Power Bracelet

Dear John,

You have become enamored of many super heroes lately, mostly from the DC Universe... Superman, Batman, Flash, and Green Lantern.

A lot of days, Green Lantern is your favorite.  Your grandma even got you a "real" power ring for your birthday so you could stop using heart-shaped faux rhinestone rings from your sister's dress up pile.

Today, though, you decided you had a power bracelet.

What does a power bracelet look like?

It looks like this.

I know to your three-year-old self, it really was like something a super hero would wear... shiny and metal, and to your three-year-old self I would agree that it is indeed a power bracelet.

To your future self, though, I would clarify...

This bracelet reminds us of the real heroes in our lives, men like your uncle, who died in service to his country.  This is a power bracelet because we are a more powerful nation because of men and women like your uncle, because we are a more powerful family for having been through the loss of him, because we are more powerful as individuals for having known him.

This bracelet is something for a different kind of hero, for women like your Aunt Rachel and your Gram, for men like your Grandpa, your Uncle Jonathan, and your daddy.  When they wear this bracelet, they are saying that they had someone really special, a hero, and now they have to be heroes themselves, to walk on an Earth where heroes have died, to continue the act of living in the face of death.

This bracelet tells the world that you are part of a special family, a family that paid a high price for American freedom.

This is a power bracelet.

Wear it with pride.

Love,
Mom

Three Year Old Boy

Dear John,

This past Thursday was your third birthday.  We celebrated by going to the playscape, like you wanted, and then to Chick Fil a to get a milkshake, one of your favorite treats.

The Fords joined us for dinner and gave you a set of swim floaties in the shape of fish.  You liked them so much that you slept with them that night.

The big celebration, though, was Saturday.  Your Gram and your Grandma gave up from Houston for your special day.

So many of your friends came out to Kiddie Acres to celebrate with us.

It was a wonderful celebration of YOU.  And who are you?

You are John.  Just John.  Not Jack, not John Patrick.  Just John.

You are funny and charming.  In fact, I think you are learning to be funny and charming to get your way and I see you playing me and I still find myself taken in because you are so funny and so charming.  You are blessed to have a daddy who is not taken in.

You are stubborn.  You are willful.  You will cut off your nose to spite your face every single time.  You dig holes and then your dig them deeper.

You cave just often enough, though, for the people you love.  Just often enough that the act of bending your will is an act of love.  And you are loving, so loving, and sweet and kind and you melt my heart.  You melt a lot of hearts.

You experience joy in an all out free-for-all of abandonment.  You taste life.  Maybe that's why you are so picky.  Maybe it's why you always have your tongue out.

You crave sugar the way camels crave water.  You eat it up, you store it up, and then for the next five meals in which things like meat and vegetables are served, you can make it through until the next carbolicious opportunity.

You are methodical and precise and have a memory like a steel trap.  Out of sight is not out of mind and you can keep track of an impressive amount of small details, like which toys came with which accessories.

You are imaginative and creative.  You tell stories and create adventures.

You are a superhero in your own mind, even if you find the idea of having a world staring at you to be unbearable and therefore could only save a world that was willing to look the other way.

You delight in the delightful, spending up to an hour on an activity that has captured your fancy, using far more fine motor skill and patience than I would ever have imagined in a three year old boy.

You are precious and adorable and perfect to me.

You are my sweet boy.  John Patrick Nolen.  Just John.

Love,
Mom

What Makes Green?

Dear John,

Everyone has these bizarre parenting questions.  In fact, I think that every set of parents gets to discover their own personal bits of the bizarre.

One of the joys of parenting is not only finding the answers, but learning whom to ask.

Yesterday, you pooped green.  Not sick green.  Not call the hospital green.  More like comedy relief St. Patrick's Day green.

It seemed pretty clear that you had eaten something, well, green.

We had not fed you anything green.  You actually go out of your way to avoid green foods altogether.  We asked the daycare and no one remembered any green food.

So probably, we're thinking, you ate something that wasn't food, that was green.  Hmmm.  Playdough?  Paint?  Crayons?

This is where I call your Gram.  Thanks to the joy of raising your dad and uncles and her job as a nurse, she does a really fine job of answering these kinds of questions.

She asked if you had eaten anything purple.  Purple food coloring breaks down in the body as green, for some reason that I didn't understand but completely believed.

Still, I had not fed you any purple foods.

I let it go, deciding that you were acting fine and given the three green poops, clearly whatever you ate was moving right on through.

Then the daycare called.  They had just remembered that another little boy had a birthday party and his mother sent cupcakes.

They weren't green, though.

They were teal.

And purple.

So there you go. Purple turns to green in a human digestive tract.  Who knew? Well, I mean, other than your Gram.

Love,
Mom

John and Mama

Dear John,

I had so much fun with you today.  We didn't do a whole lot.  We had such a full day yesterday.  We went to church, we checked on the Kinder Garden that I started for my class and then came home for a nap.  We went out shopping and got some new things for my bike.  A sort of mundane day, I suppose.  But what joy can be found in the every day life of being your mama these days!

I find myself rejuvenated by so many things... a situation at work that bothered me at the time, but has proven to lower my stress over all, a new connection with some of my students which makes me all the more grateful for my life as a teacher and a mother, conversations with mamas of boys in their senior year who assure me that the problems of today are nothing compared to prom and graduation and quietly, strangely, an octogenarian at the rec center who saw you and your sister and told me in a gravely voice, "You are in the best years of your life and you don't even know it.  Cherish these days."

What wonderful advice!

So I took you with me to the Kinder Garden and we even planted some new plants to keep the plot looking pretty while we wait to see if any of the kids' lettuce sprouts.

You so love being outside, with your hands in the dirt.  We will have to read The Secret Garden together someday.

And my latest joy.  Not only being able to ride a bicycle again, but being able to take my boy with me.  It brings me to Rerun Van Pelt and his days in the 70's, on the back of his mother's bike in the Peanuts cartoon strip by Charles Schultz.

You were equally terrified by the leaning of the bike and the speeds we reached in the cul de sac.  I have you agreeing to go again tomorrow only because I promised we would ride to Sonic to get ice cream.  Every mother is nostalgic for the era of her own childhood.  Mine was the 70's and 80's and so the baby on the back of the bike brings me such joy.

I shall try not to hit any parked cars.

Love,
Mom

Sydney's Half Birthday

Dear John,

We celebrated your sister's half birthday on Saturday and while most of what we did was about her, you enjoyed a lot of it yourself.

 You enjoyed going to the Nature Center.

 You enjoyed digging in the sand for dinosaur bones.  I enjoyed that I could sit on the sand and dig with you.

Your sister enjoyed making you say the password to leave Prince John's backyard.  You enjoyed being able to play this game with your sister.  Nevermind that this clearly should be your backyard.

You and I enjoyed the golf ball exhibit on motion at the Children's Museum.

We all enjoyed the four different sized chairs at the new measurement exhibit.

 But mostly you enjoyed pouring lentils into different containers.

 I mean you really, really enjoyed it.

 I enjoyed getting a new "one shoe off and one shoe on" picture.

 Everyone enjoyed the indoor pool.

 Mostly though we enjoyed the time together, just the four of us.

 With one extra cute little hooligan wearing his uncle's hat.

Love you!

Love,
Mom

Red Poppy Festival

Dear John,

Two weekends ago, we went to the annual Red Poppy Festival.  We made it just in time for the car show, which delighted you and your dad.

I was delighted to find this hat for you and this dress for your sister, bought in different places at different times from different stores, and get them together for many adorable Red Poppy Festival pictures.  Not only that, but you wore the hat all day.  Why?  Because I told you to.  Maybe it was a misuse of my maternal authority to demand such a thing when you really didn't care for the hat, but honestly, I was just pleased to have such blessed obedience.

And really, you and your sister were ADORABLE together.

We did the usual things.  Your dad bought "carnie" food, as he likes to call it (although there were no turkey legs in sight).  We looked in all of the booths.  We did not visit the bounce houses in the kids' section, though, because the lines were so very long.  You were very disappointed by this, but obeyed when we said it was time to walk away from the bounce houses and used respectful language to say, "I'm very disappointed."  We placated you with promises of going to another bounce place at some uncertain future time.  It wasn't until bedtime that night when you were still sweetly asking, "Now we go to 'nuther bouce space?" that we understood how important those bounce houses were to you.  I was so proud of you for facing that level of disappointment with no fit, no fuss.  And that's why the next day we did come back so you could bounce....

 ...and ride the train, and play the football game that the big kids were enjoying so much.

I love being able to reward your self control.

The other thing I loved about the day was sharing it with the Fords.

They arrived about half-way through our time on the square and you could not decide whom you were happier to see, Mrs. Ford, Mr. Ford, Sabrina or the puppies.

You were most possessive of Lincoln, though,  You helped Mr. Ford to walk him and when the literally dozens of different people walked over at various points to comment on what a beautiful animal he is, you would run over and give him a possessive pat as these strangers were petting "your" dog.

I loved seeing you with Sabrina.  She is getting so big and the older she gets, the neater she fits in with you and your sister.  The spacing from you to Sabrina is about the same as the spacing from your sister to you, and you are just as sweet with her and your sister is with you.

It was a wonderful visit to the Red Poppy Festival.  The weather was gorgeous.  The company was ideal.  The atmosphere Rockwellian as always.  And you, little boy, were obedient (although I am noticing that you are being a pill in both of these pictures... I guess we'll settle for obedience at just about three and work on cheerful obedience in the coming year).

Oh, and I was wearing the Russian Nesting doll necklace(s) that Danielle gave me.  Perfect day.

Absolutely perfect.

Love,

Mom