You were fussy and bored and obviously overtired, and as much as I tried to get you excited about the planes taking off behind you, you didn’t really care all that much and I was so worried that you were going to freak out about flying.

But here you are, happy in flight. Honestly the most annoying thing about flying with you was that I was more interested in looking out the window than you were and every time I tried to lean over you to get a better view of the ground beneath us you got mad and tried to shove me back out of the way. Oh well. I hope you remember flying, this first plane trip, so that next time, in a few years maybe, I can remind you of what a brave girl you were the first time we went to Florida. I was so proud of you.

We just got back from Disneyworld and visiting my grandparents, your great-grandparents, in Florida. We had a blast. You had a bigger blast than I did. It’s amazing what a difference it makes, going to Disney as an adult – it’s so much more fun when you are the child. But man, you thought it was magical. You loved the characters more than anything. You loved seeing the princesses the most – Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Ariel. You knew those were real princesses that were just visiting from their castles, just taking a break from their lives with their princes.

And I think to myself, dang. Now what am I going to bribe you with?

My dear, your attitude has grown fangs and bitten us lately. You pout and sass better (or worse) than any child I’ve ever known. I’m very concerned about this newest thing going on here, you saying to people “You have a fat belly!” Well, where did you hear of that expression? Because as a fat girl myself, I have been more than careful, I’ve been SURE that I have never said anything derogatory about fatness or fat people around you, because I know that you don’t understand sometimes the depth of what you are saying, and yes, other people know that too, but still. Calling someone fat is just BAD!

A month or so ago we were at Norm’s Diner having dinner and this old taxi driver came in. I remember that particular cab driver from when I worked at Norm’s five years ago, before I got pregnant with you – he was a nasty old fart back then, too and I swear he’s gotten worse with age. Anyway, the guy has these really terrible growths on his head and face. Like, really bad, big dark growths. See, I can’t even call them moles. They were mountains! GROWTHS! So he sits down at the counter and I think to myself “Oh, shit. Elise is not going to be able to just look past this and she’s going to say something nutso.” You did not disappoint.

You walked over to the guy, staring at his head with this hilarious open mouthed, squinty-eyed and horrified expression on your face and you POINTED at his head and said “YOU’RE DIRTY!”

I was struck dumb.

I could not, COULD NOT stop myself from laughing just as I was screeching “ELISE, GET OVER HERE!”

And the man grumbled at you, I have no idea what he said but I heard him grumbling and mumbling, and I made you sit with me for the rest of the time he was there while you still couldn’t stop asking what was wrong with his face.

It was terrible. It was mortifying. It was hilarious. It was totally you.

I have a terrible problem of staying up too late. I’m night owl, I always have been. You’re four, you go to bed between 8 and 9pm every night, and after you are asleep, I still have at LEAST four hours left in my day because I just can’t bring myself to give in to sleep until 1am or later. And lately it’s been later, and after a couple of weeks riding on six hours of sleep I think it’s finally caught up with me, because I am just miserably tired today.

Make sure you sleep when you can. Take naps. I should actually say “Remind me that I said to take naps,” because even now when I am exhausted I always look at those who nap regularly to be weak people. It’s only 18 hours, get through the day weaklings! But maybe that is wrong – of course it’s wrong to judge people honey, don’t be like your parents or grandparents, don’t judge.

Time to put down the books and get to bed earlier? I don’t know. We shall see. But you, missy. Sleep well and often – it will help you keep a good attitude, if nothing else.

I spent a little while today looking at someone’s blog that I have been reading for a while now : www.thespohrsaremultiplying.com and I got choked up and thinking about you. One of their beautiful daughters, Madeline, died a year ago this month before she even turned two years old. She was born premature and due to some complications she passed on. Things like this remind me every day how lucky I am to have you and that some parents are not so lucky.

You came close to being a premie, you know. I went into labor with you when I was at 33 weeks, but they were able to stop the labor by putting me on medication to stop contractions, and I was on bed rest for three weeks. Once I hit 36 weeks the doctors told me it was safe to stop taking the medicine (which made me feel terrible, like a crack addict cause I shook so bad I could barely speak or eat because my teeth would never stop chattering) and I could go off bed rest. You were born about two weeks after that, healthy.

Elise, I love you – I don’t know what I would do without you. You changed my life, you are the reason I do everything that I do now and all of the decisions I make in my life I make with the thought of you in my mind.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Love,

Mommy

Last week I finally put my foot down and forbid you to watch anymore television until you can write your letters – no more movies with breakfast, no more eating in front of the TV, no more of that. I feel a little sick now just thinking about how much TV we were watching and seeing how much it consumed your precious little four year old brain because you are so devastated now that I won’t let you watch TV. I know, I know, kids your age shouldn’t be watching TV at all, and if you do it should only be for an hour a day or something to that effect. I never said and probably never will say that I am any good at this parenting thing, so I am sorry that I let you watch so much TV when you are little, I’m sure it wasn’t good for you.

So instead we are focusing on learning to write letters. I noticed that there are kids in your pre-school class that can not only write their letters, they can spell words! And when I saw that I was like, oh shit, Elise can’t do that and it’s all my fault. Yeah, it’s all my fault. We’ll blame your dad and Nana too if I find out that they continue to let you watch TV and don’t practice writing with you, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I am not sure now if it is just your stubborn nature or if it is because I don’t know how to teach one how to write, but this printing letters thing is hard and slow going and I think it is torturing the both of us. I have been trying really hard to stay positive, knowing that you must think I am essentially punishing you by taking away your movies and making you trace letters instead, but you’ll understand when you are older. You just get so frustrated when you think you are right and I correct you – you get so mad and defeated. I give you so much praise when you do a good job, I yell, I clap, I smile and tell you that I am proud, and I can see in those moments that you are proud too, but the bad moments are bad, and it is hard to tell how much progress we are making on this together. All I know is, I have a year to get you writing and hopefully reading a little – and the stress I have over teaching you these things is incomparable to any other thing stressing me out in my life right now.

Why did I ever think that writing and reading came naturally? I have absolutely no recollection of learning to do these things. I’ve been writing and reading for literally as long as I can remember. Even with Kayla, I don’t remember her learning to read or write, but Mimi says Kayla was a very slow learner, especially with reading. She was behind most kids in her Kindergarten and 1st grade classes, but now she is in high school and getting straight A’s.

“Keep at it, do it every day” is what Mimi keeps telling me – so that’s what we will do.

I’m sorry – this is my apology to you for this situation. I’m sorry that I didn’t realize sooner how hard this would be, how long it would take, and how much attention it needs. I’m sorry we didn’t start sooner. I’m sorry if I rotted your little brain with too much TV. I’m trying to do better. I’m trying.

Love, Mommy.

I encourage you, advise you, BEG you to go to college right after high school. I didn’t, and it is definitely one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made in my life, and definitely one of my biggest regrets.

I didn’t like school. Well, I loved high school, I loved my friends, the social aspect, the extra-curricular activities (I was in marching band, not doing drugs out behind the soccer field FYI), but I didn’t love the actual learning process. I didn’t like the stress of deadlines, the homework that seemed so pointless, the tests that stressed me out so much… I was rebellious in that way, I guess. By the time I got to my junior year I pretty much knew that I didn’t want to go away to college because I just wanted to be done with having people – teachers – telling me what I had to do all the time. I also really hated that so many people, including myself at the time, based their self-worth on their grades. I just knew there was more to life than that.

It was ten years ago that I graduated from high school. I honestly don’t remember what my parents reactions were to me not wanting to go to college. I know one stipulation was that I had to keep a job if I were to stay living at home, which I did, I always had a job, always. I don’t remember if my mom was disappointed in me or not. I am sure she was later, I rebelled more later and I feel like at times she was not proud of me for the decisions I made, but I honestly cannot recall any particular conversation we had about this. I didn’t want to go to college and that was that.

Now here I am, 27 years old, and I’m about 1/5 of my way toward an associates degree at Three Rivers, the local community college. I am not proud that I waited this long to do this. I am not proud of the fact that my decision to go to school wasn’t for me, it was for you – it was so that I could (Hopefully) get a better paying job to give us a better life together. I am so far from my goals now, Elise, it seems like I might never get there but I keep on trying for you. Work five days a week, school two nights a week plus one online class, and you. The time I have to myself now is the time after you go to sleep, two or three hours a day to get homework done, to read, to write, to crochet, to watch TV and unwind. It’s a pretty hard life, kiddo, I’m not going to lie. I guess there is no way of knowing what would have become of me if I HAD gone to college – I know you definitely would not have come about, because I never would have met your dad. Who knows? At this point it isn’t worth speculating, it only hurts to do so.

But I missed not only the opportunity for the best education possible, I also missed the whole college experience! Living far from home in a dorm with hundreds of girls and/or boys that I don’t know and get to make friends with, exciting classes, knowledgeable professors, opportunities that I just don’t have now due to time constraints.. so much I missed, and I don’t want you to miss that.

When the time comes, there is no way I can or will force you to go to college, but I will encourage it, advise it, maybe beg you to do it. Maybe beg, I don’t know. But I do know without a doubt that if you go right out of high school you will have the best start at a productive adulthood. You will be more prepared for the “real world” than I was – the real world of adulthood, that is. You will have more opportunities, you will make more friends, you will feel so accomplished. And I will be so proud of you – your whole family will be. Trust me.

No pressure or anything.

Love,

Mommy

When I was younger I wished that my mom had written me letters, or let me read her diary or something – anything to make me know her better, to know where and who I came from. As you are growing up, sometimes it’s really hard to be close and get to know the people you are closest to – your parents. Honestly, I didn’t have the close relationship with my mom as I do now until I was pregnant with you. Things were rough when we all found out you were on the way, and I think that motherhood really brought my mom and I together. Still though, it’s hard to ever know what your parents are thinking.

Yesterday you said to me: “You’re my best friend, Mommy!” and it just melted my heart. It’s wonderful to hear, but at the same time it is so bittersweet because I know that pretty soon I’m not going to be your best friend anymore, you are going to find a new best friend, and then I’ll just be your mom. And then a little while after that it will get even worse – you’ll be a pre-teen and then GASP a teenage girl! And then my life will be a complete nightmare of worry and you will probably hate me at times because I am going to push you to do or not do things, and you are going to push back. I had times when I thought I hated my mom. I remember them. But you can’t ever really hate your mother, I don’t think. We’ll see.

I don’t know, I think that the whole point of this is so that when you are old enough, you can start reading these letters and get to know me the way I want you to know me – as a person, not just as your mom. By the time I let you read any of this I’m probably going to be old and square and boring as hell and you would never believe anything I try to tell you about who I was when I was younger and what I was like, and what our life was like together.

Already I am thinking that the hardest thing about writing you to is that I have no idea where to being. Should I tell you about our family, my past, how you came to be, what is going on in the world and why it matters? Oh, there is just so much.

Here’s one important thing you should know – I fancy myself a writer. I am really hoping that this letter writing will not only benefit you, but benefit me by forcing me to become a better writer – more disciplined about writing a certain amount every day, which I already do on my secret blog (yes, mommy has a secret anonymous blog, haha!) in the form of short 27 word posts every day – 27 words about 365 people I’ve met in my life. Fun, fun.  Another fun fact is that I wrote a novel length story LONGHAND when I was in high school. I have since lost it. But I think it is sitting in a box in your bedroom at your dad’s house. If I haven’t gotten around to searching for it there yet, feel free to take it out and read it. It was called Musical Chairs, and even though you are four and have no idea what I would be talking about if I told you right now that I once wrote a story about a girl in high school who got pregnant and her boyfriend was ran over and killed, whatever. I think you will like it. Just don’t get pregnant in high school, please, and thanks.

Love,
Mommy