This is the eleventh in a twelve-part series of letters written to our sons. I am very excited and honored to be working with an inspiring group of photographers as we document our complicated journeys as mothers of bold, brave, curious, thoughtful, affectionate, destructive, loud, perfectly imperfect boys. Next in the circle is the amazingly talented Jennifer James. Please read her letter HERE.
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To my son:
You certainly are enjoying your last summer of freedom before you start school this fall! You dig in the dirt almost every day, you pride yourself on collecting millipedes, potato bugs, worms, and a cute green inch worm. You keep building little habitats for them and bringing them all in the house so periodically I have to sweep through and liberate your captives. I tried to convince you to keep them in a large planter outside but you love them so much that you insist on checking up on them every five minutes, especially during dinner.
You heard the song, All my Friends are Insects, by Weezer for Yo Gabba Gabba, and it instantly became your favorite. Your papa used this as an opportunity to introduce you to the rest of Weezer’s song catalog and you two rock out.
You have an endless supply of energy. You’ve had several weeks of morning camp after which your sister and I greet you with a cream cheese and jam sandwich, fruit, water, and granola bars, and we go straight to a park or playground where you attempt dangerous feats of strength and fearlessness for a few hours before I force you off of the monkey bars to run an errand or go home at which time you get a mysterious burst of energy that you causes you to lose your mind and run around the house practicing parkour and other ninja moves. You get a similar burst of energy at bedtime. EVERY. NIGHT.
You couldn’t care less about sports or organized games, you are purely motivated by your imagination which is usually bouncing around between inventions, robots, knights, ninjas, and, most recently, teenage mutant ninja turtles. I’m old enough to remember the words to the theme song of the 1980s-90s cartoon so I can sing you the song and you are obsessed.
About 1000 times per day, you start a sentence with the words, “When I’m a grown up scientist…” and then you tell stories like this one, “…I’m going to have an underground lair and it’s not going to have a chimney so no one can sneak in and I’m going to have a science car and if the wheels deflate then they are going to fill back up with air automatically and it’s going to be a motorcycle and in the back it’s going to have a compartment that I’m going to fill with science beakers and then in the front it’s going to have a laser cannon but the cannon is going to fold up inside of the basket on the front and the lair is going to be under our house and there’s going to be a secret tunnel so that I can come up and see you every day.”
Sounds awesome.
Love,
Mama
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Please continue through the circle, starting with Jennifer James. To see all of my letters, please click HERE.
For one of my favorite images and camera settings on the daily project, click HERE or HERE for the entire daily project. To see a collection of my daily project images, please open the archive!
