Riding Solo

Dear Lila,

We baked cookies a couple days ago and made so many that we packed some up and brought them to my friend this afternoon. While we were there, my friend asked me how I was and I said everything was good but that I just really miss my alone time; now that we are all home all the time, "me time" is pretty hard to come by. After we left my friend's house, you and I walked around the neighborhood for a bit--stopping to look at Halloween decorations and pick up some treats from a chocolate shop--before heading back to our house. I told you that I wanted to go biking and asked if you wanted to come with me. You politely said, "No, it's kind of hard to keep up with you . . . and I know you want alone time." Thank you for always being so thoughtful, sweetheart! I love you so much for it!

Love,

Mom

Rock the Vote

Dear Lila,

Your teacher asks you an attendance question every morning and this morning's question was, "What do you wish you were old enough to do?" You said other kids mentioned things like driving a car or getting a Metrocard. I asked you what you had said and you replied, "I said I wished I was old enough to vote." I LOVE that answer! #proudmom

Love,

Mom

Taking Attendance

Dear Lila,

You started online orientation for third grade this week (oh my god, you're in third grade!) and you are still the most dedicated student. Your second grade teacher used to post an attendance question on your Google Classroom stream every morning and you assumed your third grade teacher would do the same so you woke up early yesterday morning, signed onto the classroom . . . and freaked out when you didn't see an attendance question. You came running into my room saying, "Mama! There's no attendance question! She didn't post the attendance question!" I said it was the first day of orientation and your teacher would probably take attendance during the Google Meet call later that morning but you were clearly not convinced because you still look worried. I don't want you to be so anxious but I am proud of you for being so conscientious! I hope you have an amazing school year!

Love,

Mom

Early Bird

Dear Lila,

When you had to catch the bus to school, I would set your alarm for 6:20am but now that you have online school, you obviously don't have to get up that early. In fact, you don't have to get up early at all. I have told you this multiple times but yet you keep getting up early! You still pop out of bed shortly after 6am even though I no longer set your alarm.

Why? Your teacher posts an attendance question online each morning and students in your class have to answer it in order to be marked present for the day; you pride yourself on getting online even before your teacher and being the first one to answer the attendance question as soon as she posts it. When I spoke to your teacher over the phone for our parent-teacher conference yesterday, we talked about how responsible you are and how you still insist on waking up so early every day. Your teacher laughingly told you that she would beat you online one of these days and I said, "Now that you said that, Lila is going to wake up at 5:30am instead of 6:30am!" And guess what? That's exactly what you did this morning! You woke up at 5 freakin' 30 in the morning and posted "Good morning!" online at 5:35am. Your teacher and a few of your classmates later commented on and marveled at how early you were up and online!

And as someone who is the very opposite of a morning person and abhors getting up early, I do not understand you. And your current affinity for waking up at the crack of dawn is especially funny considering the fact that when you were in kindergarten, getting you out of bed for school was SO HARD. You would go to bed at 7pm and I'd wake you up at 7am and even after those 12 whole HOURS of sleep, you would groan and resist and keep trying to crawl back into bed. It got to the point where I made you sleep in your school clothes instead of pajamas because it took you sooooo long to get out of bed in the mornings. We are so not there anymore. Now you often wake me up in the mornings and I'm the one groaning about wanting to go back to sleep!

Love,
Mom

A Bang-Up Job

Dear Lila,

When PoiPoi picked you up from your bus stop this afternoon, she thought there was something different about you but she didn't know what it was. Daddy and I knew, though, as soon as we saw you--you cut your hair! You now have suuuuuuper short one-inch bangs in the middle of your forehead! Apparently, you were cutting paper in class for a project and you asked one of your classmates if she dared you to cut your hair. She said she did and well, snip snip. Your self-styled bangs are so short that I can't do anything to fix them; we'll just have to wait (a looooong time) for them to grow out!

Love,
Mom

You're Seven Years Old!

Dear Lila,

The other day, you suddenly started crying softly and I asked you what was wrong. You said you were thinking about how you would have to move out of our house when you're a grown-up and that the thought of it was making you sad. I hugged you and said you didn't have to worry about moving out for a long time. You're only 7! But then again, you're already 7! It's funny when you have kids, how they can simultaneously seem so little and so big at the same time.

This was obviously an exciting year for you because you have a new baby sister! Life with four kids is cuh-RAZY but I can always count on you to help me, whether it's getting towels for MuiMui's diaper changes or entertaining your sister so that she doesn't cry while I grab a load of laundry out of the machine. I love how you gaze adoringly at MuiMui, how excited you are when you get to hold her and how much you love her. MuiMui loves you, too, and smiles at you whenever she sees you.

You are such a good sister, to MuiMui and to both of your brothers. GuhGaw tends to pick on you a lot (ugh, older brothers) but you always do nice things for him, such as sharing your after-school snack or giving him the shell-shaped spoon we have (something you both covet whenever we have soup for dinner). Meanwhile, you and DiDi are still best buddies and play together so nicely. I often overhear you two pretending to run a restaurant together or imagining that you are in school together. On weekends, you still have sleepovers and sleep together in DiDi's bed. You definitely don't get much sleep and you said DiDi often hogs the blanket (haha!), but you guys love being together.

Your interests are still the same: reading (so much!), art projects (you go to art class every Saturday and love it), unicorns, dolls, wearing dresses and eating! You definitely have the biggest appetite of all of the kids and like so many different kinds of food. I love that you have such a sophisticated palette and that you enjoy everything from salmon sushi to roasted Brussels sprouts.

Happy birthday to my big little Lilabear!

Love,
Mom

Cute and Cuddly

Dear Lila,

Unsurprisingly, things have gotten a LOT busier with the arrival of your baby sister. She nurses every couple of hours and likes to be held (and cries when she is not), so I haven't been able to spend much time with you and your brothers. You have been incredibly understanding about that, though, and not at all jealous. I really appreciate that, along with the occasional moments the two of us do get to spend together.

Tonight was one of those moments--Daddy was holding MuiMui, your brothers were already in bed and it was still relatively early so I came into your room and said, "If you get into bed now, I can cuddle with you." Your face lit up, you jumped up and said, "Cuddle? YAY!" You ask me to cuddle with you a lot but I often can't because it's a school night and you need to go to sleep or I have housework I need to finish before it gets too late. I cuddle with you whenever I can, though, and I love our nighttime talks. It also makes me so happy that our cuddle time makes you so happy and seeing your joyful surprise over our unexpected cuddle tonight so warmed my heart. I hope we have many more cuddles in store!

Love,
Mom