Sawyer Scares

Dear Sawyer,

You keep scaring me, little man! I was blending smoothies the other day when I suddenly felt something leaning against my leg and nearly jumped out of my skin. It was you! I hadn't heard you walk into the kitchen over the sound of the blender.

Later that afternoon, Daddy took GuhGaw and JieJie out so I was home with just you and MuiMui. After I changed MuiMui's diaper, the house was eerily quiet and I couldn't find you anywhere. I looked in all of the rooms upstairs and then went downstairs. It was still so quiet and I thought to myself, "Sawyer, PLEASE don't jump out and scare me!" I called out your name and then heard your voice coming from GuhGaw's room: "Come look for me." You were hiding under GuhGaw's desk! Maybe the next time you want to play hide-and-seek, you tell me first?

Then last night, two hours after I had put you to bed, I was walking up the stairs when aaaaggghhh! There you were, standing sleepy-eyed at the top of the stairs. I was so startled, my chest actually tightened.

Cut it out! :-P

Love,
Mom

Dino Expert

Dear Sawyer,

You are such a dinosaur expert! You have a lot of dinosaur books and love watching "Dino Dan," so you enlighten me with new dinosaur facts every day. And I love that you can pronounce the trickiest of dinosaur names when even I can't! I was reading your newest dinosaur book to you the other day when I got to a dino called a quetzalcoatlus. I was stumbling on the name and saying, "Quetza . . ., quetzacoa . . ., quetzal--" when you cut me off and pronounced it perfectly: "ket-za-co-atlus." I asked you how you knew that and you chirped proudly, "Dino Dan!"

You are also an expert at cheering me up! I was upset with GuhGaw the other day because he was not listening to me, so you hugged me and said, "I'm hugging you to make the badness go away." Then today, you scurried around my room and organized everything. You put my slippers right next to the bed, pushed my chair under my desk and lined up my lotion bottles neatly on my nightstand. You told me, "I make your room organized for you."

Thank you, sweetheart!

Love,
Mom

Bottle Mix-Up

Dear Sawyer,

Sweet and funny things you have said and done recently:

- I made chocolate pudding and when you tried it, you said "It's sweet like Mommy."

- Right before bedtime a few nights ago, you were standing on your chair when you slipped off and hit your face on some Keva Planks that were on the floor. You were thankfully okay and your eye looked fine but the area above your eye was starting to puff up, even though we had immediately applied ice. I told you that you would probably have a black-and-blue bruise in the morning. When you woke up the next morning, the first thing you did was race into my bedroom and ask me frantically, "Do I have black and blue? Do I have black and blue?" I was still groggy and didn't even know what you were talking about initially. You did have a couple smallish brown marks above your eye but fortunately not a bruise.

- You were telling me about a show you watched about Jackie Robinson and said, "At the end, they were nice to him. And at the really end, they shared milk and cookies."

- An hour after you went to bed last night, I heard you crying and went into your room to check up on you. When I got there, you sleepily got out of bed, walked over to your dresser, picked up your lotion bottle and started to put it to your mouth. I grabbed it and handed you what had been next to the lotion bottle and what you had intended to pick up--your water bottle!

Love,
Mom

Big Brain

Dear Sawyer,

I am always impressed with your amazing memory. I will tell you something in passing and you will remember it and recount it to me exactly months later (yet when I ask you what you learn in school every day, you can't remember, even when I ask you as soon as you get home from school!). You showed off your memory skills yet again today when you were washing your hands in the bathroom and randomly brought up the story I told you about how after a really big blizzard in Pittsburgh one year, Uncle Tony and I opened his bedroom window and broke off a giant icicle that had been hanging right outside of it. I took pictures of Uncle Tony holding the icicle and it melted all over his carpet. When PoiPoi discovered the wet carpet later, she was not pleased--especially since we were both in our 20s and she said we were "too old" to be goofing around like that (uh, you're never too old to goof around!). I don't even recall telling you that story (my memory is clearly not as good as yours!) so I must have done so a long time ago and when you brought it up today, I said, "Wow, I can't believe you remember that story." You replied, "Yeah. I'm small but my brain is big!" Hahaha! Can't argue with you there!

Love,
Mom

Unbroken Heart

Dear Sawyer,

JieJie was upset tonight because GuhGaw had been mean to her yet again (ugh, sibling rivalry), so I was talking to her about it and trying to comfort her. I told her, "It breaks my heart when he hurts your feelings." You were playing with your cars nearby and when you heard this, you came over to me, hugged me and said, "I'll connect your heart for you." How sweet is that?! And when I asked you to get a tissue for JieJie, you not only got one but insisted that you be the one to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. You also hugged her and said, "I'll be nice to you." Thank you, sweetie, for always being so loving and caring!

Love,
Mom

Deleted Statement

Dear Sawyer,

I love the ways you phrase your thoughts. A recent example: You came into my room and declared, "I love Mommy the most!" But then you wanted to whisper it in my ear instead, so you said, "Wait, I want to say it as a secret. I deleted the other one." How cute is that?

Love,
Mom