Dear

Dear Clark, Today I lowered myself over you while you were just in your diaper on your back in our bed. My love for you was so potent at that moment that no one could possibly understand it. Yet, as I smothered you with kisses from shoulder to shoulder, you gave me the most knowing, grateful look and coo. You understand my love. The cloth diaper you were wearing had been worn by your brother, but you wear everything so differently. You wear life differently. You are teaching me that the wild love and span of emotions I have experienced with our first two children was apparently limited, and that you - in your uniqueness- have the capacity to stretch that love.

Dear Vivian, This morning I witnessed you read a book with such a degree of fluency and comprehension that you were able to laugh at it. All alone, while the morning chores bustled around you. You read a regular children's book aloud and chuckled knowingly at subtle combinations of humor in the wording and pictures. I am excited to have a child who will gain as much pleasure from the written word as her parents, and I look forward to sharing good reads with you for decades to come.

Dear Seth, Today we brought you home three pair of Bob the Builder underpants in anticipation of potty-training. You struggled to get on your favorite pair of the three, and once you did they were totally inside out. Nonetheless, you stood up and proclaimed, "I like Daddy." Which means "I AM like Daddy." Although we are pushing that concept hard in order to inspire peeing in the potty, the idea of losing my joyous golden toddler into boyhood and later manhood is heart-wrenching to me. There is something very particular about raising a child of the opposite sex.