I’ve not been posting much because this letter has been clogging up the flow. I finally finished it. It was harder to write than I expected.

Sappy and nostalgic Birthday letter to Lucas lies behind the cut.

May 15, 2006
Dear Lucas,

It’s so hard to believe it, but you’re four years old now. You are so big and strong, and so independent! Life with you is exciting—you fill me with wonder and awe every day. Through your learning, I have learned about the world. Through your loving, I have learned to love more deeply and more completely than I ever thought possible. Your smile is like the sun breaking free of the clouds after a rainstorm. You light up my life like I never knew possible.

I hope that I will write many more Birthday Letters to you throughout your life. I think I’m writing the first one now because I was so wrapped up in your care when you were younger, I didn’t find the time to write you a letter. I always meant to do it.

You have changed so much in just the last few months. I try to write down some of what happens in our lives together, but so much happens every day, I can’t possibly capture it all. You are growing up so fast. Some days, we wake up and your daddy and I think, my goodness, Lucas has changed overnight, while he was sleeping! It seems as if during the night, your angel teaches you new things, or perhaps you figure them out all on your own in your dreams. And the next morning, like magic, you have new skills, new words and phrases, new brilliant ideas, or whole new ways of playing and seeing the world around you. And I love this about you. You fascinate me; you challenge me. Every day, we learn things together. Sometimes I teach you. Every day, you teach me.

I admire you, Lucas. You’re still small, but I can tell already what a marvelous person you are. I can tell that you are clever and strong-willed—these are very important traits to have. You are also sensitive and empathetic to others. You care about how people feel and you often do your very best to make them feel safe and happy. When I watch you taking care of your friends or your doll, I feel very proud of you. And I feel your dad and I are teaching you well. What a big and generous heart you have! I also admire how you bravely try new things, go new places, experiment, jump into projects, and make new friends. Your enthusiasm is inspiring. Your example makes me want to do new things that I’ve never done before, or try things that I stopped doing a long time ago.

Some days are tricky. Sometimes it’s hard for us to figure out what you need most. Sometimes what you need most is not what you want. I wish I could say that I was patient and loving 100% of the time. But I’m only human. Sometimes you get impatient with me, like when I don’t understand something you’re trying to explain to me, or when I accidentally help you too much, or when you’re trying to convince me that staying up late is a good idea and I say no. Believe me, it’s much easier to say yes to you than to say no. Your dad and I sometimes say no because we love you with all of our hearts.

We love you in so many ways: We love you by giving you good, healthy food; by paying attention to your words, and also to your body language; by encouraging you to make friends and to be a good one; by keeping you close to your family and surrounding you with a community of friends who know how special you are; by providing you a home that is happy and safe, full of interesting books and things to play with; by allowing you to move and explore and learn about the world; by trusting your choices, your likes and dislikes; by letting you sing, and dance, and get dirty; by being the best examples of loving partners we can be; by challenging ourselves to learn more, be better people—parents of whom you can be proud; by trying to solve every just-in-case problem before it happens; by educating your head, your heart, and your hands every day.

We love you.
Mama

Filtered, as usual.

Gym last Friday. Treadmill. 40 mins or so. I don’t remember.

Unfortunately missed my yoga class on Monday due to a business call at 6 pm. Cindy is the teacher I like, so that’s a bummer. I’m going to try to do yoga Mondays and Wednesdays. I really like it a lot. It’s relaxing, challenging in a whole new way, and it’s building all-over strength really quickly. I can feel it in my upper body especially, and my legs and back really appreciate the stretching aspects, especially because the running I do tightens up my hamstrings terribly. I feel kind of unhinged or more flexible through my hips and torso after yoga. I like that.

Gym yesterday (Tuesday). Went to the one near Lucas’s school, right after I dropped him off. Treadmill for 65 mins both walking and jogging. It was pretty fun because I ran into Tina and she walked on the treadmill next to me for a long time. Chatting with a friend was entertaining and helped to pass the time. I know I would have gotten bored after about 40 minutes and stopped, but we were in mid conversation, so I kept going. Voilà. 440 calories according to the machine, but I don’t know if I can trust that because I’m certain the HR on the machine was wrong. That was no 115-bpm running I was doing at 4.3 miles per hour!

I can see rippling muscles in my legs. There’s a vertical line down the side of my thigh showing my quads, and there’s less jiggle in the rear. Yay. I keep asking Ian to notice because I’m vain and I crave praise.

Yoga tonight if Ian can get home in time for me to make it to class.

I’m happy because there’s a rhythm establishing now, even though I crave new experiences and modalities. Unfortunately, my running date with B last week didn’t work out. I’m hoping we can reschedule soon. Spinning sounds fun, but scary. Maybe I’ll check out the schedule. I’ve never tried that before…

Yesterday I asked both my mom and Ian’s mom if either set of grandparents might be willing to babysit Lucas for *gasp!* a whole weekend. We are hoping to go out of town for our 11th anniversary in early June. This is what my mother-in-law wrote back to me (minus the details about babysitting):

“What! You guys want time to yourselves??? 🙂 I’m sure we can figure something. … Either way, make your plans for your big weekend.

“I do want to tell you how proud I am of both of you for making your marriage work. You two have done a great job from what I can see. Keep up the good work. Everyone has bumps in the road, disappointments, and upsets but the flip side is the joy and committment. In my vast experience with marriage, I have decided that the difference in a marriage that works and one that doesn’t is that you just don’t leave. Anyway, congratulations!! And from my selfish point of view, I am thrilled to see that my son is happy and thriving. (You’ll get that later when Lucas takes off on his own). Thank you!
Love you much,
Mom”

Awwww! Thanks MIL, I love you too. Thanks for raising up such an amazing, loving, and devoted man to be my husband. I hope I can do the job raising Lucas as well as you did raising Ian.

Lucas is 4 now.

We had a wonderful party-filled birthday weekend (April 29, 30, May 1). On Saturday morning we had 9 of Lucas’s friends over for a 2.5-hour party. I invited each child and a parent to stay during the party, which worked well. (I was totally nervous about managing that many kids on our own, so we didn’t.) We had only two organized activities (finger painting and a story told by Parnasus—THANK YOU, Parnasus!), which is good for this age group; the rest of the time, the kids played in the back yard, blew bubbles and popped the ones from the bubble machines, climbed on the play structure, mowed the lawn, and kicked beach balls around. The weather was absolutely perfect too! We set up a shade structure in the back yard and decorated it with balloons and curly ribbons. We tied colorful silks and fabric scraps to the guylines to keep kids from hurting themselves. The result was very festive. We even strung up a clothesline to hang up wet paintings to dry. So, for posterity’s sake, here are the friends who attended the party: Ambrosia, Kimberlee, Tasha, Xander, Laural, Ella, Henry, Teryn and Sierra. Ages were 2.5 to 6. Lucas chose a “Little People” cake from Raley’s, and thus saved me a lot of time (see previous cake dilemma post). I have the thank you cards done; I just have to mail them.

For the family, we had another party on Sunday evening (after having spent a couple hours at Sacrament Waldorf School watching Mari dance the May Pole dances with her 8th grade classmates). The two parties were far enough apart, at either end of the weekend, to allow us to rest a bit in between them, but were not so far apart as to require complete takedown and cleanup after the first. The shade structure stayed up; the decorations remained, except for popped balloons. All 5 grandparents and Glen’s girlfriend came, as well as Aunt Kellie and Uncle Jonathan and his girlfriend, Courtney. RoRo and Nana were there too. Naturally, Lucas got loads of loot, but nothing objectionable and several things he/we really wanted. VoVo and DeeDee gave Lucas a Razor scooter (with three wheels for preschoolers) and he loves it! He got a soccer kit complete with ball, pump, shin-guards, water bottle, and goal markers. He got a new playground ball, some clothes, and some books that I’ve been eyeing for him. What was fun, though, was that Lucas was so excited to see everyone, and so focused on the birthday cake, he totally forgot about the presents. Folks stayed for 2.5 hours into the evening and then everyone left. It was a little tough to get Lucas into bed that night, but that’s understandable.

On Monday, Lucas’s real birthday, we started the day with a verse and muffins with 4 birthday candles. We sent him off to school knowing that there would be extra super fun stuff to do because it was both May Day and his birthday. Miss Jennifer made an apple cake for him and the children celebrated at school. They gave him a birthday book full of drawings the children made. And Miss Jennifer presented him with a handmade Prince puppet.

The May Queen also visited school on Monday and gave all the children bouquets of flowers. I wish I knew exactly what happened, but the teacher doesn’t have time to explain it to me, and I can’t really get any details out of Lucas.

Ian and I waited until Monday evening, after dinner, to give Lucas our gifts. The kite went over very well, as did the astronaut playset, the train picture books, the gnomes, and the broom. I think I went a little overboard, but hey, I love the little guy. The “build a bug” set was fun, until dark. Then the built bugs bugged Lucas and he wanted them all put away.

Hold out.
Take only the worthy guest.
You are the guardian,
you the sacred host,
your body the temple.
Keep your sanctuary safe.
Receive no one without
deep mutual welcome.

Take in only angels—
those sent by God
bearing messages
of recognition—
I see you, entire,
complete, wholly—
all suffering,
all goodness,
all power,
all mirth.
Bright radiance inside,
and the silence, the darkness.

Such ones as can speak these words
will inspire you to conceive
and help you give birth
to the divine child.

In your union God sees
and becomes one with
Godself in each lover.

Between the legs of your dance
is the Gate of Heaven. It waits
for the true lover to enter
and create the union
of Heaven and Earth.

This communion of sex
is no sweet foretaste
but already participation,
enactment of Heaven,
the best there is from God.

You were born for this.
Do not say yes to less
than two loving fullnesses
overflowing into pure bliss…

—Alla Renée Bozarth

A portion excerpted from the poem, “Pure Lust, Perfect Bliss—Holy Communion” by Alla Renée Bozarth, which is published in the audiocassette, Reading Out Loud to God, Wisdom House copyright 1990; and the printed books, Soulfire, Yes International Publishers, copyright 1997; and The Book of Bliss, iUniverse copyright 2000. All rights reserved.

– Well, with birthday festivities over the weekend, I succumbed to 3 pieces of cake and 1 poppyseed muffin.

– My running date with Brittany didn’t happen today. I think we got our wires crossed in the planning of it. Turns out she worked Sunday and Monday nights, so this morning she dropped off her kids and headed home to sleep for a few hours. I hope that this is just a postponement and not a cancellation. I haven’t had a workout partner in … something like 5 years, not since Ian and I were going to the gym together every morning when we both worked in Roseville and commuted to work together—long before baby. I think it would be neat to add a social element to my exercising to make it more fun. Not every time, but once in a while would help keep me interested.

+ I turned my morning frown upside-down by heading to the gym after I dropped Lucas off at school. I spent 45 mins on the treadmill, running 2 miles and walking 1. I also lifted weights for another 15 minutes, concentrating on my arms, shoulders, back, abs, and chest. I wonder why chest presses feel so good to me. But hell, I’ll take it!