Little Hands

Dear Jack,

You recently brought me a new old book. It had been hiding in plain sight on the bookcase in your closet. Your sister had never noticed it, but it was a very tall book, the very kind that you like so much and so you were drawn to it.
I bought this book when I was in college, as part of my "take back my childhood" campaign, in which I bought an assortment of frivolous things that were too expensive for what they were for your grandparents to have been able to reasonably afford them but that had captured my imagination.

It's one of those carousel pop-up books that opens into a full 360 degrees to make a dollhouse. I remember seeing them in B. Dalton's bookstore in the mall but my mother (wisely) declined to buy the $20 "book" for me as a child since I probably would have destroyed it, if I had played with it at all. Instead, I bought it as a college student, left it open on a table for several months, admired it, and then closed it up and let it gather dust.

Until you found it.

You loved it. I sat on the couch with it open on the coffee table as you and your sister played with it for over half and hour. I don't have to tell you that anything over about ten minutes is forever in toddlerland.

I was so impressed with the gentleness with which you played in this little paper house. Your sister took possession of the father, the mother, and the sister, leaving you the brother. With your little baby hands and trademark precision, you found a dog, a cat, another sister and a baby hiding in various nooks and grannies in the house. The sister we gave to Sydney, but the baby you kept for yourself. In fact, in finding the baby, you lost all interest in the "brother" and just moved that baby all around the house.

You hid the baby under the table (which is where he had been hiding in the first place), let him fall down the stairs, hid him in the closet and the chimney, and gave him many baths.

Seeing your chubby little baby hands being so very gentle with a dollhouse you could easily tear to bits was somewhat surreal. I kept waiting for that ripping sound and it never came.

I wonder if this is a sign of your personality, or simply a quietness of babyhood that hasn't left you, yet. Either way, I love it. I love that you can play so gently, so quietly, and so happily.

I love that you love the things that appeal to me.

I love you.

Love,
Mom

Falling in the Backyard

Dear Jack,

It's that time of year again. Summer break is over and the weather, although still very warm, is no longer in the triple digits. September is more than half over and the school year is well established.

We haven't really set foot in the backyard for the last three scorching months. We've gotten the kiddie pool out a time or two, I guess, but we've stayed completely on the deck, under the shade of the umbrella with some body part actually in the coolness of the water at all times. No one has played in the backyard at all. Then I got my hammock and tried to lay in it while you and your sister played and had to feel so sorry for you, trying to find your toys in the (for you at least) knee high weeds and all of your toys were covered with a layer of dirt, leaves, pollen, and who knows what else.

That's right, it's time to fall in the backyard.

First of all, your dad mowed the grass (an act which flushed out the fox and let us know that in our absence, and probably after the long rains, a new hole was dug into the den under the deck).

Then I gathered all of your toys, washed them, threw out the broken ones, and rearranged the toys from the Sydney-centric way that the backyard had been last spring when you weren't even walking to a Jack-friendly way for the coming fall.

You loved, loved, loved all of the slides and were able to manage the castle slide completely on your own.

Your new favorite, though, is the tool bench, which was sadly one of the few toys that I didn't manage to clean, so now I have a task for tomorrow.

Mostly, you just enjoyed being outside. You have always been calmer outside than in and I'm glad for your sake that fall is all but here and we can spend more and more time enjoying the great plasticine outdoors together.

Happy Fall!

Love,
Mom

Order and Art

Dear Jack,

I admit that I did not read to you nearly as much in your first year as I did your sister. We were just on the go too often and didn't have the same evening quiet time. You were read to some and there were books aplenty for you to play with, but sitting and reading book after book after book never happened.

It's been interesting, therefore, to see your interest in books (pronounced with a firm "buh" when you want to be read to) growing in the past few weeks.

I will go and sit down on your bed to watch you play in the evenings and you will announce "buh" and go into your closet to get a book for us to share.

Your favorite right now is The Louvre Up Close. It's a collection of reproductions of famous works of art currently housed at the Louvre. I think you like it because you really don't like to be read to and prefer to sit and examine pictures over and over and over again. You point to things in the pictures and like for me to tell you what they are. You grunt and talk in your private Jack language a lot, so I know you have things to say about the pictures. Mostly, I feel like you are reading to me.

One of my favorite parts, though, is after we're done reading. Without any prompting, you take the book...

walk to your closet...

and put it back on the shelf where you found it.

Just like that.

Your personality is developing so much right now. Seeing your sharp little eye find so much detail in a painting. Listening to your little voice telling me what the story is about. Watching your little arms struggling to hold that big book because you are determined to have everything in your room just so.

I love you more today than I did yesterday and I didn't know it was possible.

Love,
Mom

Nine Eleven

Dear Jack,

I was getting ready for work, a job at a bookstore called Borders when my boyfriend (who would one day become your dad) called me and said,

"A plane has hit the World Trade Center towers."

"What does that mean?" I asked. Was it a plane that lost course, an accident? Was it an act of war? What did it mean that a plane ran into a building in New York?

"I don't know," said your dad.

With those three words I knew that history was happening. Your dad always knows what's going on in the world. He always knows what an event means and what the global ramifications may be. Your dad is my own personal google and the idea that something could happen in this world that he would not immediately understand was terrifying to me.

Somewhere across the state, as I would find out years later, your uncle was hearing this same news and understanding that a terrorist group had the utter audacity to organize an attack on American soil. It was then, he told his friends, that he decided he would join the Army. Living through a moment in history when America felt, possibly for the first time in a generation or more, actually vulnerable, was life changing for him. Life ending as it would ultimately turn out.

Those terrorists who came to America to make their statement were from a previously little known country called Afghanistan. A little more than eight years later, your uncle, a American hero, would die on Afghan soil.

The full circleness of it all just numbs me right now. The idea that a phone call on my way to work would lead from one event to another to the loss of so many, including someone so very dear to us, makes my head spin.

I hope as you grow up, you and your peer group are taught about this day, Nine Eleven, and taught about the terror of the impossible, the heroics at ground zero and in the Pentagon and in the air above that Pennsylvanian field, the lives lost, the promises made. The promise that we as a nation. would. never. forget.

It's not a pretty day. It's not a happy day. It's not a day I ever want to relive. But it's a day that we absolutely cannot forget.

Love,
Mom

School Closure?

Dear Jack,

I got an odd call at 6:15 this morning. The call said that school was closed because of the rain. Now, I knew it had rained all night, of course, and I don't want to belittle the flood damage, because I am sure there were many with leaks in their roofs and water in their living rooms today, but we were thankfully not among them. So I was blissfully unaware of any problem with the rain waters and had no idea that school could be canceled because of the rain.

This closure left me with two thoughts: 1) what bad weather make-up day am I going to be sad to lose later in the year and 2) what in the world are we going to do today?

I put the thoughts together and realized that we had better do something fabulous because later on I'm going to remember this day as I'm working on Good Friday and I'll be irritated if it was wasted.

So I put you and your sister in the car, we stopped for Starbucks, and we went off to the Children's Museum in the rain.

The museum was on the edge of empty since the surrounding districts just did a late start or had no change in schedule. This meant that none of those pesky big kids were playing with the over-sized chess set. You were very upset to find the chess set in disarray and spent a lot of time fixing it. I love how much you love order.

It was a really fun day, but I'm afraid come Good Friday, I'm going to wish I had just gone to school in the rain.

Oh, well, at least we didn't just sit around the house, right? And those chess sets don't fix themselves.

Love,
Mom

Part of Something... Even from a Distance

Dear Jack,

Every single time I get these men together, I make them take this picture. I wish so much that I had the same picture for myself... one of my mother, Mema, great grandmother and myself. So much of who I am comes from those women... because of, in spite of, blessedly due to. You will be the same way I am sure. So I always try to get this picture for you so that you can have that feeling of ancestry, of belonging. This is four generations of Nolen men right here, son, and you are part of that line. Isn't that amazing?

Besides getting to see your Grandpa and Nana Nolen and Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Nolen, you also got to see some of your aunts and cousins.

We went to the zoo with Aunt Serita and her kids. You and her Lily are only three days apart, did you know that? Of course, at this age, it means you ignored each other completely, but some day that might be a cool little factoid for you.

Mostly, though, you enjoyed your grandmas. Nana would read to you and sit and play with you over and over and over again. When Great-Grandma arrived, Nana let Great-Grandma have her turn, but it was the same games that you and Nana had played all over again.

Even at the store, you and Nana were playing. It was so neat to see you, who have been so stranger-shy lately, warm up so quickly to someone you haven't seen in almost nine months.

I love it when your Grandpa and Nana come to visit. You and your sister love them so much and they spend their entire visit doing pretty much anything you want to do, which is so neat for me to watch.

Some days, I think about Georgetown and how beautiful it is and how glad I am to live here with you and your dad and sister. But some days I feel a little like an island... a family of four alone in the world with everyone else so spread out away from us. So I love it when we see other family members and I get to see that for you at least, these long weekends are enough to get the feeling of an extended family that loves you and is a part of you, even if they live far away.

Love,
Mom

School

Dear Jack,

I am certain that I specifically told you to stay a little baby. Why do you insist on becoming a big boy?

Today was Open House at your school and every time I see you at day care I am amazed at how grown up you are getting. The other day, I came and you were sitting, perfectly still, on a little circle mat listening to your teacher sing to you. How does she get a 16 month old to sit like that?

I did enjoy seeing you play with all of the toys at school. You are in the midst of your in-and-out stage and liked putting rocks in the trucks and dumping them out again.

You also enjoyed the slide and I wish I could have captured the moments after the sliding better because that's when you showed off the thing that you have been learning at school: signing. You do "more" very well and after every slide, you would put your hands together and say "mmmm" very clearly.

Your teacher also commented that you are very interested in communicating and are very ready to learn how to talk. She also mentioned that you are a great helper and put away toys for her when she asks. I told her you like order and it's true. At home, you like to put things away. You must get that from your dad.

I really struggled with the choice to move you to a daycare when your sister was ready to transition. I think there is a lot about home care that is better for little ones like you, but I like your teacher a lot and she only has five or six toddlers, which isn't too bad. She obviously likes you a lot and that is very important to me.

The real measure, though, is that on the days that you stay late, your teacher leaves before you do and when she leaves, you cry and cry. Just like you cry when I leave you. So I know that you like her a lot, too.

And that's the most important part to me.

Love,
Mom