Dear Simon,

On the occasion of your eighth birthday,  I’d like to share a little anecdote. A few weeks ago,  I took a silly Internet quiz that promised to tell people who they were after answering 20 questions. When I took the quiz as myself, the answers were freakishly accurate about my age, hair color, and life circumstances. So I decided to take it as you. It described you as a person who is serious about work, serious about play, very competitive and driven, physically fit, and with a close family and circle of friends . . .

. . . who was 50. Seriously, only the references to male pattern baldness sounded off. The rest was spot-on.

At eight, you are nothing more and nothing less than a grown-up version of the person you have been for several years now, and that person was also an old soul. There’s a constancy to your character; only now the childish language has to go.

Let me explain. When you were very young, I described you as “ball loving”. For the past two years, I upgraded you to “sporty”. This year it is time to recognize your ability and hard work and get more serious: You are athletic. In the past year, your PE teacher, tennis coach, soccer coach, and swim teacher have all told me that you are “a natural athlete” or “a talented athlete”.

I have heard the “A” word so often from so many different sources that I no longer doubt it. I have no idea how far you can, will, or will even want to go in any given sport, but there’s no denying that your ability, passion, and work ethic have combined to make you something special on the sports fields and courts. You have trophied in both a tennis match and a 5K race, you will travel for a U-10 soccer tournament next month, and your dad and I can do nothing from now on but cheer you from the sidelines.

Similarly, I’m thinking you are not going to be “a numbers kid” for much longer. In the not-too-distant future, that word will have to flip to “mathematician”. You love to carry in addition, you’re working on borrowing in subtraction, you have your multiplication tables down and can divide just fine, too, and you love playing with negatives, factorials, square roots, and powers. It’s a giant game to you, and comes as naturally as kicking a soccer ball.

But sports and math aren’t the only ways you  play up. You’ve been playing up socially as well. Thanks to tennis and soccer, you have met some very nice boys who are 1-2 years older than you, and it has not escaped my notice that your rapport with them is effortless in a way your rapport with boys your own age isn’t always.

Having said that, if your soul is old, your heart remains as young as ever. I’ve guarded your youthful innocence as much as possible, and so far you haven’t put up any walls of remove or cynicism. You are as sensitive, open, and caring as ever, and your sweet nature is one of your best qualities. You still expect everyone to be kind and honest and to do their best, and you are still confused when someone doesn’t. It’s a lovely view of the world, and I want you to hold on to it for as long as possible.

Honestly, this is a hard letter to write. Even though only dear friends and family read this blog, I feel like all my kvelling over you teeters over the edge of obnoxiousness. It seems unseemly to praise your athletic exploits, academic abilities, and good nature. If I were reading this about another child, I’d be dubious.

But the truth is that your faults are so minor compared to your gifts, that I cannot believe my good fortune in having you. Yes, you can get a little whiny when you are tired or hungry. You are a picky eater. You still interrupt me too often. And you are way too worried about making a mistake. But I never meet a teacher, coach, or camp counselor without them praising you to the hilt. You are admired for your strengths and liked for your character. Your science teacher tells  me you are a role model, your second-grade teacher nominated you to be a student of the month (which you won), your tennis coach tells me you are a great little athlete, your soccer coach tells me you are a good boy and runs charity races with you, and your drumming teacher makes fun of your burgeoning mustache and leg hair. Well, four out of five ain’t too shabby!

You make me proud of you every day. If I’m being completely honest, sometimes I catch you being more thoughtful or generous than I am. You’ve reminded me to buy a present for the child not having a big birthday party, asked someone about a recent illness or injury when I forgot, admonished me for getting too angry at other drivers on the road, and otherwise set an example and inspired me to be a kinder, better person. It’s equal parts humbling and pride-inducing when you lead the way.

I don’t think it’s supposed to be that way, at least not yet. But it’s one of the countless ways, big and small alike, that your presence in my life has enriched it beyond my imagining. I have often said that having you was the best decision I ever made. So far, it’s also the best present I have ever given myself. It’s your birthday, Simon, but no gift I give you can come close to the one you have given me for eight years today.

You just keep on being you, and your Dad and I will keep on cheering you and loving you from the sidelines. Have a birthday as great as you are.

“Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” (

Dear Simon,

It’s your seventh birthday today, and I’m overwhelmed with two contradictory feelings. The first is that I can hardly believe it’s been seven years since you entered my life. The second is that I can hardly believe you are only seven when I feel like I already know who you will be at ten, eighteen, or even thirty.

There has been a constancy to your personality since infancy, but last year witnessed some significant developments, and this year you gelled into what often seems like a finished product. You are in many respects the oldest seven-year-old I have ever met. Sometimes it’s easy to forget you are a child at all: Thankfully, your innocence and sweetness are always there to remind me.

Notably, this is the first year that I would not use “sensitive” as the first word to describe you. You’re not insensitive, it’s just that what appeared to be a general disposition has been fine tuned into more specific characteristics. Today I’d describe you as a perfectionistic, competitive, and kind introvert.  You don’t like masses of people all yelling over each other at once. You don’t enjoy being in large crowds. You worry about your friends and their feelings. You don’t want anyone to do anything bad or get into trouble. You have a hard time coping with losing. And you cut yourself zero slack if you make a mistake.

Here’s an example of that latter bit. A week before your birthday you tell me that all you really want for a present is a set of golf clubs (because three sports aren’t enough?) and a blank map of Asia that you can fill in. I tell you that we’re going to have a problem because I already told everyone to get you Barbie Lego instead. You laugh and feign outrage. Then I go home and print out a blank map of Asia. Everything is fun and games until you ask me if you spelled “Papua New Guinea” right. I tell you that you spelled it the way it sounds and did a great job. You get upset and practically rip a hole in the paper with your eraser. “The way it sounds” isn’t good enough. Only “the right way” is good enough. I then spend the next half hour telling you how to spell Kyrgyzstan and being silently delighted when you don’t think to ask me how to spell “Gorjia.”

Have I mentioned how competitive you are? Whether you are sitting across a game board, standing on a playing field, or sitting at your desk at school, you want to be the best and win. I have seen this drive push you to play online reading games well beyond your grade level (to keep up with a classmate), play the same board game over and over until you master it (to keep up with me and Dad), and play sports through considerable fatigue or pain. That tenacity will take you far . . . . unless it cripples you. For I have also seen you fall to pieces and cry when you lose a board game, when you make a mistake at school, and when your team is down on the field.

I’d love to tell you that age is helping you to handle mistakes and loss better, but I have no idea if that is true. It’s probably a little true, but the larger truth seems to be that you are getting better at the things you care about. Your soccer team, for instance, has yet to lose this season. The one time it looked like you might—just might—get a real run for your money, you and a talented teammate swarmed the opposing side’s best players, evaded their defenders with footwork and passing, and then plain ole’ outlasted them in the second half when they got tired. With a win on the line, you weren’t about to let something as mundane as fatigue and ankle pain slow you down. Until the game was over, that is, when you had a hard time making it to our car.

You leave everything on the field. Literally and metaphorically.

Mercifully, you are a more gracious winner than loser. You frequently fall to pieces and cry when you lose a game, but in victory you are reasonably gracious with family and totally gracious with friends. Whether you are scoring a bicycle kick over a friend’s head on a soccer play-date, not saying anything to the kid on your own team who’s getting in the way of a pass, or realizing that your amazing older cousin Ben is less-than-amazing at tennis, you keep your mouth shut and/or offer encouragement. You don’t gloat with friends, and you are careful to avoid hurt feelings.

As I think back over the last year, the biggest change in you is your list of interests. Between school and athletic endeavors, you are developing a list of hobbies and past-times that seems unlikely for one so young. Right now, your favorite things in the world include:

• Geography: maps, atlases, and geography board games are a great favorite.
• Science: Books about space and geology and go-to classics.
• Math: Especially multiplication.
• Soccer: I’ve written enough about your love of soccer to last a lifetime. Let’s put it this way, you would play for two or more hours every day if you could. You play in heat, rain, cold, and dark. If there’s grass, a goal, and a ball, your happiness is complete, but the back of the couch and a ball will do.
• Tennis: This is your second favorite sport, and while you have played it much less than soccer, you might be even better at it. Every coach you have worked with tells me that you have natural strokes, great-footwork, and a bright future in the sport. You are never less like me than when you are holding a racquet.
• Running and hiking: On occasion, I take you out running with me at your request. You can do three slow miles with me and a 4-minute half-mile at school. We also spent many happy days hiking the trails at Bernheim Nature Preserve this summer. You are never more like me than when you get distracted by something beautiful while out on a run or hike.
• History: At least once a week you ask me when you will stop doing the boring stuff (i.e. civics) in social studies and can get to the good stuff (i.e. history). You especially love learning about the US presidents, which makes you very much your Uncle Steve’s nephew.
• Drumming: You’ve been taking lessons for a year now, and I often catch you drumming a beat with your hands on tables or your lap. You are never more like your Dad than when you analyze a song you want to “rock out” to.
• Poop jokes: Thank God! Something typical at last. Or, as the school librarian yelled out when we bought Captain Underpants at the school book fair, “You’re a real boy after all!”

There are also things you would like to count as hobbies or interests. Namely,

• Golf: You have asked for real clubs, have a practice putting green for the house, and have made your interest in playing real golf quite clear to anyone who will listen. You also like watching golf on TV. Really.
• Physics: You asked me what this was one day, and the answer thrilled you. “Oooooh, I think I’m going to love physics,” you squealed, “especially the part with the super hard math. When can I learn calculus?”
• Pilates: You’ve gone to practice twice with me, both times the result of a child-care crisis on my end. Both times you have hopped on a reformer and loved the work-out. But you can’t make this a regular habit, honey. I can barely afford to go myself; there’s no way I can pay for both of us! Especially when I’m already paying for soccer, tennis, and drumming, and have golf and orthodonture to save up for next.

Still, it’s pretty thrilling on my end that you want to participate in something I like so much. And between the time we can spend running, hiking, and studying maps together, I think we can look forward to many wonderful years of shared adventure ahead of us. You are still quite young, but you have already turned into a thoroughly delightful companion. As ever, you Dad and I love you more than we can say and look forward to watching next year’s adventures unfold. Go ahead, Simon, amaze us.

Dear Simon,

Today, at long last, you are six. Not five, not five-and-a-half or five-and-three-quarters, not even five-and-eleven-twelfths or any of the other intervals you tracked this past year. Just six: exactly, perfectly six. Relish it, for tomorrow you will be six and one three-hundred-sixty-fifth, and the countdown to the next year will begin anew.

This numerical obsession is just one of the new traits you have surprised me with this past year. For while most years your birthday letter describes an older version of the same child I have always known, this year has been transformative. You are no longer the mere continuation or logical extension of your younger self; the span from five to six has produced an equally lovable but noticeable different you.

Some of the changes I’ve witnessed relate to interests or talents a younger child is unlikely to demonstrate. Take that numbers thing. Last fall, you surprised me by doing small bits of addition once or twice. This fall, you’re at it again with understanding negative numbers and simple multiplication. You have spent the last twelve months observing, manipulating, and discussing numbers: So far as I can tell, you see the entire world in terms of numbers and relations between numbers. Math is your favorite subject in school, something that could only be improved upon in your eyes by its being harder. A lot harder. This instinctive feel for numbers is new and might be the greatest gift your parents did not give you.

Unless it’s the athletic ability you have demonstrated this year, which also did not come from us, and which also came as something of a surprise. Your toddler and little boy love of balls has morphed into a big-boy love of sports in general and soccer and tennis in particular. What’s more, you don’t just love it; you’re good at it! You have a natural swing, a good throwing arm, a decent shot, solid ground-strokes, and speed on the court and field.

It’s not just your interests that have grown or shifted, either. Some of your core characteristics look different this year. For example, your childhood sweetness has grown more nuanced this year, evolving into politeness, empathy, and generosity. According to coaches, teachers, and my own observation, you are a caring friend, dependable team-mate, and respectful class-mate, someone who is careful with others’ feelings and is happy to share and help. The empathy that once made you so fragile has now made you likeable. It can still be hard for you to care so much, but the reward is that almost everyone wants to be your friend.

But by far the most surprising of all in the build-up to six is the revelation of heretofore unknown personality traits and the reversal of one or two more. Just below your sensitive and sometimes hesitant surface is a core made of grit and determination. I had no idea!

I began to understand that what I thought I knew about you was changing when your independent streak emerged. One day you were happy to be dressed, bathed, helped with shoes and escorted into buildings and then—Poof!—the next day you insisted on dressing yourself, attacked shoe-tying with a furor, learned to shower solo, and demanded to walk alone to your class or camp group. You are not yet embarrassed by me, but there are certainly times you want me to lay low. You want to do things for yourself and often resent needing or being offered help.

You are also tenacious. If you set out to do something, then by gum you are going to do it or physically and emotionally collapse while trying. Your dad and I cannot count the number of times we had to drag you away from a soccer goal, tennis court, baseball diamond, or set of shoe laces while you raged in fury at your inability to accomplish the task you set for yourself. Sometimes you fell short of your goal because it was yet beyond your grasp, while other times you raged at the toll hunger, thirst, or fatigue exacted on your performance. Attempts to explain to you why you could not or could not continue to do something mostly fell on deaf ears, as did our pleas for you to set aside a task and give yourself a rest.

Not unrelated to this tenacity is an emerging competitive and perfectionist streak. If someone gets the better of you on the field or court, you are not one bit happy about it. With friends and peers, you do reasonably well keeping your cool. But with your parents, you are not afraid to rail against your own self-perceived inadequacy. Whether you are on the soccer field or tackling math work-sheets, you are your own worst critic when you achieve less than perfection. Your Dad and I are still learning how to handle this. Sometimes we explain that failing and making mistakes is just a part of learning. Other times we give in to your tenacity and let you practice, practice, practice until you master whatever skill has eluded you. Learning to do your best while accepting the limits of your own ability will, I suspect, be a life-long project for you.

There’s so much else I could say about you at six: I could tell you about your mad geography skills or how you love teasing and practical jokes. How you love card games and never, ever get in trouble at school. Or how you criticize any music that isn’t rock enough for your tastes. But if I had capture you in just a few words, I’d steal what your preschool teacher told me about you last winter. She said that the three words that best capture you are happy, eager, and bright. I can’t improve on that. Ninety-nine days out of a hundred (or more!), you are in a good mood, you are enthusiastic about doing or learning something new,  and you are bright enough to catch on to whatever the new lesson is. It’s a powerful combination.

I think you have always wanted to be like this, but it took a few years before you broke through your shell of hesitancy. At two and three you held back, at four and five the real you began to emerge at specific times and places, and now, at six, you have set yourself free to soar. And I have no doubt you will soar: the ingredients are all there. My job from here on out will be to help you acquire and develop the skills you need, to stand aside and let you try things on your own, and to provide comfort and refuge when you inevitably crash at points along the way.

I don’t know where you will take me in the next year, but if it’s anything like last year it will be filled with love, laughter, and happy discoveries. It promises to be almost as marvelous as you are. So happy birthday, my dear son. Here’s to six being the best year yet.

With Baron at Kids’ Party on the 15th

Dear Simon,

This is the year that sealed it for me and your Dad: We are some of the luckiest parents in the world. Not because you are perfect—no one is—but because, Baby Kitten aside, you are the perfect kid for us.

I’m sure if I had sat down and described my ideal child: curious, smart, dreamy, funny, sweet, gentle, affectionate, social, I would have ended up describing you. Then you threw in some bonus items: a love of maps to match your Dad’s, a love of music that matches your Dad’s but delights me as well, abundant qualities of empathy that help me understand my own childhood better, an immediate affinity for Tolkien that simultaneously amuses and concerns me, and a love for all things vehicular and sporty.

Those last two bits are all your own and have opened previously closed doors to us. Do you think your Daddy knew anything about Nascar before you started asking? Or watched a baseball game on TV? Do you think I ever attempted to pitch correctly? Or drove a go-cart? Or could recognize more than two or three makes of cars? No, no, no, no, and no. Then again, your daddy is thrilled beyond words to have a couch buddy for English Premier League football and Boston Celtics games.

If you are starting to notice how much more you’re hearing about your Daddy this year, well, there’s a reason for it. This is the year that gender identification was cemented. Girls were good friends on play-dates, but at school you only play with boys, a situation you have explained to me quite clearly: “I’m a boy, so boys are good for me to play with.” Go-cart riding with Mommy was fun, but improved in your imagination by substituting me with Uncle Dan and Daddy. You will still pick out pink paint, a pink cookie, and pink mums for the porch, but you never ask for pink shoes or clothing anymore.

All this Daddy-ness aside, I still see plenty of glimpses of me in you. Like when you ask for mango or green tea flavored frozen yogurt. Or when you go to the library with your Bubbie and come back with a stack of books, half of which have Japanese illustrators. Or the smile on your face the first time you tried a real ballroom dance. Or the way you cackle at the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show. Your Daddy was more of a Daffy fan. And no, I don’t get that, either.

Then there are the areas where your interests and ours perfectly harmonize. Take the solar system. You dig it. So your Daddy has shown you videos of Mars Rovers and taught you about helium and hydrogen gasses, and I spent the better part of two days painting Styrofoam balls to make you the (freakishly accurate) solar-system Derby hat you wanted for this year’s school parade. Or the Beatles: Sure, your dad is the one who can play the songs and teach you John’s harmonica part on “I Should Have Known Better”, but we both sing with you and I’m the one who took you poster shopping and scrounged the Internet for hours looking for the just-right Beatles tee-shirt. Do you think I did this solely for your sake?

I’m sure there are dozens more instances like this. And after every odd-but-endearing act or utterance, your dad and I exchange sidelong glances that silently communicate “How did we get so lucky?” In fact, on the vast majority of nights, after I lay down with you, kiss you goodnight, and tuck you in bed, I close your door behind me, walk across the hall into your dad’s office, and wait for him to say what I’m thinking:

“Sweetest little boy in the world.”

And you are. Still. Not quite as hesitant as you used to be. Better able to make new friends on the playground when you run into them. In the thrall of boys who are older and/or more rambunctious than you. But still achingly sweet. This is not just a mother’s wishful thinking. I hear it from your school director, your teachers, and other parents. At five, you don’t cry as much as you used to, but the sight of one of your good friends hurt or in tears is enough to bring on the waterworks, which in turn melts my heart.

In last year’s birthday letter, I promised to not to strike too elegiac a tone. We had wrapped a great year, and I sensed that the next would only be better. It was, and I feel much the same again. In the past year, you have happily climbed, jumped, run, biked, and floated. You have learned to write your name without help, picked up some Spanish, and begun to mostly dress yourself. You can give directions to our house, name all the roads we travel on, and help me find the car when I can’t remember where I’ve parked it.

Every day you get a little more independent, a little smarter, a little more daring, and quite a bit taller. On your absolute worst days, which come rarely, you still provide at least a few tender or funny moments that make me happy to be your mom. On most days, you provide multiple occasions that make me stop, ponder my good fortune, and feel immense gratitude.

You are my dear son, the best thing I’ve ever done, and the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had. Happy fifth birthday, Simon. And here’s to many, many, many more.

Dear Simon,

You turned four yesterday, and I could not be happier for you. I mean it! This year I am not going to introduce any moist eyes or hand wringing into the equation. Your birthday will include little nostalgia, few observations about the speeding up of time, and no regrets about how far you are from being a baby. It’s all about the excitement of the moment—I promise.

This mood is, of course, completely out of character for me. The reason for my newfound equanimity is that you have seemed four for a few months now. It’s like your birthday was back in August, and the celebrations of yesterday and today a mere formality.

What’s changed? Well, pretty much everything.

You are four because you are completely potty trained.

You are four because whenever I try to do the things I used to always do for you, you ask to help or holler “No mommy! I’ll do it myself!”

You are four because you not only get yourself to class on your own two days a week, but actually prefer that to the days I escort you to your room.

You are four because instead of watching your friends play from the sidelines, you have joined the scrum and love going crazy with Baron, Braylon, and sometimes Jillian or Lily on the playground.

You are four because you ask really hard questions like, “Where did Percy’s body go” when I try to get away with vague explanations like “He’s gone.”

You are four because you can accept and offer an apology with grace and little prodding, respectively.

You are four because you hate being lumped with babies but can accept being in the big kid/mentor role.

Sometime this summer, a switch flipped, and you cast aside the remaining vestiges of toddlerdom. You discovered rough-and-tumble play, began to initiate friendships at the park, got your superhero on, became a horrible back-seat driver, and traded in adorable wooden cars for hot wheels—and Race Cup and Top Gear magazines. You outgrew your car seat. We got rid of your bed rail. You remembered to take your shoes off before getting on the couch. I culled the herd of stuffed animals on your bed, and you didn’t notice. You still like me to rub your face and back before you fall asleep, but you reciprocate and rub my back and face, too.

Your dad and I can go for walks with you—real walks of a mile or two—and only end up carrying you if we begin foolishly late in the day. Your nap has gotten shorter, and you don’t always take it. You can find your own train videos on You Tube, start them, and maximize the screen size. You have invented toys in your own mind (remote control rocket ships). You can (mostly) dress and undress yourself. You know your alphabet. You can write your name with help. You can count to 20 or so and name your colors in Spanish. You know the letters on a dreidel.

You know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. You tell me things about honey, dinosaurs, and the like that you have learned at school and that I didn’t know or can no longer remember. This year, you decided to attempt the steep slides at the park alone, mastered the trike, and began to notice, emulate, and adore the men in your life.

All of these things are new, and I’m not the only one seeing them. Your grandparents have noticed this sudden leap in ability and maturity. Your teachers sing your praises. And your old teachers and Ms. Shary, the school director, regularly look at you, look at me, smile, and marvel at how far you have come. I’ve heard the word “blossom” a lot these past few months.

Thankfully, though, none of these changes permeates your core. Underneath all this independence and exuberance, you are still you: sweet (how often do I hear or use that to describe you?), gentle, a bit hesitant to try new things, a lover of books and music, mesmerized by wheels and engines, and a kid who runs with joyous abandon. The only thing new is that I now have to run to keep up with you!

In the face of this dramatic increase in your abilities, confidence, and independence, how could I possibly be wistful and sad? I don’t have the heart to begrudge you your month-long enthusiasm about turning four. You are clearly thrilled, and I’m thrilled with and for you.

You’ve taken me on a joyous, four-year adventure, and I trust you to make the fifth equally magical. I can’t wait to see what the upcoming year has in store for us.

Happy birthday, sweetheart. And oh! The other thing that hasn’t changed a bit? Your daddy and I love you more than either of us has the words for.

They say that by three you can pretty well tell who your child is, that whatever you see at three is what you’re going to get. The same ambiguous “they”s out there say that key intellectual and emotional development happens by three, that your child’s life, care, and experiences in the first 36 months form the building blocks of all that follows.

I don’t know if this is true, Simon, but I sure hope it is. I certainly, certainly do.

For when you were two, you were a delight, no doubt about it. But the terrible twos loomed on the horizon, so I dared not assume delightfulness would stick around. Now that you are three, you are still a delight, and so I presume that the sweet little boy I’ve grown to know is here for the duration. Anything else—a tough day, week, month, or even year—I’m just going to call a phase.

The real you is pretty much the same kid I described a year ago. You are funny, affectionate, empathetic, sweet, bright, silly, and stubborn. I like you. I can already see that we will be friends as adults. In a way, we already are. After all, my friends are the people who make me feel cared for and make me laugh, just like you do, and many of them share your basic temperament.

You make me laugh every day. Sometimes it’s because of things you say. Like the day when you began talking about mommy crashing the car in Great-Great-Grandbubbie’s garage. Other times, it’s because of things you do. Like the day you announced that you were going to run in circles and then did, right in our narrow hallway, until you made yourself dizzy and fell down.

You certainly make me feel loved every day. You fix me with sparkling eyes when you are excited about something and soft eyes when you just need a hug. Usually these glances come when we are snuggling on the couch or on your bed, but every now again you catch me unawares at a pizza parlor, on a park bench, or in the middle of a game. Those times, I’ll be reading or throwing a ball or blowing on your food when you will suddenly fix your gaze on me and give me a spontaneous kiss. Sometimes you throw in an “I love you” or “You my best friend” for good measure. Those moments, my dear, reorder my entire universe in a way you couldn’t possibly understand.

I just read the letter I wrote you last year, and excepting the references to illnesses, high chairs, and cribs, I find that surprisingly little has changed. You are very much the totally gentle and sweet boy’s boy I described 12 months ago. Some people may wonder how you can be sweet and gentle and a boy’s boy at the same time? In popular thinking, this description is self contradictory. But how else can I describe a boy who has taken to crashing his cars into each other, but then pauses to have them apologize to each other, hug, and kiss after the fact?

At three as at two, you still love the idea of love. Almost every day we will spend some time discussing the people you love. You love your parents, your grandparents, your aunts, your uncles, and your cousins. You love our cats. You love your teachers—Laura, Lana, Fira, Jean, Lotte, Inessa, and Lisa last year, and Jill and Judy this year. You love your school friends, especially it would seem Anieya, Jillian, and Gabrielle. You love your friend Leah. You love your first friend Sophie most of all.

You still love being outside. I sometimes think of you as my little nature boy. When you were still an infant, I could end almost any crying session by taking you outside. There were early colicky days when I’d put you in the stroller when it was well below freezing, endure critical stares and shaking heads from well meaning strangers, and secretly worry I was shocking you more than calming you. Nearly three years on, I can still cheer you up or calm you down by going outside. You still delight in swinging. You still like playing on slides and play sets, though these days you slide down backwards more often than not and can finally do a bit of climbing. Most of the time, though, you’d rather run around and look at things like leaves, bugs, dirt, rocks, water, ducks, geese, or dogs.

And speaking of running, oh my goodness do you love to run. Most kids love to run, it is true. But your dad and I have been taking you to parks for a long time now, and we rarely see a kid run as much or with the same joy that you do. In fact, I don’t think we ever have. The only thing you love as much as running?

Throwing. Just last week, your Dad and I took you to Cave Hill Cemetery and watched in delight as you spent an hour looking for walnuts and throwing them into the pond. Other objects crying out to be thrown are mulch, sticks, rocks, and even occasionally balls. I’ve heard it from multiple good authorities that owing to your “heckuva arm” and the fact that you throw lefty that you have a future in baseball. Time shall tell. At the present, you seem more interested in soccer and golf and …

… oh boy, Nascar. I just don’t know what to do about that. Your father recently decided that after a year of watching Cars regularly, he’d turn on the real deal and see what you thought. What you thought was “Ooohhh, the cars are going fast!” and “Daddy, I want to see the fast cars again.” Honey, your father and I are just not into cars. We barely had one in Michigan and we didn’t have one at all in California. Now we drive two 10-year-old Toyotas that are family hand-me-downs. The car gene is lacking in us both. Can you continue to admire from afar? Does your current fascination mean you will drive like a maniac when you are 16?

So that’s you at three. A more developed, more agile version of who you have always been:

• The toddler who loved cars is now the little boy who goes to sleep with one clutched in each hand.
• The toddler who loved his crib is now the little boy who loves his twin-sized bed.
• The toddler who held back from groups is now the little boy who is slowly learning how make his way in a crowd.
• The toddler who loved books is now the little boy who has memorized many and who tucks a few under his pillow each night.
• The toddler who loved balls is now the little boy who can dribble a soccer ball, shoot a basket, hit a golf ball, and make a marble speed through a chute.
• The toddler who babbled incessantly is now the little boy who talks—incessently—in complete, sophisticated sentences.

And that’s the thing. Potty trained or no, you’re clearly a little boy now. You have long progressed past toddling, you can tell me your full name and address, the fat is gone from your face, and you are getting longer and leaner by the day. What remains unchanged is that there is never a night when I don’t feel warm and fuzzy after tucking you in, and there is rarely a morning I don’t happily anticipate your waking up. And when I’m feeling selfish, Simon, I still despair that these days number so few.

Happy birthday dear boy. Can I still call you my little Stinkpot?

Today you are two years old. Or, as you say it when I ask you, “tea.”

The occasion of your second birthday has put me in a pensive mood, just as the occasion of your first one did. I’m not sure if it’s because of the sleep deprivation brought on by your ongoing illness or despite it, but, regardless, I feel a need to step back from the daily minutia and reflect on the big picture.

I recently ran across a quote, attributed simply to a modern educator, that has framed my thoughts.

“Try to see your child as a seed that came in a packet without a label. Your job is to provide the right environment and nutrients and to pull the weeds. You can’t decide what kind of flower you’ll get or in which season it will bloom.”

So, dear Simon, who are you today? And who are you shaping up to be?

Let’s start with some basics. Like your Zadie, you appear to be left-handed. You are a bibliophile, but a fickle bibliophile, insisting on reading Moo Baa La La La twice a day one day, then shaking your head and tossing it aside when it’s presented the next.

Except for sausage pizza and peanut butter sandwiches, you eat a lot like me. You love macaroni and cheese, yogurt and granola, “baby-cakes” and grapes. You can eat an entire pint of blueberries at one sitting. Someone forgot to tell you that toddlers don’t like dark chocolate. And bless your heart, when you drink the dregs of my lukewarm, milky tea in the morning, you pretend to love it and say “Mmmmmmm…..yummy,” even as the scrunched-up face that precedes this pronouncement indicates otherwise.

As you grow, you continue to explore and play. You still love to swing, but now you also love the rest of the park, too. You delight in climbing over play sets, turning the wheel and clanging the chimes that are affixed to many of them, walking over the bridges, and running frontwards and backwards up and down ramps. You like a good slide, and you like it even more if you can throw a ball or roll a car down it before your own descent.

Speaking of cars, right now, your heart is won over by anything with wheels. In fact, your heart is frequently won over by anything that you can even pretend has wheels. Apple wedges look like cars to you; sandwich halves look like cars to you, your cup looks like a car to you. If you can scoot it over the floor or across your high-chair tray, it’s a car. And if it’s a yellow bus, it’s the most perfect car of all.

Lest you be pigeon-holed as all-boy, let the record show that you love to love your stuffed animals. On a typical night, you are tucked into bed alongside Baby Bunny, Little Baby Bunny, Super-Speedy, Mr. Froggy, Annabelle, and Dirty Dog or Dirty Duck or both. You pick these friends up, hug and kiss them, and then ask others to do the same. When you hug them, you say “aaahhh” and sway from side to side in a way that makes me melt.

For the first year of your life, your father and I spent a lot of time talking about who you looked like. You had his chin, his face shape, and his hair, with my eyes, my dimples, and my coloring, all topped off with your Pawpaw’s upturned nose. In some pictures of you, I can see your father’s young face staring back at me. In others, I see myself 37 years younger. The vast majority of the time, though, I just see you. That’s what happens when you hit two; you start to become an individual-the person you are.

Speaking of the person you are, I’ve learned much more about your temperament this year. At two, you are a sweet, observant, and sensitive child. To be honest, your sweet and gentle nature worries me a bit. When other kids grab toys from you or take a swing at you, you look stunned, bite your lower lip, and cry. If there’s an aggressive streak to you, I have yet to see it. You don’t like too many lights, too much noise, or angry voices. Your gentle nature will make you a good man, a man I will love and respect one day, and, if you choose, a wonderful husband and father. But I fear it will make your life in the rough-and-tumble world of the school-yard a challenge.

Like your dad, you are a quintessential observer. When you approach a playground or classroom with lots of other kids around, you stand by the sidelines and size the whole thing up before joining in. Once you warm up, though, your inherent social streak takes over, the dimples come out, and, baby, you light up the place.

A cautious streak complements your sensitive side. Even when you really “dive into” an activity, you don’t do it with the same reckless abandon I see in so many others your age. You didn’t try to walk until you were certain not to fall. You waited until you had a mature grasp to pick up a crayon and scribble. You don’t like to take risks, and you don’t try anything until you are reasonably assured of success.

Thankfully, your serious nature is balanced by a playful side. Whether it’s scratching kitten’s emery-board tongue in the Touch and Feel Kittens book to make me and your father cringe, pushing me around like a toy, shaking your head when I lean in for an Eskimo kiss, or playing peek-a-boo by hiding under towels, you like to play with us, and you let us know that you are in on the joke.

Finally, you know your own mind. Your father and I spent months-23 of them to be precise-teaching you to call us “Papa” and “Mama.” We directed others to call us that in front of you. We changed the words in books to reflect our choices. You are having none of it and consistently, perhaps innately, call us “Mommy” and “Daddy.” Your father is having hard time of this, as he really likes “Papa.” I’ve made my peace with it. It’s like a nickname in that it’s only special if someone other than I chose it.

Unbelievably but undeniably, we’ve spent two years nurturing you and trying to provide you with a loving, encouraging environment. It can be difficult to accept that you are the person you were born to be and not my or your father’s projection of our better self. We, like all parents, have hopes and dreams for what our seeds will bear. But two years into this journey, you have made the job unreasonably easy. There have been few weeds to pull; you are a delightful little seedling, and even as I am curious to know when and how you will blossom, my love for you grows by the day as your young self takes root and shoots up.

Happy birthday, Stinkpot. I love you,

Mommy

One year ago as I type, a doctor was in our room explaining that Simon’s irregular breathing could be the result of his aspirating amniotic fluid during delivery, could be the result of congenital heart trouble, or could be a sign of brain damage caused by delivery. I classified these possibilities as not-so-bad, pretty awful, and unspeakably horrible (in that order), and in my immediate post-partum state was in no frame of mind to consider any possibility other than the first. Thankfully, we got the “good” scenario and had only some IV lines and a few days of separation as our battle wounds.

I took today off from work so I could spend the day with Simon without any distractions and really enjoy this first day of his second year. Saturday and much of Monday he was pretty off his game; let’s just say I saw a lot more of his uvula then I’d care to. But today Simon awoke in a great mood after 11 hours of uninterrupted sleep. He had his breakfast and morning time with Matt as usual, but then instead of taking a nap, we headed out to a local mall’s indoor play area to meet my cousins Connie, Cara, and Gabriella (my first cousin, her daughter, and her granddaughter respectively).

Despite missing his nap, Simon was quite cheery. He took one look at Cara and Connie and broke into a huge smile and clapped. Then he sat around and watched happily while the bigger kids played, ate some yogurt, and helped me with some cinnamon coffee cake. By noon or so, the lack of sleep was finally catching up with him, so I loaded him up and took him home. After an early afternoon nap, we sat around and played with all his new toys, especially enjoying the little basketball, the “baby grand” piano, and the rocking horse he got on Sunday. Now he’s sleeping again, and I’m reflecting and sipping some tea.

It’s been a low-key, lovely day. He’s been happy. I haven’t had to share him too much. I’ve had lots of time to look at him and reminisce about the last year. And I think I can sum my feelings up by simply saying it’s been a short, amazing trip.

There’s a saying from the Talmud, one I was going to put on the announcements we never sent out, that says, “With each new child, the world begins anew.” It’s truer than I could have known. Through him I’ve rediscovered the wonder of the sky and running water, the beauty of cats, the amazing texture of grass, and the fascinating interplay of reflections in glass in and water. In the past year, my world has certainly has changed for the better, becoming at once smaller in scope and larger in feeling than it had been before.

By now I’ve left this post and come back. It’s 10:30, and for once I’m going to turn in at a decent hour. Tonight, for the 366th time, Simon will be the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. And tomorrow, also for the 366th time, he will be the first thing I think about when I wake up. Like I said, small world, big feelings, just right.