Girl Scout Cookies!

Yesterday Natalie and I joined Daisy Scout Troop 3105 to sell Girl Scout cookies outside Wal-Mart.

By the appointed time, I had dismissed scores of excuses for not showing up and decided to just suck it up and Be The Mother. So my shy little girl and I set up shop with Natalie's friend Kalei and her lovely mom Pam.

Kalei and Natalie are perfect for each other. Quiet, sweet, unassuming. And terrible saleswomen.

Neither of them dared to make eye contact with anyone who approached our table, despite Pam and me urging the girls to at least look up, or say thank you.

Enter Christine, their fellow Daisy. Christine is not shy. She came to our table near the Garden Center from her post at the main entrance, where she had been pulling in one sale after another.

She showed the quiet girls how it was done. She even let them hold her handmade Girl Scout Cookies sign, on the corner of which she had printed: "Don't touch my poster."

After a little peer mentoring, Natalie began to come out of her shell.

After an hour, her shell was nowhere to be found.

I'm back!

I'm baaaaack!

And it's all thanks to my two faithful readers, Thyme and Kristine, who were standing out there in the dark, holding their lighters up for me. Let me tell you, when I get complaints from 20 percent of my readership, I take it seriously.

So, the last two months, in a nutshell:

1. The new job continues to be awesome and sometimes exhausting. Some days I am literally (I hate it when people say "literally," but I want to be clear I'm not exaggerating) running from one meeting to another. But it's exhilarating and amazing to feel such purpose in my work again. Someone I admire recently told me: "This is going to be the best job you'll ever have."

2. Natalie is loving ballet (see photo above) and she has signed up for tap, following in her mother's footsteps. We plan to take a Mommy & Me tap class this summer. Between tap and Natalie and I joining Daisies (little Girl Scouts), I'm in mother heaven.

3. We went to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. It was very cold!

4. I went skiing with my dad in Aspen - my first time on skis in 15 years!

And first time on shaped skis. We had a great time. Saw a bald eagle from the chair lift! I actually missed Natalie's ballet recital because I was on a plane to Aspen. Terrible!

5. We might get a puppy. A chocolate Labradoodle. Oh they are sooo cute! We drove up to Norco last night to see them and fell for two - a boy and a girl. Now I am tormented between them. Tony says either one will be a great dog and I won't regret whatever we choose. He is always so reasonable about these things.

The boy:

The girl:

6. Natalie is getting funnier and funnier.

The other day she asked when she'd have lunch with the principal again. Lunch With the Principal is an honor at school for kids who are doing well in class.

"I think that was just a one time deal, honey," I said.
"Oh."

"Though I don't know for sure. Do kids get to go back?"

"Yeah, if they left something in there."

I called the Mister right after to tell him.

There was another funny one. Recently at school, Natalie pointed out a kid to Tony.

"That's Ronnie. 'Cept his nickname is Ronald."

7. My 38th birthday is next Saturday. I feel good about it mostly because I have a wonderful job and family. Last year I had a classic birthday of self-loathing where I said to myself: I'm 37 years old and what am I &%$##@! doing with my life?? I would feel better about it if I didn't have all these gray hairs, which I suddenly see because I had the great idea to grow out my highlights. Guess who's getting highlights again?!

8. I have a new nickname here at Mill Peak Road. Big Mama. And we live at Big Mama's House. Natalie and Tony both think it's hilarious.

That's all for now. I will try to post more regularly, Thyme and Kristine. Or I will just see you at the next Kevin Faulconer event!

Halloween

We had a nice Halloween this year, beginning with a rainy trip to the pumpkin patch and carving these two beauties, which we named Pumpkinseed and Steve.

Sadly, Pumpkinseed and Steve only lasted a few days before their teeth curled in and they started to stink up the house.

Natalie, shocking everyone, veered from tradition and eschewed her Cinderella dress (worn the last two years), opting instead for Tinker Bell. Here she is dressed for the parade at school.

On Saturday night, Tony and I dressed as our favorite TV couple from our favorite TV show, "Friday Night Lights." Coach and Tami Taylor set a much better marital example than our choice last year: the totally dysfunctional, but extremely stylish, Don and Betty Draper from "Mad Men."

Here's Coach in his East Dillon Lions gear. He even got Croakies for his shades. Authentic!

And here's Tami. Wish my hair was longer, but I think I captured her Texas spirit. That silver and turqoise belt belonged to my grandmother. The boots were an impulse purchase that I justified by telling myself I would have them for life and they were the same brand worn by Teddy Roosevelt.

After we snapped this photo, we went next door to our neighbors' house. Dwayne and Manya and their friends spent the entire day dressing up the house with spiders and centipedes and cobwebs. It was the best Halloween house I'd ever seen. Oh! And someone brought a cake in a kitty litter box, with a scooper for serving and Tootsie Rolls on top. Gross, but tasty!

I think we might keep up the TV couple theme for next year. I was thinking Archie and Edith Bunker, but Tony had a better idea: Lucy and Ricky Ricardo! I'm going to start looking now for a red wig...

Happy Halloween!

My littie gril

A favorite time of day for me is pulling Natalie's folder from her backpack to see what Mrs. Evins has sent home from Room 1.

The other day, it was a picture with a story below. Natalie wouldn't let me read it until she'd grabbed her crayons and finished the drawing at the dining room table.

Then she read it to me. And when she was done, she looked up at me, over her glasses like an adult would pausing from the newspaper.

"My name is Natalie. I am six yrers old. I am a littie gril. I like to go to the zoo because it is fun. I like to do my best."

Natalie and me on the grass; the sign says pink "because me and Mama like pink"

Of course I told her I loved it.

"You do like to do your best, don't you?" I asked.

She nodded.

The day before I started my new job I told Natalie I was nervous. She considered this, and then gave me a piece of advice I have followed every day of the last two weeks - during which much of the time I've had no idea what people were talking about and felt like I'd parachuted into a foreign country.

"I was scared for first grade. But I'm not scared anymore," Natalie said.

"Just do Mama's best and work hard."

So every day I'm doing Mama's best. I'm so proud of my littie gril.

Curly hair

The new thing around here is braiding Natalie's hair at night, when it's wet. In the morning, when we take out the braids, her hair is "curly" for school.


Actually, it's crimpy. Very retro '80s. I told Natalie that when I was a little girl, I slept with rollers in my hair. (Really, it was just two for the bangs, the rest of my hair left straight. Great look.) I shouldn't have told her about rollers because now she wants them.

I usually manage about six or seven braids and then call it quits. There's no way I'm doing rollers.
Last night Natalie was so excited about the braids and her curly hair, she imagined what her little school friend might think.

"Maybe my hair be so curly, Calista not know I'm me!"

Milestones and hope

It took me awhile before I could drive past Rady Children's Hospital and not think of the night I stood at the pay phone in the ER waiting room and cried into the receiver, telling my mother in Wisconsin that my new baby daughter had suffered two violent seizures and a CT scan of her brain showed that it was atrophied.

Not only would she be paralyzed, as we had been told the day of her adoption just a week earlier in China. She might never be a normal child or functioning adult.

I can still see the parents in the waiting room. I thought them so lucky; their children had fevers or a broken leg. They looked away as I sobbed into the phone. The next morning I drove home to find dinner on the table as we'd left it, plastic wrapping from the paramedics' instruments on the floor, and the phone on the coffee table, where I'd dropped it after calmly telling a 911 dispatcher that my year-old daughter was unresponsive.

But later that morning, I returned to the hospital to find a kindly neurologist, and then an animated neurosurgeon who reminded me of Guy Smiley. And within a few hours the diagnoses from the night before and China were dismissed. They were replaced with theories about the mysterious scar at the base of Natalie's spine and why her brain's ventricles were so large - along with the physicians' guarded hope for a normal development. There would be more visits to the ER, but we had begun the ascent.

My mom and Natalie

There were many visits to Rady Children's over the next several years. And as Natalie sat up, and then learned to crawl and walk on the padded mats of the physical therapy department, those terrible memories of that night, when I thought everything was lost, started to fade. When I'd approach the hospital on the freeway, I didn't feel sick anymore. I felt happy. This was the place that was fixing my daughter, and fixing me, too.

It had become a place of comfort, compassion, camaraderie - and most importantly: milestones and hope.

On Monday I start my new job there. I can't think of another place I'd rather be.

Big girl

Natalie is now a first grader.

It's been a little rough.

New school. New teacher. All new kids. New after-school program.

And... no naps.

Which all adds up to an over-tired, overwrought little girl who falls asleep moments after I kiss her goodnight at 7:30 p.m. Last night, big tears rolled down her face when at the dinner table we asked her to say "please."

On Monday Natalie ran from her line for class, screaming "Mama, don't leave me!" and wailed as I pried her fingers from my pant leg. She sobbed and waved to me through the chain-link fence as I strode away, waving and smiling: "Have a great day, honey!"

By the time I reached my car, I was crying, too.

I recalled the first time I left her at daycare - for two hours. When I returned her shirt was off under her tiny overalls. She had cried and sweated so hard for those two hours, she'd soaked her shirt. For months after I went back to work, I'd have to drive us home with one hand on her little leg, because she couldn't stand any more time apart - not even in the back seat.

But she got used to it. In fact, she grew to love everything about that place. Eventually, I'd have to coax her to the car at the end of the day. This summer at the lake in Michigan she waded deep into the water as I watched from the shore, so proud of my fearless girl.

It feels now like we are starting over. But like we did back then, we try and try again. And each day gets a little bit better.

When you were a baby

Lately I have found that if I want Natalie to do anything, I appeal to her sense of nostalgia.

We went to Gordon Biersch last night and to head her off from requesting macaroni and cheese, I recalled the time when she ate there as a baby and oh how she loved the jasmine rice and steamed vegetables. In fact, the rice was all over the floor because she was grabbing it by the fistful. Silly baby!

She beamed.

"Let's order that tonight!" I said.

"Yeah!"

I remember at my baby shower Matt's sister wrote to me in a book of advice from my friends and family that I should do whatever works until it doesn't work anymore.

So right now, what's working is "When You Were a Baby ..."

e.g. At bedtime tonight: "When you were a baby you loved it when Mama read this book." (Short, easy book NOT about princesses.)

This actually is very fitting because I am quite nostalgic. As long as I can remember, I've loved looking at old pictures, old letters, recalling times passed. My college boyfriend used to tease me about it.

"You're the only person I know who wants to reminisce about the day before," he'd say.

In other news, we spent part of the afternoon painting ceramics and all I could think about was this video:

Step off little girl, that's my ...

Tooth Fairy

Natalie’s tooth fell out the other night. Actually, I yanked it out.

She cried on and off all night, begging me to pull it. I think it was driving her crazy.

“It’s not ready to come out,” I told her.

“Please Mama. Check again.”

So after her bath, when I dry her and hug her and comb her and lotion her up – oh how I love this time of day – I reached in and pulled that sucker out. It resisted at first and I cringe typing this, but then I felt the tearing release of gum and fleshy strands holding it there (more cringing) and in an instant blood was welling in the little hole where the tooth had been.

She was wide-eyed and grinning. And relieved.

Later, in bed, the tooth in a baggie under her pillow, she asked: “Is the Tooth Fairy real?”

My heart sank a little. I thought about being her age when some punky classmate told me there was no Santa.

“Of course she’s real.”

“Mama saw her?”

“Yes, but not when I was a little girl. I was a grown up lady, but not a mother yet.”

“Mama tell the story?”

And so I told her how one night I happened to be looking out my window and saw what I thought was a star. But it was moving, closer and closer to the Earth, until finally it came down to a neighboring house – and stopped at the window to a bedroom where a little girl slept.

I saw then it was a fairy, about the size of Tinkerbell, and she slipped through the window into the room. And behind the drawn curtains I could see the light dancing for a moment or two. Then, the fairy was back outside the window and flew off as fast as she had come, back up into the sky, disappearing into the stars.

Natalie seemed satisfied. The next morning, at 5, she called from her room, waking me from a dream.

“Mama! “ she yelled through the dark. “The Tooth Fairy came!”

Baby talk

Lately we’ve been talking about having a baby.

My approach this time around is decidedly more lax.

Recently I was to have my thumb X-rayed. It had been swollen and throbbing ever since that hike in Kauai, perhaps from when I fell into the hole, or the river, or slid across the mossy rocks, desperately grasping at wet ferns trying to stay alive. Lots of possible thumb trauma scenarios there.

As is the routine, the X-ray tech asked if I was pregnant.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. Probably not.” I told him.

He cocked his head.

“Have you been trying to get pregnant?” he asked.

“Well. We haven’t been trying to avoid it.”

He laughed – “haven’t been trying to avoid it!” - and shook his head and walked me back to my doctor’s office to get a pregnancy test.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had women find out they’re pregnant this way,” he told me in the elevator.

So I took the test and waited for the nurse and was a bit surprised to find that that old, gooey, nervous hope rising in my belly. And then, the familiar dump of disappointment.

All for the stupid thumb that wasn’t even broken.

But now, five years into being a mother, the disappointment wasn’t crushing like I remember. No tears. No hating myself and my useless body and wondering what I ever did to deserve being denied what I then considered the most fundamental experience of being a woman.

This time, I got a breakfast burrito and was over it.

The most frustrating thing about all of it back then was that everything was officially fine. All the tests said so. It just wasn't happening.

Will it now? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I do know things are different now. I don't have that hole in my heart that I used to have. I feel happy with my life. I like being a mother. I have an incredible child and I'm proud of the mother that I've become. I think I will be alright either way.

Mostly, the discussions have been light and jokey, and centered on maintaining our current lifestyle. Could we send the baby to Natalie's dad's house when she's over there? Maybe we should adopt a 5-year-old because small children are really so much more enjoyable than infants. Or, we could just opt for a Golden Retriever, because that you can leave alone at home. Much more conducive to keeping the fire aflame.

Recently we floated it past Natalie.

"Would you like a baby brother or baby sister, Natalie?"

She didn't take much time to think.

"Noooo," she said.

"I already have a baby... Baby Miss Ann."

What matters

I haven't been writing much here because all of my creative energy has been devoted to perfecting my resume, a cover letter and answering online questionnaires about my experience and qualifications. And then there have been two interviews. One with three people. The other was a seven-person panel (I felt like Sonia Sotomayor!). Tomorrow I have another interview, and on Wednesday, my fourth.

I think I've gotten pretty good at promoting myself without sounding like an arrogant jerk or Stuart Smalley (I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggonit people like me!).

None of these leads has come from Monster.com, or cocktail party networking. All of this job hunting has been within my own office. A massive reorganization is underway, and we were told: Apply for everything!

So for weeks there have been closed doors, and scheming, and jockeying, and so much constant whispering it's like the jungle in Lost. We're now in the fourth week of interviews.

It's hard not to get totally wrapped up in the drama. But on Sunday I was able to pull away. And I realized some things.

1. Work, while important to me, doesn't have to define me.

2. We might want to get a bigger pool.

The girly girl toughens up

Natalie is a girly girl. She wears a dress everyday, often with sparkle shoes, and she sings princess songs to herself while twirling around to make her skirt fly out.

I may have contributed to this by painting her toes, buying all those dresses and generally being quite a girly girl myself. Yet I will unhesitatingly grab for a lizard in the backyard. Natalie recoils.

I wasn't always girly. As a child I was short-haired and scabby, got into fights and spent a lot of time outside in my snowfort, or in the tree in front of our second floor duplex, watching my mother watch television inside. One day on the stairs at school, a passing girl asked: "Are you a boy or a girl?"

But a few years later the boobs came, and with them the boys, and that was the end of that.

Because I think Natalie is so girly and because she doesn't get much exercise at school and because I worry she suffers from Nature-Deficit Disorder, I have decided to act.

Last Sunday was the day. We'd join our friend Donna on her trip to a small, backyard farm to buy free-range eggs. The farm also has baby chicks, goats and bunnies. "Less of an ick factor," Donna said, comparing them to lizards. And then, Tony and I would take Natalie on her first hike.

Natalie was excited for the farm, even obediently changing out of her dress into pants for the trip.

As we made our way to the goats, Natalie asked "What smells, Mama?" And to emphasize her disgust, she pinched her nose.

She wasn't interested in petting this cute little kid.


And wouldn't even offer a finger to stroke this two-day-old bunny's head.


"Look at Aiden," I told her. Aiden lives at this farm. But his example didn't mean much to Natalie.


I don't have any pictures of Natalie because she was never in the same frame as the animals, but rather wrapped around my thigh or holding her nose.

But here she is safely back in the comfort of our good-smelling home with the eggs we bought.


After a lunch of curried egg salad sandwiches and a nap, it was time for Phase Two. I had prepared for this with the purchase of new hiking shoes for Natalie. Of course I made sure there was some pink involved. Cute, right? She totally dug them.


We chose Cowles Mountain for our inaugural hike. It's close to home and a mile to the top, where on a clear day you can see for miles. I kept my expectations low: 20 minutes up?

She was timid at first, unsure of her steps, as she clutched Tony's hand and mine.


But slowly, she began to let go.


And enjoy the view.

We climbed about a third of the way up, and took a break for a snack. We'd made it much farther than I had hoped we would.

And then Natalie said, as she often does when she tires of something: "Mama? I go now."

So we brushed off the crumbs from the pretzels, took another swig of water, and then, something magical happened.

Natalie led the way back down.

Norway

On the way to school this morning, after we'd taken turns singing princess songs and moved on to another favorite topic, all of Natalie's babies, I asked:

"Is Mimi Chinese?"

Natalie and Mimi at DisneyWorld, 2008

"Nooooo. Mimi from Norway."

I think she said Norway. Norway?? How would she know about Norway?

"What, honey?"

"Mimi from Norway, same as Baby Miss Ann."

"Oh. I did not know that," I said. "Did you go and get her?"

"Yyyyyep. When she was one. Really, really small."

Hmmm. This story sounds familiar.

Then I grewed up

Yesterday was Natalie's sixth birthday.

The night before was the fifth anniversary of the day when her dad and I first held her.

So at bedtime that night, I told her the story of that moment. How it was so hot and muggy in Nanchang that the windows of the hotel were fogged, how her bus was delayed for hours and how, despite only seeing a months old photo of her, I knew her the second the orphanage director walked through the door.

I told her how I jumped up from my chair and went to her, how her warm little body felt in my hands, and then against my chest. How her head smelled and how she stared up at me. How she clutched the identification card hanging by a yellow string around her neck; it was her only possession.

And then I told her how I held her, and handed her to her Daddy. And how we took pictures and we went back upstairs to our room, where I gave her a bottle, and she fell asleep on our rock hard Chinese bed, still clutching her ID.

And how it was the happiest day of my life.

I pulled the covers up to her chin.

"That's it?" Natalie asked.

"Yes, that's it," I said.

"Then I grewed up. And now I'm too heavy to hold," she said.

"Yes, you've grown up a lot."

I brushed the hair from her face, kissed both her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, her chin and her lips.

"But you'll never be too heavy for Mama to hold."

Mother's Day love

At first when Natalie started kindergarten I thought her teacher Mrs. Solomon was a little intense. There was a syllabus every week, with vocabulary words and a homework assignment and notes to the parents about what was happening in class.

I resisted at first. I didn't believe in homework for kindergarteners. But now my child, who used to hide behind me and refuse to speak or look at anyone, is reading, writing stories, and reading to the class! She is becoming the girl to everyone else that I always knew her to be.

So now I am a Mrs. Solomon devotee. And this week I was delighted to find the following in this week's syllabus.

Homework:

1. Be a great listener for your mom.
2. Help your mom with chores around the house.
3. Give your mom a hug.
4. Give your mom a back rub.
5. Give your mom more hugs and kisses.

She gets it. Oh does she get it.

Yesterday when I picked up Natalie, she asked for my purse and my keys.

"Why, honey?"

"Because it's almost Mother's Day. I want to help Mama." And she leaned forward under the weight of my purse like a sled dog straining on his line.

This morning, she climbed into bed and rubbed my back.

I read recently that the benefits people get from a vacation are mostly in the months and weeks leading up to trip. It's the planning and thinking about the enjoyment to come that makes people most happy.

I'm feeling the same about Mother's Day, which happens to be my favorite day of the year. All the love and attention and feeling so special without having to think, like I do on my birthday: I'm ^%$#@! 37 and what have I done with my life???

Yes, Mother's Day is grand.

The power of Nie

I'm not Mormon. Or very religious at all.

But I believe in NieNie. She inspires me to be a better mother, a better person, every day when I read her posts on The NieNie Dialogues.

She will inspire you, too. Check out this video posted today by her sister, CJane.

My crowning achievement of motherhood

When we bought the house Natalie's room was painted an awful green for the previous owners' baby boy, and decorated with large, navy blue decal circles which the wife gravely told me would not be part of the sale.

They also painted another bedroom orange. And throughout the house they refused to use tape, preferring to do everything freehand, so there is paint on the ceiling and on the baseboards and the light fixtures. It looks real nice.

They also left us a drawer full of beard trimmings in the master bathroom.

I am not their number one fan.

Anyway, we moved in, my half-Greek husband sprayed everything with bleach and I promised Natalie I would paint her room lavender. Here's an aside, though: Did you know that the color pink can have a calming effect, but after a while it actually intensifies emotions? So little girls' rooms and pink walls should be avoided at all costs. I learned this during a really neat work seminar about group dynamics with a psychologist. My job comes in handy sometimes.

Months later, the room is painted lavender (leaning more toward blue than pink). Natalie was a good little helper.

Now I have finally finished decorating it, the coup de grace being the dresser I planned to assemble myself while Tony was out campaigning for his boss on Saturday. Doing my part to reelect Kevin Faulconer! But then I unpacked everything.

Including this ridiculous bag of screws.

And so we called Angel, our amazing handyman who was going to be here installing the new garbage disposal. Sure, no problem, he said on the phone.

He laughed when he saw it. But he's a great sport. I fed him warm, fresh baked cobbler to ease the irritation. Three hours later, he was finished. It would have taken me two days.

So now the room is finished!

It may be my crowning achievement of motherhood.

After I put the tree on the wall, I stepped back and ... teared up!

I had finally done something perfectly. For once. Which made me feel much better about all my failings as a mother: working full-time, not being a kindergarten room parent, not sewing, skipping pages while reading bedtime stories, all my foot stomping and exasperated, exaggerated sighs.

I'm going to add crown moulding and then it will beyond reproach. I may win Mother of the Year! And I imagine that will buy at least a couple years' worth of stomping my feet and sighing.

Natalie likes her room. She had just one adjustment to make, and that was to the dresser top. Now, it's juuuust right.

Call me

Yesterday when I picked up Natalie from school we were walking toward the car when she remembered something.

"Wait, Mama!"

She darted back into her classroom, reached into her cubby and came running to me, her cardigan falling from her shoulder and with a piece of paper in hand.

"Fahd's phone number," she explained, picking up her princess back pack.

"Let me see."

I wanted to snatch it from her and ball it up and throw it over the fence and yell: No no no no you are not calling a boy, you are not calling anyone, you are too too young!!!

But I calmly held out my hand and smiled.


Sure enough. There was his number.

At least it wasn't on a matchbook.

Now that this note has been memorialized here, the paper is in its rightful place: the wastebasket.

And nothing against Fahd, who is a very sweet boy and would probably make a fantastic boyfriend in 20 years. Which is about when I will let Natalie make a phone call.

The Baby Bag

Baby Miss Ann in the Baby Bag

I spent my lunch hour today taking Baby Miss Ann over to Daddy's House. She had been waiting patiently in my car in the front seat, tucked into the Baby Bag which also was carrying Natalie's and BMA's matching cherry sundresses, a princess early reader book, a pair of hot pink sparkle shoes and about 25 tiny princess dolls and their outfits. All of life's necessities.

I was on the phone with my dad in the car.

"I'm taking BMA to Matt's," I said.

"Such is life after a changed relationship," he said.

I decided I'd never be the divorced parent who sent her kid to school with a bag of belongings for her days away at the other parent's house. I'd always make things easy on Natalie. This, afterall, was my problem. Not hers.

So every Thursday, in preparation for Natalie's stay with her dad, Natalie and I drop BMA and the Bag at Daddy's. Mostly in the mornings before school, so he can run out and give her a kiss and crack a few jokes. The dog normally comes outside, too, and he bounces around the yard and maybe even lets loose a howl.

But this morning I was running late. So at lunchtime I drove up from Downtown to University Heights and hung the Bag on the boat parked in the driveway. And then I said a quick little prayer asking God not to let the crazy guy from around the block steal Baby Miss Ann.

I would much rather hang the Bag on the back door, protected by a locked back gate. But I no longer have a key.

Such is life after a changed relationship.

The best mother - comma - ever

On Easter Sunday Natalie wrote a note to Baby Miss Ann.


I have two things to say about this letter.

1. Natalie is really into commas. (Two weeks ago it was question marks, e.g. this recent sentence: The frog is in the mom's purse?)

2. She is going to be an excellent mother.