Dear A, You were made for prairie life. You love running around with barefeet, regardless of the surface beneath your toes. In fact, you recently asked why anyone would want to put their feet in "square boxes" (aka shoes). Somehow you don't even flinch when scrambling up trees or hopping across stones, smiling widely without […]
Dear O, You were born at 8:30pm on a mid-March eve two weeks before your official due date. The birth could be described in contrasting terms - it was both fast and furious AND overwhelmingly peaceful. When Tim leaned down to catch you and then passed you tenderly into my arms, I was mesmerized by […]
Dear K, How can it be that I just watched you drive away in our Honda Pilot? Blonde curls cascading around your shoulders, you smile and give a wave through the front window. At sixteen, you are an elegant, accomplished young woman. This year, you are taking piano and oil painting lessons, helping with the […]
Dear H, I'm so glad we have a boy because I don't think I ever would have known how delightful six-year-old boys can be. I will confess that I perhaps had a somewhat inaccurate perception of little boys. You, however, have dashed them all. At age six, you are a gentleman. With impeccable manners and […]
Dear A, I'd like to be as brave and athletic as you are. You do cartwheels and handsprings flawlessly, grinning after you're right side up. You do fancy (and frightening!) stunts on your bike, riding without hands, sitting up on your handlebars, doing wheelies like nobody's business. You can cross the monkey bars with playground […]
Dear O, You still remind me of Anne of Green Gables - her wit, her smarts, her strength of mind and character, her propensity for speaking the truth (for better or for worse). Remember the part in the movie where Anne very strikingly seems to be leaving girlhood behind and laughs on the porch alongside […]