Thursday, November 05, 2009

Monthly Newsletter #37

Dear Landon,

I was thinking about at what point I should stop writing these monthly newsletters. On one hand, when you have a baby one day and ask "when did I start talking?", since we didn't manage to fill out your baby book for more than a few months, you'll always have this blog. On the other hand, you're already remembering things. Things like when we went to Pei Wei to pick up food and last time we had a #3 pager and that time we had a #12. Down to the fact that the #3 one had an extra sticker on it. Or on the way home from school when you asked if I remembered "that girl covered in her blood." I did manage to get from you that you were talking about that show with the doctors, so I guess we also have to stop watching Grey's Anatomy in front of you.

This month you started having homework at school. So far, aside from the glitter incident, we've been doing fine with it. We manage to turn it in on time, and we're getting excellent grades - I'm saying "we" because there's no way you could complete the homework on your own. First of all, the instructions are all "Find and Color the capital letter Ns in the picture purple and then find and color the lowercase letter ns orange, and then do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around." They just seem a tad complicated for someone who can't read them. But you do love doing your homework. Even if Mommy and Daddy think it's a bit early.

This was your first year actually trick or treating. Which was awesome. Since Halloween was a Saturday night, a lot of people had parties to go to, so there weren't a lot of houses lit up. But we did go and managed to fill your jack-o-lantern bucket not once, but twice by frustrated door openers who said "there just aren't very many trick or treaters out tonight - here, have 1/3 of my candy." And we met Batman, who told his mother that Buzz (you) were his new best friend. So, all in all, it was a good night. Maybe one day we'll make it down to their house without the costumes.

I don't know when kids develop empathy, but I will tell you that this month you truly showed a caring side. I asked you if we could go through your toys and donate the ones you don't really play with anymore to the kids who don't have very many toys. I had ulterior motives, what with my dining room table brimming with your new toys from your birthday because I have NO place to put them in your room until we clear some stuff out. You take excellent care of your toys, so we get to throw very few broken ones away - and generally the ones we do are the ones that Fiona destroyed when we weren't looking. Anyway, you were awfully concerned that there might be kids out there who don't have toys, and of course you would be willing to give them some of yours. I am blown away by how awesome your response was. Now granted, I haven't actually tried to remove any toys from your closet yet, so we'll see how that goes, but I think once you're reminded about how many toys you have you'll be okay with it.

You also are showing some signs of inner thought. You no longer blankly stare at the TV when you are watching your shows (or as you call them your "movies.") You are giggling at the funny scenes and jokes.

If I had one thing for you to work on it would be this: be less whiney. I know this is my own childhood coming back to haunt me because I was whiney, and I now understand exactly how annoying it was and I promise I have learned my lesson now.

Love,
Mama

2 comments:

Bird's Eye View Photography said...

I too love it when Sam finally started to 'get it' when whatchign the shows... laughing and talking back to the shows... so cute!

bernthis said...

I was just saying to a friend of mine how much of the physical requirements of motherhood are disappearing and now the emotional side is taking over