To my second baby on his 8th birthday (ahem, which was nearly 7 months ago):

Dear Sam,


Tonight we were reading Ribsy and you almost fell asleep 15 pages in. Which is fine -- we've read it at least once before. I turned the light off and then lay there with my nose in your hair, taking in all the fleeting little boy smells of scooters, basketballs, trampolines, Legos, and that nasty blanket that you call Sucky. I'm gonna have to call you out on this Sam: Can we please be done with Sucky? I mean, you hide it when your friends come over, and it smells like a combination of urine, feces, dirt, and barf. Please? Almost every night we do this, and almost every night I tell you that it is my favorite time of the day. I love reading to you.

But now that you're 8, you like reading to me too. I am fascinated by your curiosity about words and your ability to extrapolate from the text and explain why something happened even if it's only implied in the story. We talk about connotation, denotation, and the range of negative, neutral, and positive that each word might hold. 

Between the smell of your hair and the discussions of words and now the poodle that warms our feet, I just about burst. In these mostly quiet, still moments (which are extremely rare for you), I feel like we reconnect no matter what happened earlier in the day (and a LOT has been happening lately, unfortunately).

Sam, we finally know a little bit more now about how differently you perceive the world. Every parent wonders how their child develops personality traits -- is it genetic? environmental? Are we totally messing this whole thing up? (This whole thing = YOU.) And what I hope is that you see us trying ... maybe not now but perhaps in retrospect you will be able to look back and see that we are trying our absolute best to understand you, meet you where you are, and love you unconditionally. That last part we don't have to practice. It just IS the case that we love you unconditionally, of course. But sometimes you try to tell me that you love me more than I love you, which is very sweet but not even remotely possible.


The 8 and a half year old Sam is a flibbertigibbet, a will-o'-the-wisp, and yes, sometimes even a clown (the good kind -- go to minute 1:00 in the video linked to the word clown). And like Maria in The Sound of Music there are many a thing we know we'd like to tell you; many a thing you ought to understand ... but how do we make you stay? And listen to all we say? How do you keep a wave upon the sand?


Unlike the nuns' views about Maria, however, we know that you are not a problem to be solved. A challenge, yes. But never a problem. Even if we mistakenly cause you to feel that -- please know that it's only your behavior that is sometimes problematic, not you. Underneath all that is the Sweet Sam, who always makes me a mother's day card, always picks me out the best jewelry for birthdays and Christmas (I particularly like the necklace that you used for teething. You actually chipped a piece of it, and I love that imperfect stone so much.) My mom got a gold heart necklace once when I was a toddler, and I did the same thing (chomped down on it). I could never understand why she still wore that mashed-up-looking thing ... until I had one of my own. 


I think I'm starting to understand now that parenting -- like every other thing we might perceive as a problem or challenge -- is likely to be our best teacher in disguise. I have been a fan of Rumi's Guest House poem for a long time, and while I understood it on a theoretical level, I think it must take years to learn how to act like I believe it. If we have faith that God is omniscient and beneficent, then we must also remain faithful to the notion that he sends everything to optimize our outcomes. 

What that looks like for us as parents lately -- this year in particular -- is facing situations in which we have had opportunities to practice and develop patience, letting go, trying, and most importantly, focusing on your progress without expecting any certain ideal. That is hard to do, so God keeps giving us opportunities to practice these things through experience. We can't learn it all at once. We can't find every solution in a book or with a therapist or a doctor (or even with five doctors). Sometimes we have to just wait and pray and start over again and again and again.


Thank you for being that kind of teacher. We love who you are and who you are shaping us to be, Sweet Sam ... we wouldn't want you to be any way except exactly how you are. 

So, let me reiterate what I say every night: "I love you so much. Nothing you could ever do, or say, or be could make me stop loving you. I hope you have sweet and long dreams ... If you need me, call me, and I'll be right here."

With my biggest hugs and more love than ever,
Mama