Pink and Blue

Dear Teeny,
Today was a day I have been both anxiously awaiting, and dreading simultaneously. Today was the day we finally got to find out if you were a boy or a girl. I was excited, because I was ready to give you a real name and begin preparing your room for your arrival. However, I was dreading this day, because I was afraid of my own reaction to the news. A big part of me hoped that you were a girl, the yin to your big brother's yang. I was afraid that if you were a boy, I would be heartbroken, and what would that say about me as your mother?
Turns out, I shouldn't have been worried. When the ultrasound tech showed us that you were, in fact, a little boy, my heart sank for just the moment it took me to turn to your big brother and say "You're going to have a baby brother, Sprout!" In the time it took me to say that sentence, I realized that I really wasn't disappointed, not at all. You see, I have a special place in my heart for little boys, especially you and your big brother. I love to play in mud puddles and pick up worms. I'm a seasoned master of truck noises and can properly name a ridiculous number of dinosaurs. I've got this mother of boys thing down.
I can't wait to play catch with you and your brother, to take you fishing and hunting and watch you both do daring things that should probably make my heart leap into my throat. I can't wait to have you both here to snuggle, in that special way that little boys do only with their "mumma". I can't wait to be your first love. And most of all, I can't wait to raise you both to be great men of God, servant leaders who will make wonderful husbands and fathers just like your Daddy someday.
I love you, my little Teeny, and I can't wait to add you to my rowdy tribe of men.

Love Always,

Mommy

Pride is not Hate

Dear Teeny and Sprout,
I hate to tell you both this, but the world the two of you are growing up in has become increasingly more divisive, even in my own lifetime. More specifically, it seems like in the past few years, relations between the races has become nearly a war, maybe not in our community, but in the country as a whole. I've held you while watching reports of riots and shootings where the only motivation was the color of someone's skin, and I'm sorry to have brought you into a world like this.
I'm not writing to give you a news report, though. I'm writing to encourage you. In these days of racial tension, it seems like everyone is allowed to be proud of who they are except white people, especially white men. Despite this, I want you both to know that you have much to be proud of, and I hope you always will be.
More important than the color of anyone's skin, you come from a line of God-fearing people, some who did incredible things for their faith. You are the descendants of pilgrims and pioneers, and their ambition runs in your veins. Our family has crossed oceans, climbed mountains, and forded rivers to find our way to the present. We have escaped slavery (because that is what serfdom really is) and found our way to new opportunities. Just like any other family, we have our share of black marks, but I am less concerned with them than I am with what the following generations did to correct them.The same young man whose father owned slaves, married a Native woman and fought for our country's freedom. His brother freed those slaves. Their grandsons and great grandsons fought to free them all.
You are the descendants of German nobles and Scottish serfs, of Irish farmers and Welsh coal miners. Never let anyone tell you that you have no right to be proud of your heritage, because you have just as much right as anyone else. Pride in who you are does not have to equal hatred for who anyone else is.

Love Always,

Mommy

Mary, Did You Know?

Dear Sprout,
We're coming up on your second Christmas, and I'm thinking about the way that your birth has changed the way I view the entire Christmas story. As a teenage girl, I identified with Mary as a scared girl facing the unknown, but as your mother, I identify with her in a totally different way. Last year, I remember nursing you on Christmas Eve after reading the Christmas story to you and your cousins, and thinking about Mary, holding her newborn in that bare stable and doing the same; thinking about his future.

This year, I've had almost 18 months to watch you grow toward the man you will be someday. While I may not have been given an announcement from an angel that you are born to great things, I pray and believe that you have been. While I pray that I never have to face the loss that loomed in Mary's future, I do hope that you will make a huge impact for God. I pray that your father and I will give you and Teeny good examples to emulate, and that you will greatly surpass both of us. My greatest wish for you is that you grow "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."

Love Always,

Mommy

Why I Hope You'll Believe In Santa Claus

Dear Teeny and Sprout,
With Christmas fast approaching, I find myself thinking about the traditions I want to pass on to the two of you; the ones I treasure most from my own childhood, and the ones I want to create in our home. My greatest wish is for both of you to understand that the reason for this holiday is not the pile of presents you will undoubtedly find under our brightly glowing Christmas tree. I hope that you  will always understand that the reason we celebrate is because of the greatest Gift that God ever gave mankind, His only son.
Your grandparents, my mom and dad, did a good job of teaching this to me in so many ways. One of my earliest Christmas memories is shivering in your Pap's bathrobe layered over my winter coat, playing a little shepherd in our church's outdoor nativity while they sang songs of praise to a newborn king. I remember my quiet awe as my grandma would let me lovingly wrap the baby Jesus for her nativity scene and lay him in the manger on Christmas Eve. When other children left out cookies and milk for Santa, we made rice krispie treats, put a candle in them, and sang happy birthday to Jesus.
To be honest, I don't remember ever really believing in Santa. My parents never told me he didn't exist, nor was he ever used as a threat for good behavior in the month of December. I had a vague belief that grandma's cousin Tom was the real Santa Claus, as he was the man in a bright red suit with a snowy white beard that I saw every Christmas Eve before we opened presents. I've developed more of a belief in Santa Claus as an adult than I ever had as a child, and its because of what I've come to realize about him that I hope I can foster a sense of belief in the two of you.
You see, as an adult, I've come to realize that Santa Claus is not some magical elf who lives at the North Pole, watches your every move, and rewards good behavior one night of the year. Santa Claus is the potential in all of us to do good for others, not just at Christmas, but all year round. He is the representation of the real magic of human kindness, of our ability to make the world a better place, one small act at a time. Santa Claus is the bell ringer who loans a panicked girl his cell phone. He is the little boy packing a shoebox for less fortunate children. He is the mother who mothers her children's friends who need her. He is the father who leaves an $80 tip for his single-mother waitress. He is a seasonal representation of the extravagant love of God, and how He can use every one of us to make life a little brighter.
That, my little ones, is why I hope you'll always believe in Santa Claus, because he is the best in all of us.

Love Always,

Mommy 

Our first view of Teeny

Dear Teeny,
I'm afraid I haven't been nearly as diligent in writing to you as I was for your big brother. Being a mother for the second time is very different from the first time. The first time, I had only your brother growing inside me to focus on, but this time around, I'm so busy keeping him fed and loved and cared for, half the time I forget you even exist yet, until you make me want to puke, or so tired I can barely stand up, or completely unable to button my pants.
Today made you really real to me, and, I think, to your daddy too. There is something very special about seeing you for the first time, watching your little arms and legs wiggle and the flicker of your heartbeat (151 bpm, for the record). The thing that made it most beautiful, though, was your brother's reaction to you. He's still too little to really understand what's going on, but when he saw you on the ultrasound monitor, he pointed and said "Baby sissy?" Not that I'm assuming that you're a girl (at this point, you're basically a blueberry with arms, legs, and potential), but it's the thought that counts. We all love you, Teeny. You are barely a flicker on a monitor, but you are so loved by so many people, and will always be.

Dear Sprout,
It's been nearly 6 months since I wrote to you last. Shame on mommy, right? I didn't write when you finally learned to walk. I didn't write when you started stringing together short sentences (pretty, pretty mumma is my favorite). I didn't even write to you when we found out that you were going to be a big brother. But today I'm writing, because what you did today touched my heart. We went to see your baby brother or sister for the first time today, and almost as if you know your time as mommy's only baby is dwindling, you refused to let me put you down, even during my ultrasound. Because of this, you were right even with my head when we all saw Teeny for the first time. I'm not sure what kind of response I was expecting from you, but I definitely wasn't expecting you to point at the screen and say "Baby sissy?", or, when I smiled and said, "Yeah, that's your baby sissy or bubby", for you to smile and giggle, and then lean down to give me a big happy kiss.
You'll never remember a time before Teeny was a part of our lives, but I want you to know, I'm cherishing every minute we have left of "just us". You'll always be my first baby, and I hope you know I think you're going to be a great big brother.

Love always,

Mommy

Dear Sprout,

Over a month has passed since I last wrote to you, because I’ve been too busy taking care of you and trying to soak up every second. I had all these grand plans for this journal when I started writing in it, but the realities of parenthood are definitely nothing like my imaginings. I’d never imagined that I would clean so much poop off of so many places poop shouldn’t be, or how I would wrestle with you for hours to finally get you to sleep, only to collapse into my own bed instead of getting all the things done I should be doing.

I’m back at work now, and your daddy is getting a taste of how this one-on-one parenting thing goes. You’ve been kind of rough on him since I went back to work full time, to the point that he’s now talking about you being an only child. I hope he comes to his senses, not only because I know how lonely it can be to be an only child, but because it would be way too easy for me to pour so much love and adoration into you that you become a self-absorbed little monster.

Going back to work and leaving you has been hard on me, too, both physically and emotionally. I’m pretty much exhausted all of the time, and you’ve gone from peacefully sleeping through the night to reinstating the 2 AM feeding, as well as waking daddy promptly at 6:45, right after I go out the door, to eat and insist on being played with. The last day before I went back full-time, I sat and held you almost all morning and cried my eyes out. I know you’re in good hands with your daddy, but I miss you so much that my heart literally aches. Busyness at work has kept my mind off of it mostly, but I still wish so much that I could stay home and just be mother to you and wife to your daddy.

There’s a whole list of things I should probably be doing right now, but instead I’m sitting on your bedroom floor, writing to you and listening to the pleasant little sounds you make as you drift closer to sleep. I wish I could bottle your laughter and keep it with me forever to pull out when I’m feeling sad, an adorable little “hoo hoo” that along with your big eyes has me affectionately referring to you as my little owl. If only I could keep you this little forever, and stay here with you always.

Sprout's first shots

Dear Sprout, 

You had your first shots today, something that you will happily never remember and that mommy would love to forget. That had to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to hold you down while they jabbed you and you screamed and screamed. I’m not sure who cried harder afterward, me or you. But, after you nursed and fell asleep, you woke up for just a little bit as I put you in your carseat, and like the little trooper you are, flashed me a grin. You’ve slept and cuddled all evening, and I intend to let you do that all you want.