You Are My Sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey. (Wikipedia)

Love Letter to My Five-Year-Old

Tonight I asked you if you felt loved.

“Well, yes….” you said. “Most of the time.”

“What are the times you don’t?”

“When you say something that I don’t like,” you said. “Then I feel you don’t love me and I walk away.”

“I know I’m a crabby head sometimes,” I told you.

“You’re not a crabby head, Mommy,” you told me. “I would never call you a crabby head.”

“I’m calling myself a crabby head,” I said. “Because it’s the truth. I am sometimes. I’m crabby and not nice. But I still love you. I love you all the time, even when I’m crabby.”

“You’re a lovey head,” you told me, “not a crabby head. Even when you’re crabby you’re a lovey head.”

“I know I’m the luckiest mommy in the world. There can’t be another child, anywhere in the universe, as kind and loving as you.”

You thought a moment. “I’m creative, too,” you said.

Be You

One of the greatest wishes I have for you, Jonah, is that you’ll have the courage to be you. There will be people who tell you that you shouldn’t love the things you love, that boys like these things and girls those, that there’s something wrong with you if you’re not like them. If you believe in yourself and the things that make you happy you will live a good life.

I’m happy that you’re already standing up for yourself. You told me that one of your best friends was playing with another boy in your class who’s not always nice. You asked if you could play with them and the second boy said no. You told him, “I’m not going to listen to your nonsense” and played with them, anyway.

May you always have the strength to brush aside the nonsense.

Caring

“I care about my friends when they’re hurt and not feeling well,” you told me.

And it’s true. There’s a stereotype people have of only children: that they’re spoilt and self-centered and have poor social skills. And yet when your friend accidentally knocked his little sister down and then refused to help her up or say he was sorry, you went over (you were the farthest away and the only one to go) and gave her sweet caresses to make her feel better.

You can be a wild child, too, but you have a good heart and aren’t afraid to let it show.

It’s one of the many things that I love about you.

Happy Valentine’s Day, my dearest boy.