I can’t believe you are four years old. It’s so cliche, but it really does feel like yesterday that I was laboring in the tub, letting your dad sleep while trying to tell if you were being for real, or just fooling me.
For three years and probably 9 months you were the joy of our lives. While your sister can be mercurial, you were our easy going boy with a wry smile and a sunny disposition. The last three months you have been…. more difficult. You are starting to have opinions about everything and you need to test your boundaries. We’ll get through it, but I wish you’d get over it sooner rather than later. I want to go back to the moments when we’re driving in the car and you yell “Mama?” and I think you want to point something out to me but when I say “what?” you just say “I love you.”
I could talk about your relationship with your sister for days. You worship her, there is no doubt. But, when you are together, it’s often like two cats in a bag. There will be tears. There may be bloodshed. You rely on each other, though, and I hope you continue to do so forever.
I think a lot about the kind of man I want you to be. You have plenty of great role models between your dad, your uncles, and your grandfather, so that is a big bonus. But the way our world is right now… ugh, it makes me worry. I want you to be joyful, compassionate, intelligent, brave… so many things that seem to currently be of very little value. And you are so, so little, and the problems in this world are so, so big.
But, instead of worrying about all that today, I’m going to make you laugh, make you sing, dance with you and give you a cupcake. You are my silly goose. You are my clever fox. You are my sweetest, sweetest boy.
Love, Mama.
MAMA RUSTICANA 