2 Years, 7 Months, and 13 Days Past September 24, 2005

Dear Talmage:

There is a lot of anger in our relationship. It's of an intensity that I naively thought wouldn't appear until you were at least 16. You regularly shout at me "Don't do that!" and then furrow your eyebrows while channeling the emotion of Darth Vader after the destruction of the death star. Then I begin to wince, because I'm bracing for your alarmingly powerful toddler smack across the side of my face.

Not that I'm blaming this entirely on you. I'm equally if not more angry. So far, I've been able to keep it inside, but I've turned into a life-size can of root beer that's been shaken to the point that the carbonation is about to explode, spouting raw, unadulterated, molten anger all over the room. Yesterday, after you punched me twice, you poured a cup of water on an innocent girl at the Children's Museum and we left immediately, you screaming at a decibel equaled only by Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier and me very conspicuously wailing with sobs that racked my chest. I'm pretty sure other people noticed.

So we go on. You continually testing me, me continually harping on you. "We don't write on the table with a Sharpie, Talmage." "We don't try to put our left foot through the TV screen, Talmage." "We don't headbutt our mothers so that blood spills out of their noses like Niagara Falls, Talmage." I have become a constant stream of "We don'ts." There is just so much that we don't.

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to give you a we do. We do love Talmage very, very much. It's a shame that you're upstairs asleep right now (yes, you lost books before your nap for the third day in a row) and can't hear or fully comprehend the depth of that love and affection.

Before I had you, I was a little nervous about being a mother. I wanted to be a mother, but I enjoyed researching and working so much that I was nervous to begin what I saw as the monotony of motherhood. I was worried I had twenty stir-crazy years ahead of me. I needn't have worried. I didn't count on the overwhelming love that filled me when you graced your Daddy and me at your arrival. You were 22 inches of slimy, screaming loveliness. I spent hours (literally hours--I timed it) just looking at you. When we got out of the hospital, you had jaundice, and you had to sleep in a ultraviolet suitcase to lower the bilirubin. You could only come out to nurse, and I was terribly lonesome for you when I couldn't hold you.

I thought of that this morning while I was snuggling with you. We haven't spent much of your life snuggling--you've been much too busy for that--but today you woke up at 5:30 and I told you it was still nighttime. "Sun sleep?" you asked. "Yep," I responded. "Come in Mommy and Daddy's bed." You curled up on my arm and I kissed your forehead. You looked up, grabbed my face with both pudgy hands and pulled me to you as you smacked my lips.

I love you, Talmage. I love that you play the church organ as the bishop conducts the meetings. I love that you like to hide and shout "Boo!" when I come in the room. I love that you make incredible connections between something you see today and something that you saw five months ago. I love the insane quantities of milk you consume. I love that you live in constant fear of going to bed. I love that you identify everyone in the world in terms of daddy's friends, mommy's friends, and Talm's friends. I love you.

And when your 16, you can read this letter. It will be the same message, different stories.

Love,

Mama