Heading to Garden

Dear Sawyer,

JieJie has loved her time at Garden School, so when it came time for you to apply to middle school, it was a no-brainer that you would also submit an application to Garden. Knowing how much work is needed for the application (four essays, an interview and a merit exam), I had you start your essays and interview prep last summer. You wrote many, many drafts and spent many, many hours preparing answers for possible interview questions and rehearsing them. I know it wasn't fun and I know it was a bummer whenever you had free time and I barked at you to use that free time to work on your Garden application (especially as the deadlines began to loom closer) but you never complained (openly to me, anyway) and responsibly did what you had to do. And all that perseverance paid off because you received your acceptance letter from Garden School last night!!! You're in!!!

When JieJie received her acceptance letter, we handed her the letter and threw blue and white confetti (Garden's school colors are blue and white). I did the same for you this morning and when you realized that you'd been accepted, you cried and gave me a long (relieved?) hug. I'm so proud of you, Sawyer! I am so happy that you will be following in JieJie's footsteps and I hope that you also love your time at Garden!

Love,

Mom

Waterworks

Dear Sawyer,

Last night was supposed to be a chill night. Daddy had cooked a lot of food on Sunday, so there were plenty of leftovers and I didn't have to cook. I didn't need to do dishes and I didn't have laundry to do. I was going to just heat up dinner, shower early, put you guys to bed and hop into my own bed before my goal bedtime of 10:45pm. That did not happen.

After you and MeiMei came home from school and showered, I went downstairs to wash your glasses. As I reached the bottom step, I heard streaming water and got annoyed--I thought you or MeiMei had left the foyer bathroom faucet running, as you guys have done in the past. Something was off, though, because it sounded like a lot of water. I realized the sound was coming from the study and when I went to it, I was greeted by the sight of water pouring out of every light socket and gushing down the walls. Oh. My. GOD. I screamed your name and when you came downstairs, you and MeiMei looked as shocked as I felt. You grabbed a roll of paper towels from the kitchen but it was futile--water was gushing down everywhere and it wasn't stopping. I don't even know why, but I attempted to wipe up the water on the table. My towel was instantly saturated, though, and more water was just falling onto the table anyway. I told you to check if there was water in your room or the attic and there wasn't. But when I went into Daddy's office bathroom, I could hear a very violent gush of water flowing behind the wall. I called Daddy and he told me how to shut off the main water valve in the basement. Once I did that, the water stopped pouring into the study but oh my god, everything was soaked. A section of the basement was also soaked and there were about two inches of water on the basement floor. I. Can't. Even.

It's been brutally cold this past week (the temperatures were in negative digits and it was actually warmer in ANTARCTICA than it was here, what?!) so the pipes in Daddy's bathroom froze and then cracked. When the weather "warmed up" today (it went all the way up to 32 degrees--I know, I know!), the ice in the pipes melted and then gushed out of the crack.

Daddy came home and the rest of the night was a flurry of me trying to find an emergency plumber and Daddy cleaning up the lake that had accumulated in the basement. Luckily, Daddy's friend Rich is a contractor and he sent his guy out to our house within 15 minutes of me calling him. I am so so so grateful to Rich, because I called a dozen other plumbers, too, and none of them could come that quickly, if at all. And time was of the essence because with no water, we couldn't wash our hands, shower or flush the toilet. The plumber worked efficiently and when I put you and Second GuhGaw to bed (much later than usual, at about 9:45pm), I said that I hoped that when you guys woke up in the next morning, everything would be fine. And thank goodness, it was! The plumber cut a hole in Daddy's bathroom wall, removed the broken pipe (btw, the crack was about the size and length of two of my thumbnail tips--tiny! How so much water came rushing out of such a small opening, I'll never know), replaced it and patched up the wall in a couple of hours. He was done around 11pm and Daddy, JieJie and GuhGaw were finally able to shower and go to bed.

We were very lucky. Lucky to get a plumber here so quickly, lucky that the water damage was contained to a small section of the house that had the least amount of our furniture and belongings, lucky that we are all okay. Our books and a lot of your and your siblings' old artwork and projects were soaked but at least it was with clean water and we don't have to trash everything.

We are also lucky because we have so many friends who tried to help. I reached out to a lot of people and they all immediately sent me plumber contacts or offered to do things like bring us water or even let you guys stay at their houses. I think you and MeiMei were grateful but also a little disappointed that everything was fixed this morning, since that meant you no longer had to sleep over your friends' houses, haha!

Whew! Let's hope that's the most chaotic night we get for a long time!

Love,

Mom

Lazy Day

Dear Sawyer,

JieJie is usually very helpful but sometimes she is also tired and cranky, so when you are packing up your school things in the morning, she doesn't always assist, even if you ask her to. The other morning was one of those tired-and-cranky mornings for her, so when you asked her to help you put folders and things in your backpack, she just stared at you. And so you snapped, "Oh, I see you decided to be lazy today." Hahaha! I'm not used to hearing such sass from you!

Love,

Mom

Only Human

Dear Sawyer,

A few months ago, I took you to see Brandon Stanton's Dear New York exhibit in Grand Central Terminal. Several of your classmates' written profiles were featured in the art installation, so you really enjoyed seeing them, as well as the other profiles that were showcased. As such, I bought Stanton's book, Humans of New York: Stories, for you for Christmas. You were excited when you opened it and eagerly read it over two days. I did not screen the book, however, and did not know how, um, mature some of the profiles in it are, so I spent those two days fielding questions from you that included: "What does 'getting high' mean? How do you pronounce marij-u-ana?" Oh, and my personal favorite: "Mama, what is a rapist? What does it mean when this woman said she's scared to face her rapist?" Holy crap.

Love,

Mom

Sweet Thanks

Dear Sawyer,

I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner last night when you brought in your dishes and told me, "Mama, thank you for everything that you do for us." Honestly, it took me by surprise because your comment seemingly came out of nowhere but I appreciated it so much. Thank you, sweetie!

Love,

Mom

Favorite Person

Dear Sawyer,

When we said good night tonight, you told me, "You're my favorite person in the whole world. I'm so glad you're my mama." Oh, my sweet little boy. I love you so much and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for making me feel so special.

Love,

Mom

You're Ten Years Old!

Dear Sawyer,

When I think about you, the first thing I think about is your laugh. When you think something is funny (and that something often involves potty humor, haha), you emit peals of laughter that are so full of glee that they always make me laugh, too. If something is *really* funny, you even fall out of your chair as you erupt into a fit of giggles. Over the past 10 years, I have delighted in your laughs so many times and today, on your 10th birthday, I wish you a long lifetime full of laughter. Happy birthday, Baby Bear!

I can't believe that I have already been your mom for an entire decade. "One decade" sounds like such a long amount of time but this past decade with you has been anything but. I still vividly remember the night you were born . . . being able to cradle you with one arm . . . watching you pull yourself up to standing for the first time . . . taking pictures of you on your first day of nursery school . . . feeling so proud as I watched you learn how to ride a bike. And now you're this big, independent kid. You get yourself ready for school, you do your homework on your own, you don't need me to fill up your water bottle or pack your snacks. And yet, you're still my little boy. You still hold my hand when we go out. You still like to do our nighttime routine every night. You still ask if we can hang out together. Life is busy and we don't always get a lot of Sawyer-Mama time, but I'm grateful when we do and that it still means a lot to you.

When we do get to spend time together, you like to play Trivial Pursuit and Life. You also like to go hiking and biking with me. With Daddy, you like to watch Mets games (the two of you even traveled down to Florida this year to watch spring training) and garden. With your siblings, you like to set up a "town" in the play attic and pretend you run different shops. When you're on your own, you like to build Lego creations, work on jigsaw puzzles and read, read, read! You have read all of the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson novels, like the City Spies and Spy School series, look forward to each new Wings of Fire book and have spent many a night reading and rereading old Calvin & Hobbes comics (those always get a bunch of laughs out of you!). You also have a subscription to The Week Junior, a kids' newsmagazine that JieJie also used to read, and you like it so much that you sit down and read the whole thing from cover to cover as soon as a new issue arrives in the mail!

I am so proud of the person you are. You are considerate and always ask me how my day was and if I slept well the night before. You are helpful and often ask me if I need help with dinner or laundry. You are thoughtful and do things like hold doors open for people and share your snacks with your friends. You are intelligent and always interested in learning about new things. You are insightful and good at analyzing how things could be instead of just how they are. You are creative and make really cool builds out of Legos and Keva planks. You are artistic and draw amazing pictures with lots of intricate details. You are funny and love to tell Dad jokes. You have so many incredible qualities and I love being your mom!

Happy birthday, my sweet Sawyer! I love you so much!

Love,

Mom