1 Mother 2 Another

Dear Maddie:


Last week you asked me to take a picture of you on the day before
your birthday, then take a picture on the morning of your birthday,
print them both up, affix them to paper (your instructions were
specific), and then turn it over to you. You want desperately to
see if you notice a difference between your six-year-old picture
and your seven-year-old picture.


Don’t bother looking, kiddo. I can see it well enough for
both of us.


What has happened this past year? You’ve grown so much
– and I’m not talking physically, though a friend of
mine described you and a friend of yours, accurately, as
“Great Dane puppies” just last week. And I’m not
talking emotionally, though the difference between you at the end
of kindergarten and you at the end of first grade is night and day.


No, what I’m talking about is how you’ve grown as a
unique individual.

What has happened this past year?
You’ve grown so much – and I’m not talking
physically, though a friend of mine described you and a friend of
yours, accurately, as “Great Dane puppies” just last
week. And I’m not talking emotionally, though the difference
between you at the end of kindergarten and you at the end of first
grade is night and day.


No, what I’m talking about is how you’ve grown as a
unique individual.


We’ll be walking to school together and halfway there
I’ll realize how much fun I’m having with our
conversation – you’ve got interesting things to say,
insightful comments on so many topics. You’ve got a really
unique perspective of the world and you think things through
earnestly and wholeheartedly, arriving at conclusions that are
sometimes startling, sometimes waaaaaaaay out there, but never
dull.


Up until this year, if I’d described you as having a unique
perspective it would have been in a reasonably generic “kids
say the darndest things” kind of way. “Mommy, if the
wind is blowing, where does it go?” type of stuff. Cute
comments worth blogging about or passing on to a girlfriend,
thoughts that make me remember what a blank slate you really are,
but in general standard cute kid stuff.


This year, though, I’ve found myself delighting in you as an
individual – you make me laugh, and see things in ways I
don’t, and for the first time I caught a glimpse of what I
hope the future is like: a future in which you are all grown up and
we are friends and I can enjoy you as simply a person whose company
I’m glad to be in.


Does this make sense?


You do still love to dance, though more often than not it’s a
struggle to get you to dance class. “Mommy, I love to dance,
I just don’t like having to do the steps other people tell me
to!” you cry sometimes. You’d rather be set free to do
your own thing, and I get that. So I don’t know where the
next birthday will find you dance-wise; will you stick it out so
you can be in The Nutcracker again? Or will you turn your attention
to something else?


More and more, I find you singing and I say (with only slight
prejudice) that you’ve got a rather nice voice. You’ll
listen to music on your iPod – a Christmas gift and your
prized possession – then set it to “record” and
sing the whole song into your cyber-microphone. I could see you
turning your attention that direction, sooner rather than later.


Much to my delight, you still devour books. On your birthday this
weekend you received a dozen books (even dozen) and three (3!) gift
cards to bookstores. When I went to check on you late that night,
you had a big book of fairy tales open, halfway read, on your bed;
a new “Sophie” book cracked and a chapter in; and you
were at that moment polishing off the new “Bad Kitty”
book we’d given you. Three, yes, three, books at play in your
bed at once. Many nights I come in at 11 p.m. and find you asleep,
reading light on, at least one book in your bed with you. You were
given a world atlas book one day and you read it the entire way
home.


Thankfully, there’s a half-price bookstore near us because
otherwise we’d be broke. Yes, of course, there’s the
library, but books to you are friends and when you’ve
finished reading one you can’t bear to let it go.


There’s no real sport in your life right now: you do like
watching baseball and even asked to do it this summer, but when you
found out you wouldn’t be batting the whole time you quickly
lost interest. And you can now swim like a fish, diving deep and
working on your crawl and backstroke, but I don’t see you
wanting to join a team any time soon – you’d rather do
your own thing.


School was much easier for you this year and you’ve spent the
first part of the summer wanting to do school work every day.
I’ve got your school backpack stuffed with dry erase boards
and writing pads and math books and more, and you’ll open it
up and get cracking on something. You got a book on how to recreate
Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions at home and you can’t
wait to get started.


You’ve got a strong group of friends in your life that I
thank God for every day. I see the ebb and flow of individual
relationships – fights, hurt feelings, making up – but
marvel at how you all seem to always work it out, and how strong
your core group is. I don’t think you know how special that
is, and I pray constantly that you’ll have these girls
– and boys – around you your whole school career. I
love watching you learn how to relate to your peers with these
kids: joke, monitor hurt feelings, cheer up a friend who’s
down, say the wrong thing, figure out how to apologize –
it’s an amazing life lesson you’re getting with your
friends.


You still absolutely adore unstructured play and will be happy left
to yourself around the house for hours. You’ll construct
elaborate set-ups, act out all the parts, pull the costumes, and so
on. The stories can continue for hours or even days and
you’re equally happy being a Woodsman or a Princess, sharing
roles with your sister.


And then there’s your sister – still your beloved
little sister, but sometimes it gets just that little bit grating.
On Cora’s birthday you became moody and I said,
“Maddie, anything wrong?” to which you honestly
replied, “I’m just jealous of all the attention
Cora’s getting!” So you see what’s wrong but are
sometimes helpless to prevent it from happening.


Cora can push your buttons like no one else, and you feel the
unfairness of being the oldest – having to dig deeper, have
more patience, try harder, all because “you know
better”. You’re getting better at walking away, going
to your room for time to yourself. But let’s be fair, baby
– Cora’s not always the one wielding the Mean Stick.
And when it’s all over and you’re sobbing, bewildered
at how you got so mean and out of control, you can verbalize almost
immediately what you did wrong and before I even suggest it
you’re making reparations with your sister. Your heart swells
twenty times its normal size and you lavish her with love –
and apologies. And she flashes her sunny smile, is quick with her
forgiveness, and you two are best friends again.


This has also been the year of money for you – starting an
allowance, learning how banks work, wanting to manage your own
cash. You’re so enamoured with saving money that you now turn
every penny over to me to put in the bank. We double every penny
you put in a savings account and you think that’s the coolest
thing ever. Just last week you got sixty-five cents and you
immediately handed it to me, saying, “Here, put this in my
account please and let’s watch my money work for me.”


This is a long letter, I know, kiddo, but there’s been so
much to say about this year. I’m almost finished.


A few nights ago as I lay snuggling in your bed with you I said,
“Oh, baby, I love you so much,” and you turned to me
and for the first time, said, “Why?” Not in a spiteful
or self-denigrating way, but earnestly wanting to know.


Here’s the gist of what I said.


I love you because you make me laugh. Because you want to make me
laugh. I love your brain, and the amazing thinks it thinks. I love
that you’ve figured out that if candy is super fancy looking,
it probably doesn’t taste as good as it looks. I love
watching you read a book, and the way you run downstairs excited to
tell me what’s happened to Sara Crewe today – is her
father dead? Is mean Miss Minchin really going to force her to be a
cellar maid? I love the freckles that spread out across your nose,
a delicate dusting you like now but will probably lament later on.
I love how big your heart is, how you will give a total stranger
everything in your hands if you think he needs it. I love the way
you are constantly making gifts for people, constantly showing your
love through that language of generosity and thoughtfulness. I love
the way you belt out songs when your headphones are on, the way you
looked at a new playlist I added to your iPod as a surprise gift
and said approvingly, “There’s some good stuff on
here!” I love how there are times you feel like you have
something so important to say, the only way you can say it is
through dance. I love that, even though you are less than a foot
shorter than me, you still fold yourself into me like a kitten and
snuggle contentedly. I love the height and depth, the width and
breadth of you.


But most of all, I just love YOU and still wake up some days
pinching myself, thinking I must be dreaming because I get to be
YOUR mother.


I love you much, kiddo. Happy birthday.


Love,


Mommy