It's Time for Another Heartfelt Letter

My dear sweet, beautiful children,

It's me again. Your mom...you know, the one who carried you at great physical cost to myself, the one who has now changed a combined total of six years' worth of your diapers, and who, more recently, has cleaned up a whole lot of the contents of your stomachs while trying to hold my own in. Yada yada yada, sacrifice, Mom loves us, she wants something, I know.

First, I would like to thank you for reading my earlier letter. Clearly you took it to heart. Because I am afraid to type your new collective wake-up time out loud for fear of jinxing it, I will just say here that I can barely wipe the grin off my face most mornings.

Now that I know just how successful these letters can be, I feel it is time for me to write you again with another topic that has been weighing on my heart. I want to start by asking you a question: Do you have any idea how adorable you all are? I mean it. You are all just as cute as Christmas. Just when I think you cannot get any more precious, you wake up the next morning even more so.

My fear, given that I cannot even remember what I fed you (or myself) for breakfast on any given morning, is that someday I might forget how stinking cute you all were. And I would really, really love a picture or two to remind me in my old age.

I have the sweetest pictures of each of you alone.

But I would so love one of all three of you...together...in the same place...looking at the camera at the same time...and smiling...or even pleasant...heck, I'd take content.

If Daddy and I could be in the picture with all three of you doing the above at the same time, my joy would know no bounds.

If -- I know I'm fantasizing here, but let me have my moment; this is my letter, after all -- all of the above took place and it was near or on a major holiday and we were all wearing coordinating or even just unstained, unrumpled clothing and could, maybe, just maybe, send out the picture in our Christmas card...I might just explode with happiness. I would probably never need to write you another heartfelt letter.

Your Grandma Betsy keeps telling me that one day my favorite pictures of you when you were little will be the goofy ones. The ones where you were all crying. The ones where someone yanked his pants up to his armpits just as the shutter clicked. The ones where someone was trying to pick someone else's nose. The ones where everyone was looking like trolls.

By those standards, I will have lots of favorites.

Libby the Christmas troll

Nothing going right here...
This is at least totally representative of us that summer

A possible submission for Awkward Family Photos

This year's awesome family picture at the tree farm

I'll be honest. It's December, and unless our photographer Beth comes through with a miracle when she returns our family pictures, I have pretty much given up on this year's Christmas card. But hope springs eternal, and 2010 is just about here with a whole new set of holidays and photo opportunities! Kids, let's make this our year. Let's get a family picture that one day your mother can look at and say, "Kind of a boring picture. But see how cute their little smiles were!"

Love,

Mom