laughter and dizzy excitement. I could hear you shrieking and guffawing all the way across the pool.

I'm sure there will be moments of frustration with all these siblings of yours, but I hope you also know how lucky you are to have them; your cheering section, your adoring public. You enchant them just by being YOU, and I hope as you grow up, you will keep loving them back as joyfully as they love you now.

A few days ago we were at the swimming pool again and I was sitting with Theo, watching you reel and stagger through the water…bumble around…fall down…stumble to your feet again, coughing and blinking but smiling, smiling, smiling. The sun was coming sideways and lighting your eyes up blue-green, and your whole face was shining with excitement. I wanted to take picture after picture of you, preserve the I-still-think-it-might-be-the-tiniest-bit-red glint of your hair, catch every single flash of life coming through your expressive little face. But since we were in the water and my arms were full of wet baby, I just tried to remember everything, willing myself to see it all so I could write a picture of it later.

I know I'm really writing this to an older You: you when you can read this and understand and maybe catch a glimpse of who you were, back before you can remember. I just wish that future you could be there, sitting next to me as I watched you in the pool. You scooted through the water, saying so many things: there were other people at the pool playing "Marco Polo," and I heard you murmuring "Mar-co!" to yourself as you spun around for a while. Then you got a couple of your siblings' discarded pool noodles and made a sort of plow with them and chanted "DAN-ger! DAN-ger! DAN-ger!" in a completely un-scary sing-song voice as you pushed them through the water and crawled along behind. Then you were trying to go down the steps to the deeper water, and when I told you to come back, you matter-of-factly told me, "No. Hafta go down dare. Go down by Daisy'n'Zhoonie." But you complied pleasantly enough when I hauled you back by one arm, and then you were off on your own again, singing some little song that I almost thought I recognized. There you were: falling down over and over, thrashing around a bit, coming up with the water streaming off your face and those shining eyes and that smile, Goldie, and I felt so full up with love for you I didn't know how to even hold it in. Like all two-year-olds, you love to sing that Jesus wants you for a sunbeam, but as I watched you it was like you were the whole entire sun, bubbling down and then bobbing up, beaming, and all the while light streaming off of you like a crown. I did try to take pictures once I was dry, of course. But the pictures don't capture it. Video doesn't even capture it. You'd have to just…well, you'd have to BE here with me, watching every little thing you do, to truly appreciate who you are at age two. You're here. But you're too busy BEING you to ADMIRE you, and by the time you can read this, you won't be two anymore.

Here's the thing, though. As cute as all your little mannerisms are, and as much as we all adore sitting around the dinner table and telling each other about the funny things you've been saying, while you sit and take it all in and smile shy, knowing smiles, and giggle with the rest of us even though you have no idea what's so funny—in spite of all that, it's not being a two-year-old that makes you so bright and vibrant and delightful. It's not the way you shout "Iiiiiii do! Iiiiii do!" before you even know what we're offering when we start to say "Does anyone want more…" at dinner. It's not the way you insist that "Goldie say-da prayer!" and then you twinkle your eyes and bite your little lip and look around sideways, silent as the grave, until Daddy calls on someone else. It's not that, but instead it's the fact that we can tell you're someone, someone we don't quite know yet, someone we remain a bit mystified by, but someone we're all going to love and marvel at someday even more than we do now. And someday when you do astonishing things in this world, beautiful and vibrant and important things—well, you might observe that all of us, your adoring fans, are not-so-astonished after all. Because we knew you when you were two, Goldie-locks, and that was all the giveaway we needed.

I love you, sweet girl!

Love,

Mommy

4

Letter to Malachi, Age 7

Dear Malachi,

We were snuggling in my bed the other morning, as we do so many mornings, and I was telling you about when you were born. We first discussed your chubby cheeks, as we always do. You were the chubbiest, cheekiest baby! After the breathtaking suddenness of your arrival, and after the nurses at the hospital finally finished WHAPPING you on the back (I still don't really know what they were doing, but you cried and cried), they handed you to me and I really wondered if they'd brought me the wrong child. You (your cheeks, mostly!) looked like some fat Polynesian baby, not like one of my own little wisps! But as soon as I kissed those round cheeks, I realized they were all I'd ever wanted in a baby. So soft! So squishable! I couldn't stop kissing you.

You were so full of light, right from the start. I suppose lots of people think their babies are little angels, and Daddy and I chose your name's meaning, My messenger, deliberately, but I never really saw you as the gauzy-robes-and-stardust type. If you were an angel, you'd be more along the lines of a clear-as-the-sun-fair-as-the-moon-and-terrible-as-an-army-with-banners sort of vision; more like John the Revelator's fierce and powerful angels than something from Precious Moments: "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire." I've always loved our Restoration hymn "I saw a mighty angel fly," and the message your baby-self brought was more like that angel's: "Truth is the message which he bears…To calm our doubts, to chase our fears/And make our joys abound." 

I don't know exactly how you've managed to bear that message, young as you are. I guess you've just always seemed wise beyond your years. I don't mean that quite how it might sound—I've heard people say their kids are "precocious," or "six-going-on-twenty-five," and it doesn't feel quite like a compliment—but I don't mean you're manipulative, or over-serious, or jaded. There's just something about you. A depth, a calmness. It can be startling when it comes out in full force. Like when I was nearly due with Marigold. You came up to me out of the blue, laid your hand on my belly, and said with complete confidence, "Soon you'll be having some of those 'compressions,' Mommy. Just be brave and remember that at the end of it all, you'll be holding a sweet new baby." The strangest thing about it wasn't even your grown-up tone, but the way you looked at me so clear-sightedly, like some oracle of ancient wisdom. Not to make too much of it—remember, you also told me with complete confidence that you KNEW I was having a boy, and were so positive about it that I thought for sure you had some insight from beyond the veil. Well, we all know how that turned out!—but really, there is sometimes something otherworldly about you. Like you haven't quite shaken off the last silvery strands from those clouds of glory you were trailing when you came. Daddy and I used to remark on it even when you were just a baby. "Too good for this world," we'd say, shaking our heads at each other darkly as you cooed and gurgled and beamed your beatific, chubby smiles toward us like rays of sunlight. We were mostly joking, but I think it was a bit of a relief for both of us when you started whining and fighting with your brothers occasionally, making yourself safe from immediate translation.

Abe was quite pleased with you from the beginning.

And then there's the way you are with babies. You've told me several times that you would like to be a midwife, and while it's not the most standard profession for a boy, after feeling for myself the force of your quiet presence, I don't doubt you could manage it admirably. You've always loved babies, and I can't help thinking you have some sort of link with the infinite. Our dear midwife Cathy always lets you help out with applying gel, strapping on blood pressure cuffs, and all the other little tasks of a prenatal appointment, and as I lie there and watch your serious face listening to baby's heartbeat, I can almost imagine you communing spirit-to-spirit, some other life still fresh in your mind. 

If that sounds too metaphysical, I suppose I should also remind you of what you said recently while we were discussing the vastness of the universe and the mysteriousness of it all: "Mommy, I literally hate infinity." (You had to add that "literally" in there, as "hate" isn't a word you use lightly—"That's a strong word, Daisy!" I hear you saying reprovingly to your sister every time she says it—but this time you felt it was justified.) Of course you aren't some gauzy, fluttery spirit, gazing off into the ether through your crystals as Enya plays in the background. You're solid, grounded, and you love the solid facts of earth: rocks and volcanos and ice storms. You stumble around moaning "I die! I die!" like a character from Shakespeare when you get 'killed' in a duel. You make faces at yourself in the mirror. You're funny and silly and BOYish.

You tease your sisters; you wail like a police siren when you fall down the stairs; you love digging holes and hammering things with your rock hammer (not always with authorization). Still—every once in a while there's a clarity, a perceptiveness, that sort of beams out from you, and it envelops everyone around you. Even when we're not consciously thinking about it, we feel it, and are unexplainably reassured.

Like I do with all my kids, I love to write down the funny, surprising little things you say, but half of what makes them so cute is your particular tone, which is sort of indescribable. Still, to give it a shot, I'd say: sober, adult-like, matter-of-fact, and with a little twinkle of self-awareness that makes me think you must know how impressed everyone's going to be with your precociousness, but you're not taking yourself too seriously all the same. You recounted a conversation with your little friend Natalie the other day that was the perfect example. You'd made her a tiny, stapled-together book, full of facts and little sayings and pictures of things in her favorite colors. You gave it to her at church, and when you told us about it later, Sebastian asked you, "Did you tell her what it said? Because she probably couldn't read all your writing." (That was true, you know—your current vocabulary far exceeds your ability to spell it, and you're still working on things like making your 6's and 9's face the right way—not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Now, in the retelling, you said to us, "Yes, I read it to her so she'd know what the words said. And then Natalie told me, 'It's okay, I'm still kind of learning to write too.' And then I said to her,"

—(here you inserted the most effortlessly casual of shrugs)—"'Yeah, six-year-olds aren't professional writers!'"

Of course you aren't, and we love you for saying so, little Ky-guy. You're not some mini-adult, you're a sweet little just-turned-seven-year-old boy, and that's quite enough! You've never been the slightest bit conceited or smug, with all your "wise-beyond-your-years"-ness. If you don't understand something, you say so without self-consciousness, and if you suspect obfuscation in someone else, you ferret that out too, with your usual forthrightness. 

"How's being seven?" I asked you the other day.

"Exactly the same as being six—since I don't seem to have received any more privileges," you replied, twinkling your eyes a bit, but with some severity in your tone. 

"What privileges were you thinking you'd get?" I said, laughing back. 

"Oh—I don't know—probably a later bedtime, at least," you said. 

"What about that mango lassi you ordered when you went out to dinner with Daddy?" I asked (getting a drink with a meal is kind of an unheard-of privilege, and you'd been telling me about it with a mixture of delight and awe earlier in the conversation). 

"Well—" you shot back, with some eyebrow action—"I DID like that mango lassi quite a lot—but—you know, Mommy, that had nothing to do with my being seven." 

Here you are with a branch poking right into your head. "Just take the picture; I've grown to quite like it here by now," you told me, when I told you to lean away.

I had to admit you were right. But in spite of not having new "privileges," you know, we have been treating you as one of the big kids for a long time now, probably longer than you really deserved. It's that emanating wisdom again. For a long time, when you did something more little-kid-ish, like pouting or hiding the truth or crying over something small, Daddy and I would realize suddenly and wonderingly as we discussed it, "Well…he IS only five!" We mostly expected you to act like your older brothers because you so often DID act like your older brothers, being responsible and competent and interested in things far beyond what someone would expect of a boy your age. So it's good when you truly "act your age" a bit—it reminds us to be patient and appreciate all the funny little things about your little-kid self. 

Still, on the whole, your maturity is pretty impressive. In your baby blessing, Daddy blessed you with—I can't remember the exact words—but something like, that you would be "comfortable with complexity." And I've never seen someone for whom that's been more true. When we talk about scriptural symbols, you have absolutely no hesitation in putting forth your own interpretations of what they mean. You understand metaphor. And you ask the most perceptive questions! When we read Macbeth, you asked about Lady Macbeth: "Do you think she still saw blood on her hands after she killed herself?" Whether you approach it through the sciences or through the arts, I can't help but think you're going to navigate the world, in all its complexity, remarkably well.

So, I wonder who you'll be when you grow up, Ky-guy? I'm always telling myself not to read too much into my kids' "profession choices" at such young ages. There are so many things ahead of you, so many experiences and potentially life-altering realizations, so many twists and turns and new interests to find. I love how wide-open your future still is, and I hope you have many adventures and surprises as you explore the friendly road ahead. Having once wanted to be an astronaut myself (and having read statistics about how many boys think they might be NBA players someday, for example), I know that for most of us, our vague views of our vague futures are often fuzzy or unfounded or easily-swayed. "You can do anything you dream of!" isn't a phrase you'd often find me saying, practical-minded person that I am.

But—but—I just can't help looking at what you love now, and seeing something true in it—something about you that MEANS something, whether or not it has anything to do with the nuts and bolts and practicality of your future life.

Here's what you love as a seven-year-old, Ky. (It's not ALL you love—heavens no! You are a boy of many and varied interests, drawn to all kinds of people and all kinds of things!—but these things are your enduring loves, the ones that seem to go on year after year.) You love birds. Have loved them, ever since you were a tiny little bird yourself. I sometimes wonder if we ought to have given you "Robin" as a middle name, but your namesake Leslie Norris loved birds himself, and saw the natural world more keenly and lovingly than most, so I think that connection is still apt. Ah, but there was that stuffed bird we gave you when you were just a baby, so perhaps it's not anything intrinsic to you, but simply a quirk of fate. 

You love space and the universe and you say you want to be an astronaut, but again, it's a common-enough wish, of little boys who love the thought of exploring new worlds and who know nothing, yet, of the study required and the unlikelihood of this chance, among so many. And then there's the midwife thing: perfectly understandable that you should be drawn to the idea, with so many babies around, and with Cathy so friendly and competent and willing to let you help her. Love babies? Of course you do—sensitive, kind little guy that you are. You see, I have to cover my bases a bit, Malachi, so that when you read this as a (probably very rational-minded) adult, you don't dismiss me as an entirely sentimental being, blinded by my fond, motherly emotions. And, okay, I admit that when it comes to my children, I can be as fond and unreasonably emotional as the next person, so perhaps your caution will be warranted. But I believe in a mother's insight, too, so I'm going to say this anyway, despite the horrifyingly wind-beneath-my-wings-ish sound of it, and if need be we can laugh about it together when I'm old and grey.

So this is what I think, sentiment and all: you are drawn perpetually upward, Ky, because that's where you belong. You want to fly, you want to touch other worlds. Your spirit is reaching beyond—up—toward—and maybe you don't even know what you're reaching for, but I feel that whatever it is, it's closer for you than for some people. I feel like, unlike some of us, when you reach heavenward, you're reaching up to touch something you never fully lost, and when you connect with it, you'll be tapping into something that you've always deeply known. And I just can't wait to see where that upward reach takes you, and how it will transform the rest of us—looking up, and watching you, and marveling.

So glad we have you, little messenger-Malachi. So proud of who you are, and who you're growing to be!

I love you,

Mommy

0

Letter to Abe, age 11 1/2

Dear Aberhammer,

How many nicknames do we have for you, anyway? I think it started when we got you home from the hospital and realized we could call you Abey-Baby. Then there was Aber-Baber and Hammie and Baby Hammer (and we ended up buying you a baby hammer, in fact, but it was Sebby who really loved it most, and we all know how that turned out). Pretty soon your nicknames started to proliferate until they bore almost no relation to your actual name (Abalone? Hamalot?)---but that's neither here nor there.

It's fun to write a letter to you that I know you'll read. I guess I know all of you kids will read my letters to you, eventually, but you'll read this one soon---maybe next time you log on to the computer to write on your own blog. Have I mentioned lately how much I like your blog? I like it because it reminds me of you. You're always changing the fonts (half the time I can't read the darn thing), changing the layouts, adding gadgets (---and let me just interject that it's all true, that stuff about how You Kids are better than your parents with technology. I always used to hear people say that and I thought it only applied once the parents were sort of . . . you know, doddering . . . but I consider myself pretty tech-savvy and you still pick up things and learn tricks I haven't even heard of!---)and so forth. You're kind of silly---okay, very silly---at times, but your blog is fun and surprising, just like you. I love seeing your pictures and reading your thoughts (and correcting your spelling . . . which is what mothers are for, right?).

Anyway, there's something so awesome about seeing you become a Real Person (which YOU thought you were from the time you were about 6 months old, but it took me awhile longer to grudgingly admit that you were one). And not just Any Person, but a Person who has good ideas and makes interesting points and makes me laugh out of not just politeness, but genuine surprise and delight. The other day when we were driving along (and have I told you how much I like having you old enough to ride beside me, instead of behind me, in the car? It's great having a navigator and entertainer right there in the passenger seat!) you saw a billboard that urged, somewhat sappily, HELP US SAVE THE CHILDREN! You looked at it and said right off, totally straight-faced, "Okay then, I'll give you some sound advice: stop doing a million abortions a year." It surprised me and made me laugh at the same time. I feel so lucky to have a son who I just love to spend time with, no matter what we're doing!

Even though I know you're a Person now, I like thinking back to those days when you weren't one. Did you know you're the only one of my babies who has had any hair, to speak of? It's true. It wasn't much by some standards, but I used to rub lotion on my hands and then pull up a little curl on top so you looked like a little cherub. I even entered a picture of you in a contest (Ivory Soap, I think?) and was totally flabbergasted when you didn't win. What WERE the judges thinking? Because you were so clearly the very cutest baby in the universe. And I still like your hair, come to think of it: it's so thick and so blond. I never could have imagined it, way back then. Looking back on your baby pictures now, I see YOU looking back at me, but at the time, I looked and saw only glimpses of what you'd be someday: thoughtful, steady, brave.

Speaking of brave, as I write this we have just gotten back from the doctor, where you had to sit still yet again and have the warts on your hands frozen off. It hurts like crazy, the doctor assured me, and I had to believe him, from the way I saw your back muscles tense and your eyes tighten while he blasted away at your fingers. Those were my only clues, though, since your posture remained straight and your voice steady as you counted for him through the pain: "One, two, three, four."

"He's a total stud," the doctor murmured to me on our way out. "You should hear the screams I usually get from kids." I smiled at him and patted you approvingly on the back, but what I was thinking as we walked out to the car is how he didn't know the half of it. No one does, really, because your true stud-liness is so humble and unassuming that most people miss it.

Dissecting a sheep's brain. No big deal.

Not that they miss it completely, of course. Your teachers like you. Your classmates like you. We ALL like you; we just can't help it! I think everyone you meet feels something of your kindness and your dependability. But it's the extent of it they don't realize, and since no one (including you) likes parents who brag about their offspring---well, when people compliment me on my fine oldest son, I try not to go on and on about you.

But I could, you know. Your brilliant mind deserves a paragraph of its own. I remember sitting in math class in high school, listening to the boys who sat in the back row talk about some number riddle they'd heard in a movie. "I immediately knew it wasn't right because an even plus an odd is always an odd," I remember one of them saying, and I thought, "Who THINKS like that?" Well, you do, it turns out. And let me remind you, I'm good at math! I went through calculus and I got A's, but I just don't have a mind that sorts logically through the universe, classifying it. But you! You find patterns in things I haven't even thought about. You think spatially (and not just with your Rubik's Cube, though you are the Rubik's Master). You make intuitive leaps. And, most wonderful of all, you delight in learning. It's not just math, it's not just science: it's the WORLD. It's LIFE that you love. The way it fits together, what things are called, what they mean. Every single time I introduce a new school unit to you---and I mean EVERY time, from Nuclear Power to Bunnies to the Civil War, you say, "Hooray! I can't wait!" And you mean it. I can picture you doing anything---writing books, making furniture, teaching school, inventing new technology, governing the country. You amaze me.

But you know what is maybe the coolest thing about you?---you know, if I were going to brag about you, which I'm not because it might be embarrassing for you. I think it's the way you treat other people. You're one of THE MOST considerate people I know, which is saying something, since your Dad is pretty amazing in that area himself. You change diapers. You unload groceries. You say, "Sit down, Mommy! I'll do the cleanup!" (What 11-year-old DOES that??) You entertain your siblings and make them speechless with laughter. You thank people. You spend hours creating presents and cards. You shovel the neighbors' snow. You scrub toilets. You say, "What can I do to help?"

And you know what? I don't think you were just born that way, although I do think you have been sensitive to others' feelings since you were a little boy. But I think you've worked at it, bit by bit, because you WANT to be that type of person. I've seen you reading your scriptures quietly in your room when you think no one is watching, and I've seen you writing down goals in your book: "No yelling." "Think of a fun game to play with Daisy." You've worked at being patient and keeping your temper, and you've worked at always apologizing when you're wrong, and now those are just things that are part of you, like your hair or your eyes. When Abe hurts someone he says he's sorry. When Abe makes a mess he cleans it up. Those are things I can just count on, and it's about the coolest feeling I've ever had as a parent, to see my son not just improving, but trying to improve---improving because he MEANS to, because he WANTS to. Do you know why that makes me so happy? It's because I know it's going to make your life happy. It's going to ensure that you have good friends and fulfilling relationships. No one can guarantee that good things are going to happen to you (though I wish I could!)---but when you're willing to always be making yourself into a better person, you can't help but bring happiness to yourself and others, no matter what hard things come your way. I love it that you are already realizing this and working hard to make yourself better all the time.

As I finish this post, you're starting up the dinner for me. (Crepes. Yum.) And I just keep thinking how lucky I am to be your mommy. To be honest, I didn't really know if I would like being a mom very much. I mean, I was pretty sure I'd find it fulfilling or satisfying or some other such noble-sounding word, but when I babysat other peoples' kids, even though they were funny and cute sometimes, I was always quite ready to be rid of them after a few hours. I wasn't sure how I'd do when I had a Totally Permanent baby of my own. But you made me into a Believer, Abe. You showed me that being a Mommy was the most challenging, interesting, absorbing, amazing job in the world, and I've never looked back. You were so darling, so sweet, so fun, that Daddy and I decided being parents was the greatest thing ever, and we threw ourselves into it with Great Enthusiasm (as shown by the five bouncing babies that followed our First Attempt). I don't think I can take much credit for you, but I sure am glad I have you. Thanks for being my Boy of Boys, Über-Abe. I love you most, most, most!

Love,

Mommy

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Letter to Sebastian, age almost-8

Oh Sebby! My favorite almost-8-year-old in the whole world!,

You wrote your age as "7-8" on one of your assignments the other day, and it dawned on me that you are as big as Abe was when I first started to feel like a parent of a Big Kid. Now I will be the parent of two Big Kids, and I'm so happy about it! I love watching you try out so many new things and learn so many new skills. You're so thrilled about every new thing you learn. Times tables? "Quiz me on the fives again, Mommy!" Civil War? You make a bayonet out of a letter opener, to stick inside your curtain rod "musket." Cursive? Every drawing you make is now signed "Sebby" in lovely script. Alphabetizing? You've started making your own dictionary, of course. ("Page 5: Ham through Howitzer.")

I've been amazed, this past year or so, how much of a hard worker you've become. You've always worked hard for your age---even as a 6-month-old we felt like you were constantly striving for some unseen, just-out-of-reach goal---but now I think I'd pick you over most adults as a working companion. When we were painting the little kids' Bunny Room, you spent hours helping Daddy and me. You learned to make your brush strokes all go the same way, and you even did some stenciling, which is hard to get right. But you worked at it patiently, and the bunnies you made were as good or better than any I did myself! I kept thinking you'd get tired of painting after a while. "You can take a break after this," I kept telling you. But you wouldn't do it. "I like it," you said, cheery in your knee-length paint shirt. "Can we start the next color?"

In those weeks leading up to Marigold's birth, Daddy and I would lie down at night and talk about you. "He's so focused," I'd say. "He seems to love finishing a task, and doing it well."
"The thing is that he's so fun to be around," Daddy would say. "I just like hanging out with him!"
"I know! He's such a good companion!" I'd say. "I keep thinking of more jobs for us to do together because I'm enjoying his company so much!"

Because you are my second child, Seb, you are the one who helped me learn how wonderfully different each child can be. Three-year-old Abraham---sweet, serious, careful---was mystery enough, but then we added you into the mix, and Daddy and I were totally baffled. Were you going to be calm? Boisterous? Dissatisfied? Focused? Silly? You were all of these at once, and so unexpected in your gifts that you finally taught us to stop trying to classify you as something, but to just enjoy YOU and all the things you were.

And my goodness, what a number of those things there were, and still are! If anything, you grow more amazing to me with each passing year. Artist, writer, thinker, builder. Exuberant and friendly; serious and contemplative. You were always the one that always engaged people in conversation---clerks at the grocery store, lifeguards at the pool. You struck up a friendship with the man that hung our porch swing for us, asking him how he liked his job and telling him how much you, too, enjoyed using tools. He told me as he left that he'd take you on as an apprentice whenever you were old enough. (You were five.) This year, the man who came to wash our windows told me the same thing. He was totally won over by your obvious admiration for his skills, and by the way you followed him around chatting and asking him for tips on his technique. The guy at the sprinkler store, laughing at you as you drooled over the Impact Sprinklers, offered you a job on the spot. If you don't watch out you're going to be wanted as an apprentice by half the laborers in the Salt Lake Valley!

So you're friendly, and people love you. But you don't seem to need that kind of attention. You're not really a spotlight seeker, and you always seem perfectly happy to stay in the background if you need to. You'll sit poring over a book---our Encyclopedia of Science, Great Buildings of the World, or Children's Atlas of the World---for literally hours at a time. I had to laugh when I saw you nab the instructions to our new smoke detector---of all things---and settle down contentedly with them at the kitchen table. You sat there enthralled, looking back and forth, back and forth, from the smoke detector on the ceiling to the instructions under your chin. I assume you were locating all the parts on the "Parts Included" diagram. But for goodness sake, I don't know anyone that would read instructions just for fun! You aren't like anyone else, though, and I'm so glad of that. Daddy and I used to think our kids would be some sort of amalgam of us, mixed-up but recognizable. I used to think about what you might be: my eyes, Daddy's hair, my music, Daddy's art. But I could never have written you, if I were thinking you up like a character in a novel. You're better and more complicated and more delightful than anything I could imagine.

You and I get mad at each other occasionally, of course. Everyone does that. And things like Piano Practicing and Spelling are hard work, and they can bring out strong feelings---in both of us. But what I enjoy so much about you is that for the most part, you navigate challenges bravely. You WANT to get everything right the first time, I can tell, and you get frustrated when you don't. But when a passage of music is hard, more and more I see you willing to tackle it again, and then again. You tape patches over your papers when you misspell a word, wanting to get it right, but willing to press on instead of starting over. You draw pictures of the Solar System in every conceivable variation: "This one is to scale for distance, but not size." "This one is to scale for size, but doesn't include moons." You're getting comfortable with a bit of inexactness in life---but you're doing your best to limit it---and I love you for both traits.

I admire the way you deal with new situations, too. I remember a couple years ago, how nervous you were to try the waterslides at a new swimming pool. You hung back, clearly torn between excitement and fear. The Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland affected you the same way. But one day, you seemed to acquire a new resolve, and when something unfamiliar came up, you'd say, "I'm going to try it!" in a determined voice. I don't think you were less nervous than before, but you just pressed on regardless. I'm not a big thrill-rider myself, so I've taken to asking you for reassurance. "Am I going to be scared?" I said, holding your hand as we stood in line for Thunder Mountain last time. "Maybe a little," you told me soothingly, "but you'll be glad you did it." And you were right.

I think it was a little while after I noticed your newfound bravery that you came upstairs on a Sunday morning wearing Abraham's old suit. I'd been saying, vaguely, for a few months, "You ought to try on that suit and see if it fits you yet!"
"It probably won't fit," you kept saying, and so we'd forget it for another week. I wasn't sure where your reluctance was coming from, but I didn't think that much about it.
That morning, though, you came striding into my room, clean from your shower, hair slicked back, tie slid smartly up under your collar. "How do I look?" you said, grinning at me.
"My goodness you're handsome," I said, meaning it. I couldn't believe how grown-up you looked.
"I tried the suit, and it fit me!" you told me happily.
And I don't know if there was anything more to it than that. You can tell me someday, maybe. But you know how we talked about metaphors the other day during school? To me, that suit seemed like a perfect metaphor for how you're growing. Maybe it takes you awhile before you're ready to try something new. You'll think about it, and you'll talk about it. And then one day if you suddenly decide you're ready---you'll do it---and it will fit you like it was made for you, my dear sweet grown-up boy. And I'm convinced there won't be anything important to you, that won't "fit you" eventually. Not because things come effortlessly to you, but because effort is exactly what you're good at, and once you know that secret, the world is yours. And you'll conquer it impeccably dressed, I'm guessing.

I love you, Yibbam Sebbibble. So happy you're my boy!

Love,
Mommy

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Letter to Junie, age 16 months

Dear Junie,

I came into your room to say goodnight a few minutes ago. I was coming in to give Daisy and Malachi "all the kisses" (our nightly ritual), but unlike several months ago, you didn't just lie there, watching the rest of us and sucking your fingers. You consider yourself fully one of the people now, so you kicked your legs and yelled out "Amnny abbada didddaaaaa?"---with that characteristic upward inflection at the end; that squeaky, screechy question mark that tells us you're asking nicely. I don't know if you're actually saying the words "Can you give me all the kisses?", but who cares?  YOU understand you perfectly, and come to that, so do I! I fully believe that you have the entire wealth of the English language sitting there in that soft fuzzy head of yours, just waiting to emerge as soon as your lips and tongue will cooperate. After all, it was before you were even a year old that we saw the effect of your brothers' and sister's constant (and oh, Junie, it is constant!) singing around the house. We had recently watched "The Music Man" for movie night, and the other children had every word memorized. In a rare moment of quiet, I heard you holding a long, low note in your throat: "Maaaaaaaa . . . " It sounded like . . . but it couldn't be . . . but yes, ten seconds later you completed the phrase: "-rian! Madame Libraaaaaaaaa . . . -rian!" It was unmistakeably "Marian, Madame Librarian," and when you saw how much we laughed at that, you did it for us several more times. Such a smart baby! I knew then we were in for a delightful next few years watching you grow into that busy little brain of yours.

But then, it's all been delightful, this sixteen months since you came, blue and fishy, into our arms. You're such a mystery to us, as all our babies are, in their different ways. You were serene in those first moments, wise and calm as you stared into my eyes and I held you, murmuring, "So there you are! So that's who you are!" You did make us wait for a long time, you know, before coming---five days of labor; a shifting, unreal web of moments that wrapped thicker and thicker around me and made the real world grow dim. But then you finally arrived, so delicate and tiny, and your peaceful, steady gaze reassured me that we had done the right thing by not hurrying you along. "I told you it would be okay," your eyes said to me, and I breathed in your calm like air.

I see it in you still, that serenity. You are utterly untroubled by our expectations: at sixteen months, you're just barely deciding to walk, and none of our coaxing and cajoling made one bit of difference. Not that we were worried about you, developmentally---it's just that you're getting so HEAVY! Yes, you; our tiny little birdie, the one so far below the weight charts that the doctor was telling us to butter both sides of your bread---you are becoming quite a load to tote! But you wouldn't walk until you decided it was time to walk, so tote you we have. Meanwhile you have been talking up a storm---in addition to your singing. The best part of your talking is how conversational you are! You seem absolutely convinced that your gibberish-words are just as good as anybody else's in this family, and something recognizable emerges from you often enough that I'm not sure you aren't right! Certainly, when I was serving up brownies after lunch the other day, and I asked who wanted one, I heard: "I do!" "I do!" "I do!" "I do!" "I do!"---and that fifth "I do!" was YOU, little Junie, taking me quite by surprise. You yell "Hiii," and "Bye-bye!" and "Cookie" and "Blanket" and "Night-night!" at appropriate times; you call out "'kaaaay!" from upstairs when I call the family for dinner; you say "Hab goodday!" as Daddy goes out the door for work. When we went to Flaming Gorge last week, you pointed and said "There's the dam!" as we crossed over it on our tour. I guess maybe I should stop being surprised by you, but I have a feeling I never will.

You do get some funny ideas in your baby head. To you, lambs don't say a sweet little "Baa!", but a scary, growling, monster-y "BAAAAA!" Imagine that in the same voice a regular person would say "RAAAR!" and you'll have a better idea of how it sounds. It wouldn't matter so much, except there's a picture of Jesus holding a lamb at church, and every time we walk past it you let out a series of "BAAA!s" so loud and scary, they set all the other babies crying.

Speaking of crying babies, though, I wish you could tell me what sudden anxieties have entered your own tiny heart. You've always been such a sweet, friendly baby, toddling around from chair to chair in crowds and begging to be picked up and read to. But suddenly, around other people, you've started clinging to me like a baby koala to its mama, looking around warily and readying yourself to scream the moment someone else even looks like they might want to hold you. Even my poor young women at church, who have loved you and held you from practically the day you were born, are looked at with distrust, and screamed at if they dare to reach out for you. I know about stranger anxiety, but I'm surprised to find yours so sudden and strong when you've been passed around your whole life so far. It would be easier if you just wanted to stay on my lap and cuddle, but what you really want is to get down---but still be up---get down---but still be up. You squirm and slither and inch off of me bit by bit, but if I take those actions to their logical end and actually set you down on the floor, you yowl and weep big tears and look at me reproachfully as though I've just abandoned you on the doorstep of an orphanage. The only other time I've seen you so sad is when I broke the news to you that you weren't a duck (you were following some ducks into the lake, quacking, and fully confident that you'd be able to swim along beside them if you could just catch up!)

I know that stage is going to pass, though, Junie, because your sunny nature just isn't going to allow you to stay in it for long. You're too independent and resilient to stay by my side: already, if you feel safe enough, you venture out and crawl back, venture out and crawl back; just like the quintessential "securely attached" baby I read about in my Child Development classes. When we go camping, you set off like Ferdinand Magellan, or Puck, to put a girdle 'round the earth (or at least the picnic area). You crawl up into Daisy's high chair and squawk indignantly when she pulls you down again. You place yourself into drawers and cubbies, and once, to our very great dismay, we found you on THE TOP STEP of a ladder we'd carelessly left opened in the living room.

Even when getting into mischief, though, you're so agreeable and sweet! When Daddy and I catch you doing things you know you're not supposed to---pulling the pens out of Daddy's backpack, or emptying the nail polish out of our bathroom cupboard---you look up at us with clear, innocent eyes. When Daisy was your age, she would jump guiltily when we came upon her in such situations, but you just hold out the forbidden item towards us triumphantly and say "Heeeeere!" As if you were planning to hand it over to us all the time; as if, in fact, you got it out for the express purpose of handing it over to us. What a helpful little monkey you are!

It's not just pens and lotions you like to share with your Daddy and me, but also little darting glances of either excitement or apprehension, depending on the circumstance. You read faces as earnestly as someone searching the skies to read the weather. If the rest of us are laughing, you turn your eyes toward me or your brothers delightedly, grinning that tiny grin you've recently developed, and letting your whole face shine with the joy of sharing the joke. If someone else cries, you pull your lips in until they're just a tiny rosebud in your face, and your chin trembles while you search our faces for reassurance. When we're talking about you, you send surreptitious glances over every few seconds, gauging how funny we think you are and whether or not you should pull your blanket over your head for another round of peek-a-boo.

During church last week, you were squirming off and onto our laps in that undecided way of yours, and finally Daddy set you onto the bench to sit by yourself. Naturally, the second he looked away, you lurched yourself forward and fell face-first into the bench in front.  We all sat there stupefied for a moment, and then Daddy snatched you up and went striding fast toward the door. That whole time you were sucking in a breath, probably fifteen seconds'-worth, and we all know that the time of breath-intake is directly proportional to the volume of the ensuing scream, so we sat, cringing---the whole family---just waiting to see when the noise would come. It finally did, but Daddy was in the hall by then---he's fast---so it was muffled and unspectacular. I figured you'd have to recover in the hall for a while, but just a minute later, back you came, all  sparkly eyes and smiles. Up and down you squirmed again, and predictably, you overbalanced once more, splat onto the floor. Daddy scooped you up as your cries started again; and again, you were back in less than a minute, cheerful as could be. You see why I say you are resilient? You come bouncing back from anything, Miss Juniper---from falling down the stairs (more than once), to having your lip split by your overenthusiastic sister, to getting your arms and legs stuck between the slats of your crib (practically once a week). Juniper trees aren't fragile either, you know. They survive---no, they thrive---in droughts, in deserts, in the thin mountain air. They grow, strong and evergreen, toward the sun.

You had your first ponytail the other day, and your first real steps not long before it. A few months ago I told myself that you couldn't possibly be any cuter than you were at a year old, sitting so sweetly in your yellow Easter Dress as we hunted for eggs around you.

But somehow, in your patient, confident, unruffled way, you've gone about proving me wrong---becoming daily more delightful to us. Oh, I know all parents think this of their children: they are amazing, surprising, fascinating. But undisturbed by the cliche of it all, Daddy and I still look across your head between us at the table and raise our eyebrows: "Can you believe her? Isn't she amazing? How did she get to be ours?" We love you so much, sweet Junie! What a strong, steady, beautiful little girl you are becoming!

Love,
Mommy

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