Dear Jack,

You're 47 months old now. Four is on the horizon! It's Mother's Day, 2013. This time four years ago, I was preparing to meet you. My due date was approaching and I foolishly thought that you were making your entrance at any moment. I had miles and miles to go (uphill, all around our neighborhood) before you came into the world, smacking your lips and impressing the hospital staff with your enormous feet.

I entered motherhood in a chaotic way. My peaceful pregnancy ended with a battle, one I now know I may not have had to fight, but fight I did to bring you forth - to finally meet you. Sometimes I think your birth has me rattled still, in the way that any unmet expectations can leave a person floating through reality missing (and perhaps always searching for) hard ground for her feet.

The hard things I remember are few - a few desperate (literally) sleepless nights waiting for you to wake and nurse, feeling like a wound was open when I'd leave you, screaming, with Gram so I could take a shower, rocky times with your dad when his job was at its most demanding when I needed him more than ever before. These are brushstrokes now, or threads in a tapestry that becomes more beautiful everyday.

Parenting is just this way, or it has been for me, light and dark always weaving together. Your being-three-ness can be immensely frustrating at times. I suffer alongside you. I hurt for your little heart that I know breaks over the smallest things. At the same time I want to escape during your lowest moments. Motherhood at these times feels very much like a set of trials. Surviving them is success, simply. Staying present is the highest aspiration.

And yet...

Your being-almost-four-ness is a complete joy. Your unending questions now have more focus. You affect an amazing LOW voice and angle your chin down, as if peering over reading glasses to say things like, "You know," and telling jokes about a Transformer turning into a banana peel (hilarious). You're thriving at school, despite still being a little miffed when you have to leave your toys and books at home to go there. You're on a team with three other boys who run and run and run during playground time. I love to hear about team dynamics. There is a boss who fires you on a whim but apparently rehires you. You have to do math to be on the team. You're convinced that certain shoes are faster than others. The goal is to chase the girls, whom I'm not convinced are actually playing with you. Fascinating!

You're growing, having leg pains now and again, looking leggy in the shorts that were past your knees at the beginning of the school year. You look older and older, run faster and faster. I've said it before, and I think I have about one more year to say it, but each day you look less like my baby and more like a real, live boy. Your knees and shins are covering in scrapes and bruises at various stages of healing - your "summer legs." You climb to the very top of your climbing tree and I imagine you up there scouting for the next challenge. You lip-sync every song on the radio, whether or not you know the words. Your air-guitar a sight to behold.

Mommy and Daddy are not leaving well enough alone in about a month: we're moving. We have loved living in and raising you in this house, but we want something different for you as you move into the next phase of your childhood. We've found a great house in an older, established neighborhood. You'll be able to play much more freely as you grow. We'll all be able to bike and walk more easily. We're closer to the heart of the city. Big changes are coming, and I expect you to weather them with immense grace. You will probably be a great help to me, actually. If all goes as planned, we'll have a small birthday party for you in the new house. I'm excited at times and ambivalent at others, but when I allow myself to picture an older you playing in that neighborhood, I feel peace.


Here you're standing in the green space across from the new house.

Hooked on you, kid.

Mama