birthday letters – Mama the Reader

Year 5: A Letter

May 18, 2017 Katie3 Comments

Dear Norah,

You are five today. Five! I say this all the time, but I am not sure where the time is going. In ways I feel like you were just born, and in ways I feel like you have always been here. I don’t remember much of what life was like without you, and your constant enthusiasm and curiosity never leaves a dull moment. You are always observing, asking questions, and exploring anything you find that piques your interest. You never slow down, and nothing is beyond the scope of your imagination.

I can count on you to make me laugh, everyday and without fail. Every time I feel overwhelmed or disheartened or just exhausted (which is pretty much everyday in this season of our lives together), you find a way to show me the light. Unlike your brother and me, it is pretty rare that you are serious about anything for very long, but I think God knew what he was doing when he placed you in our household because your sunshine brightens the room and lightens my load, and I am forever grateful to you for that. I can’t stay discouraged for long when you are here to cheer me up and remind me to see the good and find the playful in any situation.

Sometimes you and I are like oil and water. I look at you with frustration and wonder who this creature is and how she works because we are so different. But I think our differences are what make us work well together. I know I have a lot to teach you, but I think you have a lot to teach me, too. How to lighten up and laugh and say hello to strangers. How to ignore my best laid plans and be a little spontaneous sometimes. How to stay up late. How to laugh with your mouth wide open and touch frogs and worms without shuddering. People say we look alike, but in reality we are not mirrors at all. You are the yin to my yang, and sometimes I think you are a lot wiser than I am. Your demeanor always shows what you believe on the inside – that everything will be alright and that life is mostly good and fun and play. Grown-ups are quick to forget this, but I feel like with you I have this reminder every day.

For all your fiery energy though, you are still sweet and gentle. Your teachers tell me when other kids fall on the playground, you are the first to check on them. You are kind and earnest. You are easily impressionable and want so badly to please those around you – your peers and your teachers and your brother included. The sibling bickering feels like it will kill me on most days. (Mom, he’s touching me!) But every once in a while, I get to see a glimpse of how it used to be before you guys reached this age of competition – and how I hope it will be again one day when you are grown. He doesn’t admit it often, but he loves you just as much as I do.

This was a big year for you – you learned how to write your name and how to identify all your sounds and letters. You sort your own toys in a way that makes no sense to me, but it does to you. You dress your dolls in their clothes and throw them on your hip when we walk in a store like you have a real baby. You create these ridiculous scenarios of imagination and ask me to participate… Mama, pretend your name is Millie and mine is Hallie and we are kids but we live by ourselves, okay? Pretend you are cooking for us now and we live in a treehouse and this doll is our baby sister. You have a whole world inside your own head, and it is my favorite thing about this age.

Last week you learned to swim. I decided that my nerves could not handle another summer of two non-swimmers, so I enrolled you and your brother in a week of private instruction. By day three, you were jumping off the diving board into 8 feet of water and swimming to the edge of the pool. I’ve seen you do it with my own eyes, and yet you panic now when we swim and the water reaches above your own head. So here I am again for the summer – not teaching you to swim but teaching you to believe that you can swim. If that isn’t one huge metaphor for what it’s like to exist in the world as a woman, I don’t know what is. (And you know your English teacher mama loves a good metaphor to teach me the lessons I need to learn.) So let’s make a deal now, okay? I will remind you who you really are and what you are capable of, and you do the same for me. We both have what it takes to swim, even when the water gets deep. Sometimes people are the last to recognize their own power, so I am telling you now that I see it already in you – when I watch you explore or listen to you talk or even just see you sleeping at night in your bed. I know that what lies in front of you in your own life may feel insurmountable in the moment. I know because I’ve been there.

But I can also see so clearly that spark in you that tells me you can do anything you set your mind to. Five is just the beginning, and every day I find a new reason to love you. Happy Birthday, Norah.

Love,

Mama

** I write letters to my kids on their birthdays to give to them when they are older, and I post some of them on this blog. You can see past letters here.

Year Four: A Letter

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016 Katie2 Comments

Norah,

You are four today. How did that happen this quickly? You are still my baby, but less so everyday. The shape of our family is changing as you walk tall beside me, and independence is your main objective when we go about our daily tasks. No, I’m doing it, Mama! is likely the most common phrase to come out of your mouth. I’m learning to back away and give you space. There’s so much value in the act of leaving space to learn and grow. I’m learning that lesson myself this year as well.

You are so many things in your fourth year. You are bold and stubborn, and you exhaust me sometimes. But you are also kind and gentle and nurturing to your little dolls and any creature you can get your hands on. You surprise the neighborhood boys by collecting worms and slugs that they refuse to touch themselves. I’ll step on the back patio to see that you’ve collected insects in a jar and given them names, stuffing leaves in the top to feed them. You are a nurturer in the truest sense. For all of your fiery independence, you balance it with the sweetest spirit as well. I hope you hold onto both of those traits as you grow.

You love your brother fiercely. But the two of you fight fiercely, too. And it can make me come completely unglued sometimes, to be honest. The sibling bickering always begins over something trivial, and I’ve learned to just walk away and let the two of you sort it out if I can. It will always be this way between you, I think. It’s the way of brothers and sisters. You know each other’s preferences and quirks, and you also know exactly how to push each other’s buttons to bring what feels like apocalyptic war sometimes. But when it counts, you are always in his corner. The two of you have only woven closer together in our past year, and I really hope you will always be that way.

You and I have woven closer together this year, too. Having a daughter in the world we live in is a scary thing if I’m telling you the truth. You are a challenge, and I fear everyday that I’m messing it up. A few weeks ago you were making your way upstairs for bath time and purposely moving at the rate of a turtle. Always aware of the clock dictating our weeknights, I was frustrated and asked you to speed it up. You responded indignantly, I’m tired mama! I’m doing the best I can.

I laughed a little as I heard my own words echoed back to me. I’m doing the best I can is something I say to you so often. There are countless moments when I wish I could somehow clone myself to accomplish a few things at once or pause our conflicts to really think solidly about my action before proceeding, but my best is all I can manage. And I’m learning my best is good enough. I want you to see yourself in the same way. Your strongest efforts are good enough. You are enough, exactly as you are.

You are fearless, and people recognize that in you. You don’t fear bugs or snakes or strangers. And I have to be persistent in watching you to be sure you don’t put yourself in danger. But for whatever reason, you will cuddle up on my side with your leg wrapped over my waist every night like a tiny monkey and squeeze and say Mama, I’m scared while we lie in the dark after your brother has fallen asleep and I’m trying to get you to do the same. Every night I say the same things to convince you that we are safe and cared for and protected. And yet every night, it’s the same ritual. It amazes me how brave you can be in the face of real danger but how easily frightened you are by the figures of your own imagination. Invisible things are always the scariest, aren’t they? And sometimes it is so hard to separate the real from the imagined.

That’s always the challenge, I think. Fear is a natural condition of being human, and as women, we are especially taught to fear so many things. We fear looking in a mirror and not seeing what people tell us is beautiful. We fear bathing suits and first dates and walking in a dark parking deck. We fear we are failing at the immense and impossible standards of modern motherhood. We fear we are somehow not enough alone and that we need a man to validate us to others. We are taught to fear so many things.

But let me explain something to you, Norah. Once you see those fears for what they are, they seem like the imaginary monsters you whisper about every night in bed — ridiculous and limiting and born of our own mental constructs. In Wild, Cheryl Strayed explains, “Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”

It took me a long time and a lot of hard lessons to learn to tell myself a different story. And so I tell you a different story every chance I get because I want you to grow up believing the opposite of what many of us are taught. You are brave and kind and smart and real. The rest is just noise.

I can’t wait to see where this year takes you. I love every piece of you. Happy Birthday, Norah.

Love,

Mama

___________________

I write letters to each of my kids on their birthdays, and for now, I post them here on the blog as well. If you’d like to read the others from years past, click here.

Year Six: A Letter

October 15, 2015 Katie2 Comments

Jude,

Today you turn six, and this has been a huge year for you. Growing, learning, changing everyday. I wake every morning to realize there is a little person in my house. This might seem like a ridiculous observation to make, but when you are a parent one day, you will see. There is a transition that happens when you begin having real conversations with your child and see him through new eyes. You are your very own person with your own wishes and ideas. I love your independent spirit.

Though you are unique in your own ways, I see so much of myself in you. We understand each other in the easiest way, you and me. Hearing your teacher’s comments on how you approach school work and social settings, watching you interact with other kids, hearing your observations and insights – it all echoes memories for me and strikes a chord of familiarity. I sometimes wonder how I survived 28 years on this planet without you. We get each other without effort and understand each other even without words and explanation. There are different ways to love and relate to people, but I feel incredibly lucky that my firstborn has a soul that mirrors mine so closely.

I try to listen to you as intently as I can when you speak to me. This year has been the craziest one imaginable, and I’m haunted a little by the closing of my last letter to you when I described my gratitude for the simple, mundane worries that filled my day. In the weeks that followed that letter, our world exploded, and my worries have been anything but mundane this year. But weirdly enough, I am finding gratitude in this experience, too. It has brought us closer together, and I see you finding so much comfort these past few months as we sink into life in our household of three. I’m here to listen and to guide and mostly just to love you as the unique little person you are becoming.

I am the first to tell you – now and always – that I have nothing figured out. I am far from perfect and certain about next to nothing. But I know that I love you, and I am doing the very best I can. I’m finally realizing that one action alone is enough. There’s so much love between the three of us, and it kept us afloat even in the roughest waters this year. It will always be that way, no matter what lies ahead for us. That’s really the only thing I know for sure.

You have so many traits I love and admire: a persistent curiosity, an unfiltered joy, a generous heart, and such a fire for intellectual inquiry. You are a seeker in every way. Always looking to know more and to do more and to create something new everyday. Your teachers see this fire in you, and I can’t wait to see where it takes you. We talk a lot with the lights off as I get you and Norah to sleep at night, and you ask me big questions that have no solid answers. — Why does God make bad people, Mama? Where does imagination come from? How do we know we are safe from scary things? What if we aren’t? — Truthfully, I am horribly unprepared to answer these things, so we just talk it out as we lie there in the dark with your long arm thrown across me and your chin on my shoulder. There are some questions that simply don’t have any solid answers, and unlike most kids, you are okay with the ambiguity. You’re a little thinker in the biggest way. I pray you keep seeking and retain your introspective nature. It leads you to truth and beauty eventually, and our inner lives guide us when we let them.

It’s hard sometimes – when you tell me that someone hurt your feelings or I see ways the world seems way too harsh for your little spirit. I want so badly to somehow shield you from all of it, the future disappointment or heartache or the waking up to harsh realities you don’t yet understand. But I’m trying to remember that it is not my job to toughen you up for a hard world but to show you how to stay soft in spite of it.

I think the thing that keeps surprising me about motherhood is that it keeps giving back to me ten times over what I ever expected. You opened that door for me six years ago when you left my own body to join the rest of us, and it just keeps getting richer. This year especially, you have reminded me each day that I am enough as I am. That loving you and holding space for both of us to feel what we feel without judgment is the only thing I have to do to create the threads that bind our little family. We have years and years ahead of us, Jude. I just hope to continue doing the same thing as time rolls by – giving you space to grow and learn and emerge as your own person. I’ve watched that happen a bit this year with the new world of kindergarten in front of you. This is the year that you walked bravely forward to a whole new chapter. I feel lucky that I’ve got you beside me as I do the very same thing.

Happy birthday, Jude! Keep questioning, keep learning, keep growing.

Love,

Mama

________

** As most of my readers know, I write letters for my kids on their birthdays to give them when they are older. This will likely change one day soon as they grow and my letters become more specific when their lives grow more complex and private. But for now, I also post the letters here.

Year Three: A Letter

May 18, 2015 Katie1 Comment

Norah,

You are three today, and as usual, I’m not sure how it happened. I blinked, and you are here. Potty-learning far behind us, talking clearly to anyone and everyone who will listen – including grocery store clerks, strangers in line with us, waiters in restaurants. You are three going on twenty-three lately. When we leave for school each morning, you apply lipstick you steal from my bathroom, choose your own accessories, and grab a purse with a tiny toy cell phone and sunglasses. You request Katy Perry and Taylor Swift on the radio, and your dancing never stops. For all the times I swore I’d never have a prissy girl, you are proving me wrong. Determined to be your own person and reminding me everyday that you are an independent being separate from me and unlike anyone else I know.

I have a feeling I’m in for it, so to speak, when you enter adolescence. But in my view, my greatest goal is not to teach you obedience as your chief characteristic but to teach you how to really care for others in kindness and listen to your own voice above all the other noise. Your spunk is my favorite thing about you. It doesn’t always make our days easy, but if there is anything I’ve learned in the last year of my life, it’s that grit and determination will push you through the hardest trials. And though it pains me to say this to you now, there are hard things in your future. They are there for all of us, and the best you can do is plow through. For now though, I’m grateful to watch you enjoying the little things everyday, oblivious to the bitter or boring tasks of grown-up life. You have been such a comfort to me this year, food for my spirit even in my most exhausted moments.

Your joy is contagious, and your humor is unmatched of any other kid your age that I’ve known. You’re learning already how to time your jokes in a way that can make your brother laugh, and the two of you are a tight pair. Your possessive way of referring to him as “my Jude” makes me feel like I must be doing something right in my home. I worry a lot that I’ve been in such a mode of survival this year that I’ve forgotten about the art of mothering, so to speak. It’s been mostly just one foot in front of the other for me lately. But we’re emerging as quite the team, the three of us. There’s a lot of love here, and I’m grateful I get to watch you share it with us.

I’m not sure how much, if anything, you will remember about this time in your life, but I have no doubt that it still leaves an indelible mark. I’m trying to model for you the things I want you to know one day – perseverance and responsibility, honesty and vulnerability, love and loyalty, and most of all a joy that is not reliant on material things or outside circumstances. Happiness in the moment is fleeting, but true joy is something else entirely. You inspire that joy for me everyday, and I pray I can return that favor with the understanding and comfort that only a mom can give.

You’ve grown up so much this year. You love school and are a social butterfly with your little friends. You are beginning to better understand abstract concepts, and you have an amazing memory that is very inconvenient sometimes. I’ve learned already that if I promise you something in the moment, you will not forget it. Days or weeks can pass by, and you’ll still be reminding me I owe you something. It’s both impressive and frightening, and you don’t miss a thing. You have such sharp observations of the world around you, and your social awareness is extraordinary. You are blooming in your own little way so different from your brother or anyone else. It’s incredible to watch it happen.

You are honest in the most brutal ways these days, and though the usual toddler shouts or tantrums can wear me out, I feel good knowing that you feel enough safety and comfort with me to show when you are angry or upset or disappointed. I wish for us that it will always be this way – that you’ll tell me when you’re sad and why you’re angry and show me even the darker corners of your heart because some days they are there for all of us. There’s a lot of companionship to be had between mother and daughter, and I’m so lucky to have you. It’s tea parties and baby dolls and playgrounds for us now, but I know school worries and friend advice and broken hearts and all the hard stuff comes later. But know that our way of being together – my love and acceptance of you in your ugly toddler moments – that’s not going anywhere. Family is for helping each other move through even our ugliest times, and moms never stop catching you in those moments and feeling what you’re feeling. This is hard when you are sad or angry and I feel it, too. But to witness your joy and feel your enthusiasm is the greatest gift of my life right now. Everything else suddenly feels a lot less complicated or overwhelming when I’m in the simplest of moments with your brother and you.

You are so many things in your third year – independent but still attached and cuddly, sweet and soft but with a backbone of steel and an unbendable will, carefully observant but active and curious. Above all, you are simply Norah – in all your quirks and qualities. And I cannot imagine life in my little family of three without you. From the moment you arrived with such a special birth, you’ve been teaching me that I’m capable of hard things. You are doing that for me now as well. Any moment my confidence shakes or my spirit feels broken from life’s storms, your sweet smile reminds me why I’m here and how the simplest little moments can fulfill our divine purpose on any given day.

I love you, Norah. Life has great things in store for you. If there’s one thing I know for sure in all of life’s uncertainties, it’s that I was meant to be your mother. I’m so grateful your little soul made its way to my belly and through my body, and now I get the honor of watching you grow and move mountains in a way that only you are meant to do. Happy Birthday, big girl.

Love,

Mama

_______________________________

I write birthday letters to each of my kids on their birthdays to give them when they are older. For now, I also post them here as well. You can read my others here.

______________________________

Year Five: A Letter

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014 Katie1 Comment

Dear Jude,

Five! I can hardly believe it. So many big things happen at five, and here you are. You are growing and learning, but the changes have slowed down a bit and are not as pronounced and obvious or as quick as they once were. So I have days – weeks even – when I lose track of how much you are learning until you say a reference or make a joke that seems far beyond your grasp of knowledge and humor. Suddenly I am reminded that you are a little boy, a school kid. There is no toddler left.

This has been such a fun year of watching your interests emerge and develop. You are obsessed with Legos as your toy of choice, and superheroes are your favorite subject. You create “projects” all the time – which, truth be told, are just bizarre creations of cut-up paper, glued on textures, and original drawings. But you see such stories and ideas in them, and I love to watch you create. At night you insist that we read three chapters from your books, and you call them “chapper books” instead of using the real word. “Chap” is a transitive verb for you, and you take pleasure in “chapping” the page by folding the corner down to mark your progress. I know I should correct your error, but I can’t. There are so few remnants of the baby inside that I find myself holding on to a few fading mispronunciations and childish assumptions. I know I’ll forget them one day, and that’s part of my reason for composing these letters for you. Most of all, I want you to know a little of what you were at these ages, but I want to remember these moments myself as well.

You are always doing, always thinking, always exploring. Your curiosity about the world around you, all corners of it, has me learning as well. You still don’t have a grasp on what it takes to go somewhere, so you’ll pause while brushing your teeth or putting on shoes to ask if we can go to Japan this weekend or visit Egypt soon. It’s both hilarious and inspiring that you don’t see barriers on this planet for what they really are. It’s a big wide world to you, and you share so much enthusiasm for other people’s landscapes and food and customs. Your curiosity motivates me to keep doing and dreaming and to stay curious myself.

For all of your funny misconceptions and kid-centered assumptions, you have the kindest heart, and everyone around you notices. You are one of the most energetic kids I’ve ever known, and you typically run at full speed – both literally and figuratively – at all hours of the day. But your outrageous energy is matched by such softness and kindness, and the contrast makes it all the sweeter. You consistently look out for your sister to be sure her voice is heard. And when I arrive to pick up the two of you from school, I usually find you both huddled at the fence that separates your two play areas, talking through the cracks and passing rocks and stickers back and forth. I know you might reach an age one day when you are annoyed to have a sister meddling right behind you, but right now you guys are inseparable.

Along with your kindness to Norah, you are still so affectionate to your Dad and me as well. You’ll huddle with him on weekend afternoons to watch a movie. You hold our hands because you want to. You hug like you mean it. You say “I love you, mama” at least once everyday for no reason at all. You won’t do these things forever, and it’s a gift every time.

In these past three weeks, I can’t help but notice that your age mirrors my own last days with my father, and it opens a new perspective for me. I’m here and watching you grow, and the best is yet to come. I feel so lucky just to have my feet hit the floor every morning, to wake up with the tasks of motherhood guiding my day, to have a healthy family and a list of mostly mundane worries. One day you will move on to lots of moments I won’t share with you, and I can’t wait to hear your stories unfold. But for now, you are mine to have for a bit longer.

So here’s to more exploring and laughing, more dreaming and doing. And to more special moments, even the little ones. Happy five years, Jude!

Love,

Mama

Year Two: A Letter

May 18, 2014 Katie3 Comments

Dear Norah,

Somehow you are two today, and my baby doesn’t feel like such a little one anymore. This year has been monumental for you in so many ways. You run steadily rather than toddle. You use words we are beginning to understand. You process the world around you faster than we’d like sometimes. Your knowing eyes are firm, your gaze is insistent, and you have a mind of your own. I find that this is such a weird age – so big yet so little at the same time. But I guess I could say that about you every year from now on. As I grow older and as I watch you do the same, my perspective changes. It’s my favorite thing about being a mom – new eyes all the time.

I have to laugh a little as I think back on what we were doing two years ago and how you came into this world. The days that followed your entrance were so quiet and peaceful. I had relatives ask in the early weeks if you had ever cried before because they were genuinely concerned that there could be a medical reason for your silence. And in hindsight, I don’t know when you crossed that line as you became more comfortable in your own skin, but quiet is not exactly the word I would use to describe you most of the time. Happy? Sad? Angry? Excited? You tell the world, loud and clear.

You’ve found your voice, and you aren’t afraid to use it. Much of it is minimally understood by the general public right now, of course. But those of us who live with you have learned Norah-speak. We have no choice but to listen. You’ll sit (or “disss”) on the couch and yell “babink!” louder and louder and LOUDER until someone brings you the blanket you want. Same with your morning demand for water in a very particular cup (never the easily reachable one at the front of the cabinet) or the million other requests and orders you shout at us all day. Persistence, my dear. I will never have to teach you that one. But it is a trait that will serve you well, and I love that you assert your ideas and wishes already.

When I think about you as my daughter and what that means, it makes me a little nervous. I worry about the same societal pressures that have been apparent for generations but just keep getting stronger with time, it seems. But for every demand of yours to put on a fluffy dress, you request Jude’s Thor costume and have acquired a pretty convincing use of its hammer. For every time you say “princess,” you also yell “Batman!” and put on a superhero cape. You are feisty but gentle. Content but persistent. Shy but opinionated. Energetic but observant. What is it Louisa May Alcott says? You can be “a great many things.” Hold onto that idea as you grow and change. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can only be one thing. You are way more than that, and we see it already.

You have taught me so much in these months. You lead me to question my long-held assumptions about girlhood and independence and attachment and my expectations of what it means to be a mother. You have an independent streak I don’t recall seeing in your brother at this age, and though you love to be held, you wave goodbye when you want to without looking back. I know one day you’ll do this on a much bigger scale when you cross highways and continents and all kinds of symbolic thresholds without me. For now, this is hard enough. I welcome a little longer with you safely in my nest.

It’s hard for me to visualize what life will be like as you get older, especially knowing you are likely the last baby in our home. You’ll tie your own shoes one day. Grab your own snacks from the fridge. Brush your own hair. These simple tasks that fill my moments will disappear. Your interests will move far beyond me and our life together, and your dreams will get bigger and bolder. When I consider all that waits, I don’t mind your insistent hands and grunting voice reaching for me when I’m making dinner. Having done this before with your brother ahead of you, I know we are looking at your last year as such a portable little sidekick. Let’s enjoy it.

You want to be bigger, older, stronger, and I want to tell you to hold off and stay right here for a while, but I know it doesn’t do any good to wish time could pause – not now and not when you are ten or sixteen or twenty, or in my case thirty-three. So for the moment, I just take these mental photographs and try my hardest to remember every detail as you are now – still soft and squishy and compact for a little while longer. We have a lot to do together before you leave my grip.

To my mischievous, spirited, perceptive, tenacious daughter: thank you for entertaining me, for keeping me on my toes, for reminding me to pay attention and see the joy in everyday life. I love you.

Happy Birthday, Norah.

Love,
Mama

____________________

*Photos snapped on my iPhone or taken during our session with Atlanta photographer Andrew Thomas Lee.

*** I write letters to my kids on their birthdays. You can see Norah’s previous ones here and here. And you can read Jude’s first, second, third, and fourth letters here.

Year Four: A Letter

October 15, 2013 Katie1 Comment

Jude,

We begin your fourth year today, and I have spent the past few months watching all the baby melt away and the kid emerge. It seems to be the magic age when so many baby struggles – sleep, potty learning, communication difficulties – have sailed away. The label of “toddler” isn’t even one I can really use anymore. You are a preschooler, a kid, a boy.

You grew up this year in a big way. And even though I thought I’d be weepy about that, it’s such a privilege to watch. Your imagination and your way of playing is something I know only lasts for a little while. I’m wanting to hit the pause button a lot these days, to freeze this moment in your life. But I’ve said that before, and look what I would have missed if I’d been able to pause on those baby years? So time marches on, and I know that somehow your future self will become something even more dear to me. These last few months have turned a new page it seems. We have real conversations. You understand things around us; you walk tall beside me, and you have opinions. Lots of them. They don’t always match my own, and you know what? This is just the beginning of that. We’ve got a lot to learn from each other.

In trying to explain to you what you were like at four, I can’t fail to mention your openness and honesty. You tell me if you don’t like what I made for dinner. You tell your sister if her diaper stinks or she is bothering you. You emerge from the bathroom to loudly exclaim, “I wiped my butt, mama!” It makes me squeeze your hand a little tighter and hold my breath a bit in public, hoping you don’t volunteer an assessment of a stranger. But with this openness comes a lot of joy and amazement in your world, too. Your joy is wide open for everyone to see. It reminds me every day to find happiness in the smallest things and to share that delight with others. I love you for that lesson and for a million more reasons.

You’ve had so many changes imposed on you in the past twelve months. We moved from the only home you’ve ever known. I went back to work in the college classroom. And your school routine demands a lot more of you than it did before. To say you’ve embraced these changes doesn’t give you enough credit. You’ve confronted these challenges with an acceptance and maturity that surprised all of us, and nothing makes me feel more at peace than to see you thrive so clearly in your current life. Countless leaps have happened in the past few months with your speech, your ability to focus, and your capabilities in a number of areas. You see tasks as your responsibility, your work. And you attack activities with such enthusiastic focus that it leaves me excited for your future. A sense of thoughtfulness and introspection is emerging in you, and it makes me proud to watch that happen.

To say I love you seems somehow inadequate this year on your birthday. I’ve always loved you, of course. But now, as we test out new waters and new ways of relating to one another, I can say I respect you. I see you, I hear you, and I value what you have to give to the world and what you are teaching me. I’m seeing the whole person emerge as we turn the page to your fourth year. Your curiosity, your kindness, your joy, your understanding – so many traits I’m grateful to watch emerging in you. I can’t wait to see what this year brings for you.

Love,

Mama

__________________________

I write birthday letters to my kids on each of their birthdays. You can see the others here.

Year One: A Letter

May 18, 2013May 18, 2013 Katie1 Comment

Dear Norah,

If there is one thing I have come to know about motherhood, it’s that characteristic bittersweet feeling. That moment when my heart can sing and ache at the same time. It reminds me so much of the hour of birth and all the intense physical pain that accompanies that divine moment when you finally meet a sweet face for the first time.

It’s that two-sided pleasure and pain principle that shows up again and again. And now, as I write this and you are at the end of your first year, I feel it all over again. So much joy and excitement for the person you are becoming, but oh, the ache and nostalgia for your tiny newborn body! It stings my heart to remember your curled up fists and squinty eyes and the newness of getting to know you in those first weeks and to know that special time has passed.

I know this is only the beginning of your story, but it already astounds me to see how much you’ve changed. Last summer you just seemed like an extension of me, but now you hold your own space in the room. Trying to walk, moving from place to place. Pointing and laughing and communicating. I love watching you grow into your own person.

I worry sometimes about the usual second-child mess-ups that happen around here. I can’t count the number of times you have eaten Cheerios off the floor or crawled your way to the dog bowls as I’m cooking dinner. Three years ago, I chased your brother around with a dslr camera that weighed more than him, but now it’s all I can do to pull my phone from my back pocket and catch a quick moment in between chasing the two of you. But we can see a stubbornness in you already, at least ten times stronger than your brother’s. And although most parents will think I’m crazy for saying this, I love it. I know you are going to hold your own one day, and there are bright things ahead. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the world is different for women and the lessons that are uniquely ours to learn. Keep owning your own space and following your own lead, Norah. There is a big world of possibilities out there, and these choices are yours to make.

It’s so strange for me to try to remember our little family without you, and I ask your brother often if he remembers when you were in my belly. He always casually assures me he doesn’t, so it seems the two of you will never have memories that are not intertwined with the other person, and I love it that way. He’s taught you a million terrible habits already, as big brothers are expected to do…. how to blow spit out your tiny mouth, or squeal in a way that horrifies my eardrums, or splash far too much water out of the tub … But he’s also taught you to hug like you mean it, and the two of you will throw your arms around each other and squeeze like it’s your job. He can make you laugh like nobody else, and to see the joy you guys bring each other is such a gift to me. I have moments of such overwhelming gratitude for these two little souls entrusted to me.

Fifty-two weeks have passed in a blink, but I can remember the night of your birth so well, Norah. Always the planner, I’d packed battery-operated votives in my hospital bag, thinking I’d use them as I labored through the night. Your swift arrival had other plans though, and we were settled in our postpartum room by 10pm. Dinner eaten, nurses and family gone, your dad snoozing away on a cot in the corner. We lined the votives up along the windowsill, and I held you all night long. It was so quiet in that room and the candles flickered a bit and an entire city was hushed outside the window.

I remember the stillness of that night and the feeling that we were the only people in the world, you and I. Mother and daughter. Even then, at something like six hours old, you’d already taught me so much about myself and what I’m capable of, the wonder of my own body and spirit. I know it won’t always be this easy; mothers and daughters are complicated. And those adolescent years ahead when we will fight and roll our eyes and have the usual growing pains? I’ll fall asleep remembering the quiet peace of your first night, what a gift it is to have a daughter, and all the joy and companionship that lies ahead.

So here you are, my girl. Your own little mind and soon enough your own big dreams and your own future in front of you. Magnificent things will happen to you – and scary ones too. But life is sweet, and one day you will find your way to exactly where you should be. As Rumi says, “What you seek is seeking you.” I can’t wait to watch you find it one day.

Happy birthday, Norah. My daughter, my heart. I love you!

Love,

Mama.

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I write letters to my kids on their birthdays, and you can see Jude’s here, here, and here. Norah’s birth story letter can be found here.

Year Three: A Letter

October 15, 2012 Katie1 Comment

Dear Jude,

Today you turn three, and though you are still so small in the world, it seems like such a big number to me. I play games in my head and think of how fast the past three years have gone and then project forward three more years to when you will be six and in school and it grips my stomach. I am nowhere near ready for you to leave this nest yet. But slowly and surely, you are taking your little steps toward independence.

It’s been such a big year for you, and while I usually write these letters for the purpose of recounting our year together, I’m having a hard time listing the many ways you’ve changed. You are growing into yourself. That’s really the best way I can describe it. Everyday you are learning and growing and developing an understanding of your place in the world and who you want to be. And it’s a part of parenthood that I wasn’t really prepared for because in those first few months and years, you are really just who I want you to be. Most of your opinions were mirrored from my own. But now it’s a whole new way of being together, and it’s been hard to swallow at moments, but we are settling in to ourselves, you and I. Redefining our relationship as the weeks roll by. Learning new things everyday about each other and about ourselves. It’s a journey we’ll still be completing decades from now, I think. Changing in ways and learning to give and take.

This year has brought even more change for you with the introduction of a new person who completely reframed your world. I worried so much in the first weeks with her that you were not getting the one-on-one attention you deserved and that you’d resent your sister for it. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and you are the perfect big brother, and I know there will be days when you don’t believe me, but she is my greatest gift to you. You will grow together and share secrets and commiserate about how crazy your family is, and everyone needs someone who understands where you come from. She is that someone for you, and I hope you keep the bond I already see between the two of you.

And maybe having a newborn in the house is partially responsible for this, but you just seem so big these days. You speak to me clearly so that I know exactly what you mean, and your interests are shifting to that of a little boy, no longer a baby. I’ve read once that imagination is the work of childhood, and I see it all the time as I observe you. Your toy dinosaurs talk to each other. Your train table hosts a full busy scene. You guide your legos to specific formations to create just what you had in mind. It’s a gift to me and a reminder that play and creativity are important for all of us. When I get a little weepy about how old you are and the baby days we are leaving behind, I just think about the fun years in front of us as you’re really entering such a precious time. So much play and imagination lie ahead in these next few years.

And like any normal three-year-old boy, all this play and creativity leaves little time for things like brushing your teeth or washing your hands or eating politely or any other boring tasks that adults find important. This age has its difficulties, no doubt, and though I love you, you frustrate me to no end. We’ve had some rough patches in these past few months, but growing pains are necessary to come out a bigger and better person on the other end, and I feel like you and I have both come out of those moments to find new capabilities we didn’t have before. Parenting is growing, too. One day you will see. And when I consider how much you’ve changed, you handle these challenges pretty well I guess, when all is said and done. We’ve taken you around the world and back this year, and you adapt and roll with us in a way that makes me proud to be your mama.

There are a million things about your three-year-old self I want to remember. Your love of food and wide palette are my pride and joy, and the way you ask, “Mama, what – ah- you cooking?” when you offer to lend a hand in the kitchen makes me smile. Your ability to hug like you mean it has made you famous already among our friends and family, and your little sense of humor surprises me already. I know your charming mispronunciations will fade soon, and I’ll miss them. Your ability to get lost in concentration is one that will serve you well in school and in life, and it’s my favorite thing to do, to watch you focus so intently and so quietly on a particular task. You love to read books, and while you sometimes manipulate me a bit by knowing that mama will never deny a request to read, I hope you keep that interest and passion. You know it’s my life’s work, as a former English teacher, to raise little readers. Your curiosity guides so many moments of our day, and though you don’t fully understand it yet, you’ve seen quite a bit of the world around you. I pray you keep that love of travel and remember there is a big wide world of people to meet and food to eat and places to see. Most of all, your joy is contagious, and you put a smile on my face every single day, Jude. You are going to get some scrapes and callouses along the way in the years ahead; I know that. But keep an open heart and the smile that resides in you. It brightens the perspective of so many of us who know and love you.

Three is a big number for a little boy. You’ve come so far from the days when I first brought you home from the hospital wrapped up in a sleepy little blanket. You’ve changed me in too many ways to count, and that list just keeps getting longer as you teach me more about who I really am and what I’m capable of. Thank you for those lessons, Jude. It’s a privilege to be your mama and to watch you become this amazing little person.

Happy birthday, boy! Keep smiling. Keep learning. Keep playing.

Love,

Mama

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Snapshots are from my iPhone or from our trip to Paris this year, and all professional photographs are by Atlanta photographer Andrew Thomas Lee.

If you want to see my previous birthday letters to Jude, see here or here. Norah has one as well, and you can read that here.

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Birth Story: A Letter

July 5, 2012December 8, 2012 Katie3 Comments

Dear Norah,

I’ve written letters to your brother on each of his birthdays, and I intend to do the same to you. Your first letter though will be for this first Birth Day when you entered the world, and I’m writing it now when it’s only been a few weeks, and I can clearly remember all the sights and feelings of those first few hours. I know a day will come when I might forget some of these tiny details, but there are so many things about that moment that will remain stamped in my mind forever; I know it.

Your brother’s birth cracked me wide open, in every sense of that phrase. It was a long process and ended with some details I did not anticipate, and as surgeons pulled his little body from my belly, I was ripped open literally and figuratively. All kinds of new love came from the cracks in my broken heart, and I love him for it. His birth taught me a million things I didn’t know before and gave me new eyes for so many things I’d never seen, but sadly, I didn’t really believe in my ability to do everything I needed to do to consider myself a real mama, and part of me assumed I just wasn’t made for birth. The scar on my belly and in my heart stayed there for a long time.

Then you came and you grew and that scar literally disappeared from my view as the nine months progressed. I think you were already whispering to me from where you were, telling me that I was every bit the woman I wanted to be and that we could do this together.

When May 18, 2012 arrived, and I felt that first contraction, I really thought it would be a slow, painful, long process and my nerves started to set in as my old fears crept up a bit. You didn’t leave time for much of that though. First a reminder at 11:30am, then another at 11:45, then another about 12 minutes later. You were telling me that my body was working, and it would work so much faster than I thought it could. I insisted on a full tummy though, so I made your dad and brother sit with me to eat lunch. It was our last meal as a family of three, and in typical Jude fashion, he was shouting, “Stop dancing, mama!” as I tried to sway through the contractions. Your Grammy came to get him, and then Nana arrived and your dad drove us to the hospital. Drove is an inaccurate depiction really. He flew like a bat out of Hell and cursed the traffic while envisioning his precious daughter making her entrance on the side of GA 400. Contractions were coming every three minutes at that point, and he and your Nana were getting nervous that I was close to meeting you and the hospital was too far away.

But we made it, with four hours to spare actually. I waddled in the door of the hospital and stopped every couple of minutes to grip a wall or a doorway and moan through a contraction. As you grow, you will find this funny, I think. I’m typically a fairly private person about that sort of thing, but I didn’t care. Again, your perfect pace didn’t leave time for self-doubt or second guessing, and I am so grateful for that gift. A surly woman checked us in and took too long on the monitor strip, but once she was done, we got settled in our Labor and Delivery suite with a kind nurse and our awesome doula Pam, and things really took off.

Contractions were coming one on top of the other, and I started shaking and became very demanding of your father, which is a trait you will see the rest of your life. It hurt. And I was starting to wonder why it hurt so badly when my dilation was only a “four or a five” when I was checked minutes ago. I thought a hot shower might help, so I stepped in and let the water pour over my back and I did find some comfort, but you were still being heard so much more loudly than I expected at this stage of the game. I asked to be checked again since I really wanted the warm comfort of the tub. My midwife told me that I was progressing well, so I stepped in the warm water.

I think you had your sights on being a water baby from the start because often the warm tub will slow down a laboring mom, but for us, this is where things really picked up. Your dad was playing a soundtrack of El Ten Eleven and City and Colour, and I just listened and pretty much held on to him for dear life, and before long I found myself loudly vocalizing to get through the contractions. With your brother, I endured nineteen hours of unmedicated labor and a surgery following that, and the whole time I remained so silent you could hear a pin drop. I tend to turn inward when dealing with discomfort of any kind, but you sent me a message that sometimes we surprise ourselves, and I found that vocalizing really helped me with the pain.

Sometimes I lamented that “Oooooooch this huuuuuurts.” And sometimes I told my body to “open, open, open.” And at one point, I started talking to you and telling you to “come on baby, come on Norah.” And with every all-consuming contraction, you were talking back to me and telling me it wouldn’t be long. I think we are going to talk a lot, you and I, because we were doing it from the very beginning.

Then next thing I know, my body starts pushing a bit with each contraction as you move downward. And then pushing a lot. I push and I push, and I thought I would be so anxious at this point of the delivery because it’s where things went awry last time. But again you were looking out for me. No time to be anxious or question or even think really. I just rode the wave of each contraction and listened to my body and pushed when it told me to. And for the first time in thirty-one months, I began to think maybe I really was strong enough to do anything I wanted and perfectly created to do this. I started saying so aloud, “I can do this; I can do this; I can do this,” like a chant. Everyone in the room was assuring me that “You are doing this,” and I gladly hung some hope on their words of encouragement.

With each push, you came closer to meeting me, and it hurt more and more. I began yelling loudly, or I remember it that way. Your dad assures me it wasn’t that out-of-control, but I swear he is just being kind to me because I seemed to remember screaming like a banshee as you moved through my pelvis. I started to waver a bit on my confidence, but my midwife looked right at me and assured me that I was doing it and you were minutes away from my arms. She told me your hair was waving in the water as I would sway between contractions, and a smile emerged for me because I knew we were close. With another push, she encouraged me to feel your head, and so I did. You were partially out and all soft and warm from the water and from your place in my own body. That moment of feeling your fuzzy little head in that water while the rest of you was still part of me will forever remain in my memory, Norah. Someone in the room commented on how amazing it was that the perfect song was playing at just the right time, and I like to think that was another little nudge from you that everything was coming together exactly as it should to make this magic moment. The next contraction came, and I gave it a few good pushes, and out popped your shoulders and the rest of your tiny little frame, and with the help of my midwives, I lifted your beautiful body right from that water to my own chest.

And you did not utter a sound or make a cry yet, but I felt as if you had been talking to me for months, telling me that we could do this together and I was not broken and that I was every bit the mama you needed. And you looked at me. Just looked. For the longest time. Those big silent eyes just looked and blinked a bit as if to say that you completely expected this moment and there was nothing surprising about it. I talked to you and I kissed you, even with all of your gooey birth stuff on your sweet little head. And I remember saying aloud that I felt like a new woman. I think what I meant at the time was that the all-consuming pain of the work of labor was over in an instant. But now I hear that statement with new ears because I really was a new woman in that second, one who knew that she wasn’t broken. And I can never explain to you in enough words or long-winded letters how much gratitude I have for that lesson, Norah.

Being a woman is hard. We judge ourselves and we expect too much and we internalize everything. It breaks my heart that you will learn these lessons someday, but I know you will. All I pray for in my life with you, in my years of being your mama, is that I can somehow give you the confidence and love and overwhelming gratitude that you gave me at 6:39 pm on that day. I look at you and I know with all certainty that you are beautiful and perfect and created to do anything in the world that you set your mind to, and apparently so am I. Thank you for teaching me that and for loving me before you even arrived.

Love,

Mama