Love Note

Yesterday, my son's teacher handed me a postcard-sized piece of paper and said, 'This is for your love note.'  I must have missed the briefing about love notes and looked at her blankly.  She had to clarify that this was a love note to Max for his graduation. Now, the whole concept of graduating from preschool is new to me.  Does Max become a post-grad before he even gets to Kindergarten? And a public love note for the occasion? Of course I love him, his curiosity, persistence, his stubbornness, his zeal; but how to write something that says I love you which isn't too saccarine and isn't going to leave me blushing when the other parents read it?  I suppose, in part, this blog is a public love note, so I really should be over that aspect of it. I put pen to paper and tried to write a little poem for my five year old. It needed to fit on a postcard and for lack of other entries on this blog (for which I'm sorry and I promise to improve) I'll share it with you here, hastily written but from the heart:

Love Note to Max, June 2011
Max in motion, always moving;
Jumping, spinning, climbing high,
Shifting dirt around the garden,
Dancing with a hue and cry...
That's until we go out walking -
Suddenly your legs are stiff,
Exercise is very boring,
When you've just reached 3 ft 6.
Trucks and diggers keep you busy,
Collecting driftwood, fallen sticks,
Then a subject seems to grab you,
Most recently it's sunken ships.
That's when the questioning gets serious,
What's an orlop? What's a deck?
How do you make an airtight chamber?
How indeed! How the heck?
How you love your little brothers,
Kiss them, hug them, hold their hands.
And they look to you for all things -
How to jump and where to land.
At night your bed is full of 'am-nals'
Dogs and bears, a cow or two
Every night the line-up's different -
But one thing's constant - we love you.