Dear Adele,

For Easter, you and your brother Ian each got a present from your Aunt Dottie: a white stuffed lamb and a big gray bunny. You were indifferent to both. Your brother, though, loved the bunny. The morning after Easter, he had folded it into his collection of stuffed animals and determined its place around his pillow. He also wanted to adopt the lamb, but we explained that it belonged to you, that you’d share it with him in the future.

The days since Easter have been passing fast–good thing, as I am so damned tired all the time from working and raising you that I have actually taken naps on my office floor. When you become as tired as I am, as your father is, you cry hard and loud and insist on being put to bed. The rest of us should follow your lead. Parents in this country work way too hard because we sort of have to. And so I’ve been tired with anger about this, too, in some way, all the time.

But then I sit with you on the bed while you hold your little starfish and your little fishy and then hand each one to me, fascinated by the process of giving something to someone, of the power in your fingers to hold something and then release it. Back and forth, we pass the toy. Back and forth. You laugh and smile. Back and forth. While we play, Ian takes his giant afternoon nap (thank you god). And I kiss you constantly and can’t wait for Ian to wake up so we can all play together. 

Your father does the same things.   He holds you and your brother, loves you, kisses you, holds your hands, reads to you, spends lots of time with you.  He nurtures you.  Your father is a contented man, Adele, generally–contented and rational (why he married me I don’t know).  But ever since we had children, he has become even more contented.  I can feel his sense of fulfillment all the time; he doesn’t hide it or mask it.  It makes him, in my eyes, more of a man.

A few days ago, Ian lost his gray bunny. You were asleep, taking your very short morning nap, and your brother and I were playing in his room so we wouldn’t wake you up. I tiptoed into the kitchen and found his bunny on the filthy kitchen floor, which is always filthy (oh well–good parents don’t always have clean homes), brushed it off, and took it to him.

“Oh, my bunny! My bunny!” he said, holding the it to his cheek, hugging it. “I missed my bunny so much!”

I sat down in the recliner we keep at the window in Ian’s room–a Designated Reading Chair. Ian sat on the floor by his bed and sat the bunny against the wall. “I love my bunny! Mommy, mommy, look! My bunny!”

“Yes, Ian, I see! I’m so glad we found it.”

“I love my bunny,” said Ian, holding it again, cradling it.  “I’m a daddy.”

“What did you say, Ian?”

“I’m a daddy.  I’m a daddy.”

And this is how it should be, Adele.  Little boys should hold things and love things and call themselves daddies.  Parenting is not female territory.  And your wonderful, affectionate, loving father, because he is affectionate and loving, has taught Ian what a daddy is and what a daddy should be.  I have never in my life seen a little boy  hold anything and call himself a daddy–not in our world of Doll versus Baseball Glove.

Do you know what this means, Adele?  It means that love can transcend bullshit.  Really.  I was so proud of your brother and your father that I nearly wept.  So these are the males you’ll be growing up with.  They love you, and each other.  They will teach us all.

I love you.

Mommy