Three Years Old

Dear Asher,

The other day, you, Rami, Nesi and I were snuggling on the couch while Nesi ate and we all watched a movie.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw your little eyelids drooping, then your sweet head trying its mightiest to stay up.  You fell fast asleep there, wedged between the arm of the couch and your sister's bottom.

As I hoisted you into my arms for the trip upstairs and to your bed, your arms automatically wrapped around my shoulders.  I noticed that your feet dangled nearly to my knees now.
My mind flashed back to the first weeks of your life, when, if I held you like this, your toes would brush my waist.

  Over the past week, I have sat down several times to write this post, and become discouraged when my heart tends toward the melancholy.  I realized that I am a mother whose children are growing at what I'm certain is a pace quicker than is possible. Birthday blog posts tend to focus on "firsts" - first smiles, first teeth, first words, first steps. These things are simple to mark, very exciting, filled with pride.  But "lasts?"  We don't often pause to think of these until they have gone by, perhaps years after the fact.

With your head resting sleep-heavily on my shoulder, I wondered -  

Is this the last time I will carry this boy, fast asleep, up the stairs for a midday nap?  

If it was, how would I know?  And, given that my head, schedule, and arms were all full to the brim at that moment, how would I mark the occasion, even if I had known?

Your first three years have flown by.  I am convicted that there is so much more I could have absorbed out of your babyhood, so many more sweet moments I could have gleaned from it, had I only been less exhausted from school and work, less busy with the house, less preoccupied with everything, less worried about the future, less transitory, and certainly less pregnant with your brother and sister.  But now, to be sure, you are no longer a baby.  (You will tell anyone who asks - you are a Big Boy.)  Any "lasts" have long since passed, and wait for me to discover them only as I notice the holes they have left.

I am not writing this letter for you.  At least, not you now.  I write it for myself, certainly, but also for a future you who I pray experiences this exact same curiously joyful heartache.  To raise a bonafide child up from a  helpless infant leaves spaces in your heart that hold the promise of being filled by some as-yet-unknown substance. To believe this, and to hold it as a comfort, requires tremendous faith.


Some of those spaces are beginning to be filled - your reluctance to walk into your preschool classroom has shifted to indifference, and, now, eager anticipation.  Surprisingly, hearing "I want to go to school." brings me just as much joy as the guilty pleasure of a little boy who doesn't want to part from me at the schoolroom door.

You no longer need me in the middle of the night, but something tells me that my presence will become indispensable at some other crucial time of day - after school, perhaps, and later, staying up to see you home at curfew to let you know that it does matter to me that you are safe and sound at home.
Less and less, you require my attention during the day.  You've learned to amuse yourself with your little brother, your best friend and tackle buddy.  Soon, I know, you'll be gone from the house in the afternoons and on weekends, sharing meals and secrets with school friends.  (Rami, I pray, will never be farther from your heart than your closest friends, no matter what your age.)


You are able to make good decisions for yourself more often. You know you shouldn't throw your food on the floor.  You have learned  that standing on the back of the couch is not worth the risk.  Though the ability to judge right from wrong, and safe from unsafe, will develop far more as you experience the world outside our little home, I know that the training and influence you received within its walls will be the biggest things that made it possible.

You are learning to be a good Jew.  You know that God gives us our food and everything that we own.  You know that extraordinary events, such as hearing thunder, are marked with a blessing.  You are overjoyed when Shabbat starts.  You recognize that the day is special, and that it is a part of who you are.  You ask to say your "Modeh" every morning and your "Shema" every night, and you join in the words of the prayer when Abba or I say them.  More and more, you know how being a Jew affects your day-to-day life.


You are learning how to love - how to be a good son and brother.  Now you know, for example, that tears, whether in my eyes or Rami's or Nesi's, are helped by a kiss and a hug, and you eagerly oblige.  Your capacity and desire to care for others makes my heart sing, and I know that you will create and hold onto loving relationships wherever your life takes you.


You are learning how to have fun.  When I inflate an air mattress, you jump on it.  When we play outside in your little pool and I drench you with water, you understand that it is a well-meant gesture, and readily play along, continuing the game.  When you see a vaccuum cleaner sitting idle, you flip it on its belly and make it into a horse.  Your talent for finding joy in everyday life is deepening day by day.




I am sad to see you growing up and away from me.  I am delighted because I can see, so very clearly, that each year, though you get farther from babyhood, you are going somewhere incredible. 
 

I'm so proud of you, my sweet boy, and I love you so very much.

Happy Birthday.

Love, 
Ima