9.13.2013

Dear Merritt,


In the five months since you last received a letter, we have purchased a house, made it a home, and allowed a television crew to document the process for a national audience. On a scale of zero to solid, I give it a shaky six as far as excuses for not writing go. While we may not have been writing to you during the hiatus, we've definitely been writing about you.

So we present here a sort of laundry list of the arbitrary stuff that has fallen out of your mouth in the last 154 days.


"I can't borrow any more sleep." Or that day's excuse for why you didn't nap.

After wandering into the room naked, we asked what happened to your clothes, and you offered this completely logical explanation: "They were too comfy, so I took them off."

"'Diego' starts with 'D' and 'egg.'"

You delight in showing us your belly after a meal. "Look how much room I don't have!"

"I can clean messes up with my tongue." And then after some thought, "Wait. No. Not poop."


One evening we explained the water cycle to you. It was simple, but still scientific. Your take-away was something about how big giants stomp on tiny giants (and that makes rain?) and when Mommy asked where you learned that, your proud response was, "From science one time. I just taught me that science."

"Momma, when I was your age, you didn't know what to do." Merritt, that statement right there is what would have happened had M.C. Escher made sentences instead of lithographs.

I asked if you want to go to the grocery store with me to get some milk. "I need to work out tonight." I asked again. "Wellllllllllllll, after my workout."




(Singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat") "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is down the drain." Your renditions are often this sobering.

After finding something in your meal that you deemed crunchy/unacceptable, I told you it was just a fluke and to keep eating. You refused. "No. There are a lot of flukes in this."

"This is how I karate." Or the alternate, "I know how to karate. WATCH." All this despite the fact that you've never been schooled in the martial arts.

"Look! Cropty Duster!" Anytime you see DisneyPixar's Dusty Crophopper.


Cake's "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" came on the radio the other day and you listened intently as every line began with, "I want a girl with ..." About three-quarters of the way through the song you broke your silence and announced, "Well, he's not going to get one if he doesn't say 'please.'" Exactly, son.

"Mommy. 'Earmops,' please." After you heard me "earmuff" her while you and I were working on a surprise.


We ask you how many books you want us to read you or for how many more minutes you'd like to play or how many pieces of candy you'd consume in your wildest dreams. "Zero." Then we argue about how zero means nothing and you fight that "zero means a lot," then we argue some more that, okay, zero can mean a lot when you see it coming after a natural number (100 books, 1,000 more minutes of playing, 1,000,000 pieces of candy), then we ask again how many of whatever you want and you answer, "Zero."

A giant air vent was blowing down on you at Home Depot. "The wind is blowing my hair and it looks 'fablious.'" It really did.


"I need my baseball mitten."

You've been wandering around with an old, dead cell phone and randomly putting it to your ear and then yelling out "HELLO?" and from wherever we are in the house, we've been answering and having riveting phone calls with you. On a recent call, you asked us to come over to your house and when asked at what time you wanted us to join you, you sighed and said, "Maybe at six noon point." I can't be certain, but I don't think we showed up late.


Some of the time you spout the kind of nonsense that only we can "get." But other times you speak truths so huge and original and immediately universal that it's impossible to process.

"There is one heart and we all share it. It's a rainbow."

"I love you around your neck and under your panties and into outer space and by the sun and on the floor and it tangles everyone up."

Thank you, Merritt. For giving us daily rainbows. For sharing this one gigantic heart. For tangling us up in this crazy, wonderful, life-changing love.


Love,
Momma & Mommy

2 comments:

ClaireBear said...

ClaireBear needs to see this house/home when it's on TV. Details, please

Katie said...

We filmed an episode of "House Hunters" for HGTV. It should air sometime later this fall. We'll provide details when we have them!