Dear Will,

Another year. Another birthday. This birthday you turn 8!!!

 You are quite the character. The other night, Miles and I were watching videos of baby Will, and you have always, always been a jokester. Making faces for a laugh. This year, your timing and originality with jokes has really reached a new level. You often have us giggling or guffawing at the dinner table.

Your brilliant brain is used for good and also for evil. You haven’t quite figured out that punishments have gone away in our house. You have the most creative reasons for not doing things. “I’m full. Soft food makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. Can I have ice cream?” Brain. Explodes. From. This. Logic.

You are teetering on the edge of not wanting physical affection anymore. The other night I played a tickling game a lot longer than I wanted to just so I could stay cuddled up with you. Those times of physical closeness are fleeting now, slipping into the past as a new, more independent version of you emerges. But sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get an absent-minded hand holding as we cross a street or a request for a hug before the lights go out.

Dad feels like you’re grown. I feel like you’re still little. I know that you are also ambivalent about your position in the world – wanting both to reap the benefits of being the youngest who can’t really manage anything by himself and to be allowed the privileges of your older brother. You can’t have both a later bedtime and not be able to pour milk in your cereal bowl. Except some days you do get both. Some days, I’m happy to indulge your tendency toward needing help because I want to feel needed. And sometimes we let you stay up late because you are on the brink of being grown.

All I truly know is that I love you dearly, you add a good deal of joy to my life. You are nearly never the bane of my existence – 😊 “Mom said I’m annoying!!!” 😊

Love,

Mom