Letters Home

Watching personality arise in a child has been one of the most interesting parts of parenting.  Now that there are two babes in my family, it is that much more interesting.  I find myself thinking, “Oh!  I thought all babies _____, but I guess that was just Lily!” Read the rest of this entry »

Two-year-old L has three loving grandmas, all of whom live three thousand miles away.  For my mom, who misses her so much, one way to handle the distance is mail.  L sure is excited when mail comes for her!  She actually stole my birthday card from my parents right from my hands: it had a princess, a tiara, glitter, and pink, all L’s favorite things.  Two weeks ago, Gramma sent stickers for the window and for paper.  This past week, she sent hairbands and barrettes.  Here’s my little bug, with just enough hair for pigtails, showing off the letter from Gramma.

With two tots at home, a toddler and an infant, I have found that things I do for the sake of creativity have dwindled.  I keep telling myself I need to write, to get down the wonders of our life together before I forget them, so now I am doing it.

An inaugural anecdote about my two-year-old.  When we lived in an apartment and had to do laundry in a public machine, there were always shiny quarters in abundance in the home.  I made a game with L of sorting, feeling, and listening to the quarters clink together.  This game has traveled down many paths to its current state: an infatuation with money.  I recently brought a box of my teaching supplies in out of the garage, and in it, L found play money.  The morning after bringing this box in, I discovered L’s purse, full of play money.  Now when we leave the house, particularly if we’re going shopping, she does not want to go without “money purse.”  Two Sundays ago, L walked into the office of our Quaker church after meeting and started rummaging through a black purse which the women who were present assumed was mine.  Unzipping it, she began pulling out the entire contents of the purse, with “want money” as her battle cry.  The owner of the purse came to me in the sanctuary and told me she had found her keys on the floor, but her purse was mysteriously absent.  She had been informed that L may  have special interest in it.  The purse. and its contents, were promptly returned to their rightful owner.