Dear Connor - 4 Years, 4 Months

Dear Connor,
Better late than never with your letter this month. Between cleaning up after you and your brother and managing this silent auction, I've been quiet busy. One of the girls that's in my MOMS Club has breast cancer and we've been putting together an auction to help her with the medical bills. Before I had children I would have been sympathetic, but now after having children I realize that all children are my children. All the children that are starving, lonely or hurting are my children. All of the children whose Mommy's are sick are my children. Because I can look at you and your brother and see how fortunate we are. Because I can look at your and your brother and see how fickle fortune can be and if something ever happened to me or your Dad, I would want someone to help you and your brother the same way. Because I look at those children and think, what if they were mine. You and your brother have changed my life in more ways than sleep deprevation and extra loads of laundry. You've made this world, our world. And I want to help change it for you.

But oh, let's move on to happier things... like how much you torture the cat and how he loves you so. Maybe somewhere in his little cat brain, he knew he was in a shelter. And he feels like any love is good love, even if it means that he's carried around from room to room in the house and plopped down on the floor, so that you can fall on the floor next to him and pet him. You tell him about your swimming lessons and how your day at school went. You tell him about your monsters at night and assure him you will protect him from them. In the morning when you wake up, he materializes out of thin air waiting to undergo the morning routine of playing fetch with his mouse.

Oh! I remember what I was going to write. Your memory is coming online. You are suddenly remembering things from last summer, like the frosted animal crackers that I packed into our beach bag. They completely melted and you and your brother ate them anyway. Apparently that was quite memorable for you because the other day you said, "MOMMY! I REMEMBER SOMETHING IN MY BRAIN!" and reminded me about those animal crackers. That means that you might be storing away some memories from your childhood that you will be able to recall in the next few years. Maybe you'll remember how yesterday when I was outside raking leaves, you came running up to me to tell me that you had broken the toliet seat.

When I ran to the bathroom, I was glad you had broken the toliet seat, because it made me hurry into the bathroom and see that you had also shoved a watering can underneath the sink faucet, left it running and then forgotten about it in your haste to tell me about the toliet seat. The watering can had filled and because the spout was hanging out of the sink over the counter, maybe you'll remember the water pouring out of the spout onto the countertop and down the cabinets. Maybe you'll remember the look on Mommy's face when she saw the countertop, the broken toliet seat and the trival fact that the toliet was so full of poop and paper that it needed to be plunged.
Although it's more likely, you'll remember that you went to the bathroom and then Mommy came in and started yelling at you. I'm sure your therapist will tell you it wasn't your fault at all.
I love you,
Mommy