Backpackers

Halina and Daddy hit the road today for a daddy/daughter overnight backpacking trip -- her first ever. They left from Truckee for Milk Lake, with a possible side excursion to Island Lake (such enticing names). She has a borrowed kid pack with a frame and everything, and is carrying her own clothes and gear for the couple miles to and from camp. It's late now and I wonder how she's sleeping. It was so sweet saying goodbye to her and knowing that, even though everything will be okay, and even though she will be right back here tomorrow, it was a little-big goodbye -- in miniature. And it helped me to just see her coltish, golden braided, kind-hearted, gentle adventurer self with all my attention.

You're five

Dear Luke,

It finally happened, you turned the big aught-cinco.

Luckily, although you are not as chubby and pint-sized as you were before, you are just as cuddly. Maybe more cuddly than ever.

I love that sometimes (often) your eyes are more green than blue. Sometimes olive, sometimes like a blue-green spruce.

I love the things you say. Like tonight you said that you imagined Emperor Palpatine as having one hundred and fifty five wrinkles (Daddy is telling you and Halina the Star Wars trilogy in episodic bedtime stories). And I found a note from February when you asked me, "Will I forget this day someday?" Maybe not, I said. And you said, "I will forget it before I die. I just know it."

I love the way you make me and Halina laugh because we enjoy you and love you so much. We delight in your creative, curious, wonderful ways. You make us giggle.

I love the way you like to learn. That you follow mazes with your fingers, not cheating around the one-dimensional bends. That you know cheetahs are the fastest land animals and peregrine falcons are the fastest in the sky, and that you want to understand how mountains are made.

I love the names you make for things. In the car the other day your name for something was "Cat Traffic." (That, as I may have mentioned, should be the name of your first album of improvisational post-modern piano solos. And "Robot Ears," "Mouses Jumping on a Trampoline," and "I Wish I Had a Hatchet" -- some of your awesome song titles from years past -- will be the hit tracks.)

I love how there's a little dancing in your run. And there always has been.

I love how you cry when you need to, then laugh soon after, and can insist on what you need.

I love how you hum when you work.

I love to watch you spend a long time looking at a book or painting with watercolor.

I love how you throw so far and jump so big and launch paper airplanes in the wind to marvel at their swoops and loops. I love how you play school and swimming lessons and puppy dogs and everything else with Halina. I love when you say "Are you okay?" and "Do you need an ice pack?" And "Oops, sorry."

And I love you when you're mad, because I totally get it.

I love how you say you are as fast as a bullet.

I love that you ask the hard questions, like how do people know that Santa Claus is the one who delivers the presents?

I love how you call Lucas R. your "best buddy" and how you love the color green because he does.

I love it, I'll admit, that I'm one of your favorite people in the whole world, that I can always make you smile and laugh, that I can always count on hugs and gentle pats and partnership from you. That you endlessly dispense kisses. That you can never have too much of being with me, of being my friend. It makes my life so wonderful. I'm so lucky to be your mommy.

Watching fireworks

From the tailgate, up late, while dog sitting. A good day. 

Happy fourth.