Dear Nathalie, Love Mom

Dear Nathalie, Your first grade class is performing The Wizard of Oz at the end of the year. I guess it's a tradition at your school or something. Spencer and Devin both did it. Spencer was a flying monkey and Devin was a munchkin. You first learned about this play last year, in kindergarten, when your class got to watch the first graders do their dress rehearsal. From that day, all you could talk about was how you were going to be Dorothy in the play when YOU were a first grader. Auditions were yesterday. I asked you how you did, and you said, "I don't want to brag, so I'll say I did just as well as everyone else." Ha!!! Confidence! I love it. So now, we wait to see if you got the part of Dorothy. I'm happy to report that you seem to be just fine with being an Oz person if you don't get to be Dorothy, but I really hope you get it. I've got my Facebook Army rooting for you! Best of luck to you, dear Nathalie. Love, Mom

Dear Nathalie, When I was a kid, we did school pictures once a year. September. That was it. Nowadays, we get a "fall" picture and a "spring" picture. I usually discard the spring pictures because, come on, do I really need to spend more money on an envelope of photos that just gets filed away for some project I'm never going to complete later? This year, I changed my tune. You have changed A LOT in just a few months!!!! How is that possible? You were still so little when you started first grade and now........now you look like a big kid. Stop it. Love, Mom

Dear Nathalie, This post is more about me than about you. Because, sometimes, it's important for mommies to think about themselves. My birthday was yesterday. I turned blankety blank years old. Bleh. I have a very clear memory of when your grandma turned 30. And then when she turned 40. And then, 50. I hope that you get to have those memories. I hope they stick. I hope you get more of them than I had. As I get older, I start to think more and more about my mom as a person. Not as my mom, but as a woman who went through a lot. I think about the struggles she had growing up. I think about the person she became and the life she created for her family. It's still hard for me to think about your grandma for too long. I still get sad...overwhelmed sometimes with grief. But it is important to keep thinking about her. I have so many of her qualities, both the good and the bad. I have to focus on the bad so I don't repeat some of her mistakes. But the good.....I...

Dear Nathalie, I saw an article the other day.....something about missing out on a childhood by paying too much attention to your cell phone and not your kids. Guilty. So.....I'm changing my ways. It won't be easy....but it's definitely something that needs to happen. I'm glued to my iPhone. You would think I needed it to breath or something. I'm quite disgusted with myself over it, actually. My commitment to you is this: -When you are home with me, the iPhone is on the charging dock. Not in my hands. -There will be ZERO phone in hand when I'm in the car with you. Not even at stoplights. That is time I have with you to TALK. To be SILLY. To have fun and sing and laugh. -I will take a few minutes every night I work late to sit with you and talk about your day, even if it's past your bedtime. It won't be easy, and I'll forget. But I'm going to try very hard. Because really, dear Nathalie, childhood is much to short....and I don't...

Dear Nathalie, I just re-read my last letter to you, and I realized something. In the grand scheme of things, I shouldn't feel awful at all that I've gone another year without posting. When you finally sit down and read these letters, it won't really matter that I missed a whole year. The important thing is that I didn't MISS the whole year. We spent the year doing so many fun things together. You spent the year growing and learning and becoming even more of your own person. I spent the year growing and learning and becoming a better, stronger mommy. Last year was not an easy year for me. A wave of what we fondly call "ninja grief" around here hit me like a ton of bricks and I spent a good portion of my time feeling really down. Your grandpa was able to re-group, re-marry, and start a new chapter of his life. That wasn't easy for mommy. But I see how happy he is....how he hasn't forgotten, just that he decided to keep going. Forward is...

Dear Nathalie, I've been a bad blogger. I completely lost all consistency for posting and I feel terrible. So much has happened and you've grown and changed significantly...I just feel awful. Shaking it off. Starting over. Happy Birthday! You turned six today. SIX!!! I cannot believe how quickly the time goes. I feel like it was literally yesterday that I met you for the very first time...held your little tiny body against my chest and felt and immediate attachment to you. My baby. At 9:22am on that Friday in February, you arrived. You're lucky you were born in the morning. I was born at 2:56pm. Something your grandma used to take very seriously. She would REFUSE to wish me a happy birthday until the clock hit that exact time. No matter what. Every year. The problem with that is, now that she's gone, when it's my birthday......I stare at that clock and wait for that call, even though I know it's never going to come. Oh how I miss her. Especially on speci...

Dear Nathalie, I may have mentioned this before, but you used to have problems with the letters S and P and how they sounded when they were smooshed together. For example, Spencer always came out Semper and Sponge Bob was delightfully referred to as SomeBodge. I miss those days....the days when we had Sprangled Eggs for breakfast and whatnot..... There are still a few instances where you have trouble coming up with the right words for what you're trying to explain to me. I liked that you learned about driddlers in your kindergarten class, but I'm pretty sure that your friend Josh plays with a dreidel around Hanukkah time....the best was yesterday..... "Mommy, can you put on the graham cracker?" "What do you mean....what do you want me to put on the graham cracker? We're in the car I don't have any graham crackers." "No, mommy. The music. The Graham Cracker cd." "You mean the NUTcracker?" "Oh. Yeah." I ...