Letter Ten

Dear Luke,

Monday was your third birthday. Third! Before becoming your mama, I didn't understand the sense of disbelief that I heard from other parents when their child reached a particular age. But now I get it. Someone I know likes to say, "The days are long, but the years are short" and that very nicely sums up how life is with you.

Last night we went to a Christmas party at my former boss' house. You were the only kiddo there, and quickly you became the hit of the party. You have great manners, you are truly intersted in other people, you're good natured, and you've got an excellent (if a bit bent -- sorry about that, you never really had a chance in that arena) sense of humor. Your dad and I are amazed, all the time. Even when you are being obnoxious and whiny and causing trouble, it's with an insight and a creativity that makes us stop and blink for awhile.

You've continued to be interested in music. You sing constantly, and you experiment with structure and timing a lot -- syncopation and things like that. I am a little bit completely blown away by this. You told me yesterday that you want to be in a band with me. Apparently, I will play drums and you will play "cuh-TAR." You also wanted to hear "Challengers" by The New Pornographers over and over again, saying that Neko Case sounds like me. (Imagine if you had any idea of what to do with that kind of flattery.)

Currently, your favorite songs are:

* Real Gone - Sheryl Crow (From the movie Cars)
* I'll Tell Me Ma - Sinead O'Connor (You say that this song "looks like a strawberry.")
* Challengers - The New Pornographers
* Haul Away - Split Enz ("Hollaway Song," you call it. Right around the third verse, when a few more instrumental sounds kick in, you say, "This song looks like snow!")
* Nature Boy - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ("Nick Cave Boy Song.")
* Nails in My Feet - Crowded House ("The sad Neil Finn song," you call it.)
* Human Touch - Elvis Costello
* All These Things That I've Done - The Killers ("I Got Soul But Not Soldier Song.")

You also really enjoy classical music, and you've gotten really good at identifying the sound of a violin. I mean, really. You must be the coolest, smartest person I've ever met in my life. There's an expression in Mexico -- Me quito el amor de madre -- I take away my love as a mother and still, you astound me.

A few days ago, your Mimi emailed me this pretend phone conversation she witnessed:

Hi, Mama. What are you doing? I’m just over here playing at Mimi’s house. I need a really good friend named Mama to come ovo heo and play with me. OK. Bye, Mama. I love you.

You've become interested, finally, in learning Spanish. I was worried for a long time because not only were you not interested, you flatly said you didn't want to learn. I think maybe you became determined to learn after realizing that you couldn't understand what Mimi and I were saying right in front of you. You have a ways to go before your Spanish skills catch up to your English skills, but you're doing just fine. Your accent is nearly perfect. You seem to have inherited my ease with language, which is so exciting to me, selfishly, because I can't wait to discuss the intricacies with you. One day.

You've also inherited your dad's attention to detail and dogged determination to figure things out, to make things work, to bide your time. You're not nearly so impatient as I am, and you're a remarkably good sport when things don't go your way, when you're stuck in your carseat for long periods of time, when you need to do something you don't want to do.

What else? Oh, yes, you will eat nearly anything. You are the least picky child I've ever met. You love helping out around the house. You love figuring out how things go. You have a ready supply of odd jokes. You can't stand to see anyone unhappy. Your heart is endlessly tender and you are terrifically good-natured.

Boy, I don't understand how we got so lucky. Every day I thank God for loaning you to me. Every day I try to be better, to be the sort of mama you deserve. You've totally changed my life and its meaning. I adore you, my three-year-old.

Love,
Mama

Letter Nine

Dear Luke,

Today you are at your Mimi's house while I'm working. She sent me this email.

Luke plays with wooden puzzle that reveals a picture for each letter that you remove:
Luke: O is for…Ahpetaht [This is the way you pronounce octopus.]!
D is for…Wubber Ducky!
N is for…Little eggs! [nest]
[removes the Z and sees a folded zipper]
S is for…THAT thing!

Mimi: That’s a Z, and it’s for Zipper.

Luke: Where do you put a zipper?

Mimi: On your clothes, so you can open and close them.

Luke: Oh.
Q is for…Birdie! [quail]

Lukie is for kisses.
xoxo

I love you, boy.

Always,
Mama

Letter Eight

Dear Luke,

What follows are snippets of recent conversation with you.

You, playing with a piece of spaghetti you've transferred from your bowl to the tray on your high chair:Look, Daddy! I'm playing with a snake!
Your dad: Okay, put it back in your bowl and eat it with your fork.
You: But... could I eat this one with my fingers?
Your dad: Okay. But after that one, you have to eat with your fork. You can't eat any more of it with your fingers. Okay?
You: Well... I can try not to.

***

You, pointing to the zipper on my jeans, in front of your dad's parents as I picked you up after work on Friday: Is that your pee-pee?

***

My young cousins, Aaron and Angelica: Luke, who do you like best? Her or me?/Luke, who do you like best, him or me?
You, very smoothly: I like Mimi [my mother] best. She's pretty.

***

You, running back into Mimi's house from the back yard: Mimi! I'm scared!
Mimi: What are you scared of?
You: I'm scared of the white man!
[I had to explain to Mimi that this is how you refer to the Jack-in-the-Box mascot, whose commercials you do not like.]

***

You, following a spectacular drum solo performed on an inverted hot chocolate tin with two large crayons: [Spoken as a growl] Aaawwwwwiiiiiight!!

***

You, interrupting a conversation between your dad and me: You know, when I was a kid...

Your dad and me: [Trying not to die of laughter]


Kiddo, you are hysterically funny even when you're not trying to be. We are so proud of you.

Love,
Mama

Letter Seven

Dear Luke,

It's been a little longer than two months since I've last written you a letter. Why, exactly? I keep turning that question over in my mind. Sometimes there is a kind of mechanism that seems to prevent me from examining too closely that which I hold precious. "Blinding fear" is probably a good way to describe it. Sometimes I am shut down by the very idea of writing down the things that you do and the way that my heart swells dangerously when you do them. It seems very backwards, doesn't it? Love is about opening oneself up and acting for others. Since you've been around I have learned a great deal about myself, and one of the things I've discovered, less than proudly, is how very terrified I am of loving those closest to me. I can do it as long as I don't think about it too much: a remnant of the notion of the thought of losing you sends me running, switches off my power like the button on a vaccuum cleaner. A clean break, until upon closer examination it turns out that having to say aloud "if I ever lost you" will make me dissolve into tears.

You're so small and so much wiser than I thought you would be. I am afraid of the mistakes I've already made, the mistakes I will continue to make. I want to be perfect for you. You deserve it, my sweet boy.

As I write this you and your dad have returned from a birthday party (a headache kept me away). You rushed in, arms straight up in the air, saying Mama! There were so many friends! Your very essence!

I have to sign off now. One of the favors you received at the party is a tiny soft soccer ball. Play patch, Mama! Play patch, Daddy! you keep saying. Catch? I ask. Yes! Play patch! you say.

So we will. Your dad and I will play patch with you.

Love,
Mama

Letter Six

Dear Luke,

Today you broke my heart about a thousand times, from pure joy. Let me say at the outset that this stage you're in is fairly difficult; your moods fluctuate quite a bit and tend toward the explosive, with no warning. You change your mind a lot, sometimes repeatedly in the course of the same communication ("I want blueberry yogurt... no, lemon!--no, blueberry. No, I want lemon. NO! BLUEBERREEEEEEEEE!"). Obviously we continue to adore you madly, recklessly, but life isn't the near-constant picnic with you that it has generally been since you started walking and talking and whatnot.

That said, and keeping it all in mind, today you had so many moments of absolute delight that I really still don't know what to do with it. Bake it and have it for dessert, maybe? You cuddled, you wanted to sit in my lap, you told me I am pretty, you said your typically sage and hilarious things--and then you went and did this:

In your highchair, with about 8 small round cookies on the tray, you chattered away to me. Suddenly you picked up a cookie in each hand, and motioned toward a third.

"Mama and Lukie and Daddy," you said. I sang the song you made up last year: Mama and Lukie and Daddy! But you were already playing, there was already a scenario. You poked a bit at the Lukie cookie so that it slid.

"Lukie fell," you said to me.

The Mama and Daddy cookies came to the Lukie cookie's side.

"Are you okay?" and "It's alright," they said.

Then you took the Mama and Daddy cookies, and with great concentration, put one on either side of the Lukie cookie, applying enough pressure to lift it (him?) without breaking any of the cookies.

"They lift him!" you said, with a huge smile.

I love you, boy. I could not be any prouder or more honored to be your mother.

Always,
Mama

Letter Five

Dear Luke,

Spring has arrived with a bang this year, the buds, blossoms and new growth trumpeting their presence with an amazing command. You, little sprout, are busily doing the same. You are so hungry for knowledge, despite already knowing more than you should, technically. You have ideas and opinions and want new ones, and new experiences, new flavors, colors, sounds.

We had a great conversation last week in the car, after I'd picked you up from your Grandma's house. There was a big rig in the left turn lane, and you identified it, commenting on its size and its loud horn. It made its turn, then our light turned green and we moved on. The big rig was out of sight.

What happened to big rig? you wanted to know. I explained that it had turned onto another street, a different street than the one we were on.

BIG RIG! you shouted. Where ARE you, big rig? Where ARE you? I need your help, big rig!

I was trying my utmost not to laugh. You were very, very serious.

You need the big rig's help? I asked.

Yes.

Oh! What do you need for it to do?

Silence. Then:

Mommy, where did big rig go?

I don't know, sweetie, I said. It went down a different street. Maybe it went home.

BIG RIG! Come back, BIG RIG! Big rig, where are you? I'm in the street, on Mommy's car, big rig!

Shortly thereafter we saw another car that interested you, and the big rig was forgotten.

I love you, boy.

Your Mama

Letter Four

Dear Luke,

You have stopped saying taytee for tasty and holy moke! for holy smokes!. You no longer talk about Cookie Punk, preferring instead the more staid Cookie Monster. You've long since traded in Ah la la for I love you. And it makes me a little sad to know these small bits of you are gone for good. Don't get me wrong: you continue to amaze your dad and me (and oh, let's face it, everyone whose path you cross) with your delight and your charm. But still: those things are gone from me forever, and that tiny boy is no longer quite so tiny.

You move so quickly that sometimes I'm strangely surprised to come home and find that you're still in diapers, still less than three feet tall, not reading, not riding a bicycle. And I'm glad: there is so much baby to hold onto yet.

And the rest of it will be just as good, I know.

I love you, sweet boy.

Mama

Letter Three

Dear Luke,

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email the subject of which was "Letter From a Concerned Citizen." I have cut and pasted its contents below.

Dear [Mama],

This is to inform you that your son, Luke, changed the names of four of my desktop files, giving them new titles such as:

j……………..mmmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuukjhfggggggggggggggnnnnnn

and

j,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,m…


Thankfully, he did not, to my knowledge, actually DELETE any files—THIS time.

I would appreciate your kind and immediate attention to this increasing problem, or I shall be forced to take stronger action in the future.

Very truly yours,

[Your Mimi]

A Concerned Citizen


Son, you are wise and sneaky. Congratulations on your fine stealth skills.

Love,
Mama

Letter Two

Dear Luke,

Your bedtime prayers tonight went thusly:

Me: Dear Lord...
You: [Silence]
Me: Thank You for Daddy...
You: Thank You for Mama. Thank You for Grandma. Thank You for soup. Thank You for orange cheese. Thank You for olives. They're not too spicy. They're really good. They're for Lukie's.
Me: ...in Jesus' name...
You: They're really good olives.
Me: ...in Jesus' name...
You: ...Amen.

I love you so much, small boy. So much.

Love,
Mama

Letter One

Dear Luke,

You made it clear since before you were born that you were very much your own person. Two years and two months later, you've yet to go back on your silent promise. You are more present and self-possessed than most adults I know. All too often my heart aches for you, because I know how long it's going to be until you really can do all the things you want to do, and I know how hard it will be for you to have to wait. Your daddy and I were very much that same way as children. But you are smarter than each of us, I think.

With these letters I hope to capture a little bit, every few days or so, about what our daily life is like. You've changed it -- you've turned it completely on its ear -- in the best way possible.

Love,
Mama