Internet, I need you to be my girlfriend right now, the one who invites me over on Friday night to have a glass of wine and talk about how, sometimes... not all the time... but occasionally... and at times frequently... husbands can be complete idiots.

I really appreciate it. When I'm done I'll let you tell me about how awkward it is when your boss tries to say certain words that get muddled by the botox that has been freshly injected into her upper lip.

Yesterday afternoon on the half-hour drive home from my mother's house Jon and I were talking about what our dream house would look like, and luckily we're pretty much on the same page. If we could aim for the stars it'd be a modern masterpiece with glass walls and slick lines, and we'd each have our own office so that I could play my Debbie Gibson collection and he could play jazz. Not that there's anything wrong with listening to jazz. Other than it makes playing in heavy traffic seem like a less painful activity.

I was suggesting a certain facade that he couldn't wrap his head around, so I grabbed a pen to draw my idea. Please pay attention to the previous sentence, because it lies at the crux of this story. That pen. The pen that I grabbed. A grievous and heinous gesture. I bet Hitler didn't even grab pens.

That pen happened to be the one we use to keep track of our mileage, the one tucked inside the tiny notebook that lists all the business errands we run and whatnot. And after drawing a beautiful diagram of a giant wall of sliding glass doors, I lost my mind and dropped that pen into my purse. I mean, who does that? Can you believe the nerve?

Fast forward to this morning, a Monday morning, one wherein our oldest child decided it'd be a perfect time to imitate a glacier. In fact, I think she's still down in her room right now getting ready. I should probably alert her teachers that we'll be there in, oh, 15 million years. Less if China doesn't cut its carbon emissions.

Wasn't a good morning, no, and getting her out the door is something we all need to work on. All of us, we know this, but sometimes we lose our cool. And I thought neither Jon nor I had really stepped over the line until two minutes after Marlo and I kissed the both of them goodbye when it sounded like Jon had driven the car through a giant glass structure filled with scrap metal and chickens.

I quickly built a pillow fortress around Marlo on the floor, ran to the garage, and there was my husband, harried and squiggly lines shooting out from his head like lightning bolts, a giant, white seven-inch by thirty-six-inch piece of plastic pinned underneath the front wheel of the car. I couldn't tell if he had taken out a part of the refrigerator? Part of the storage system? Was that dry wall? Except I couldn't ask him anything because those squiggly lines had grown hands, reached across the garage and were strangling me.

So. What follows is an abbreviated version of his side of things:

Jon's normal routine is to start the car, and while his foot is still on the break he shifts it into reverse. Then he reaches for the pen and notebook to write down the mileage. Once that number has been recorded, he can then quickly back out of the garage and head for school.

Except, there was no pen. Remember? Someone had removed that pen from the car. And I guess this offense was so odious that HE FORGOT THE CAR WAS IN REVERSE, opened the door in an effort to go inside and get a pen, and next thing you know HALF OF THE CAR DOOR IS BEING RIPPED OFF. BY THE OTHER CAR IN THE GARAGE.

So now one car is missing part of the driver's side door, and the other car looks like someone mistook it for a fast pitch. You want to know why? Because I grabbed that pen.

Because I grabbed that pen.

I will completely accept full blame for this accident if I can be there when he tells the guy fixing the door EXACTLY what happened.

Dear Leta,

Yesterday was your sixth birthday. That's 72 months if I had been keeping up with the monthly newsletters. Yeah, about that... your father and I severely underestimated the amount of chaos a second child would add to all of our lives. It didn't just double it, it multiplied it by a hundred and then tripled that number. We now consider it a good day if we can remember to get you out of the door with your shoes on. They don't always match what you're wearing, but hey, cut us some slack. We haven't ever forgotten to pick you up from school. Yet.

So let's start there. School. AND SO IT BEGINS. I remember the last exam I took in the last class I had in college and the feeling afterward being unlike anything I could describe, like I'd just been let out of a prison I had been in since I was five years old. Welcome to that prison. Only it's worse! You have to take tests and earn good grades! At least in prison you can write on the walls and hit people!

You know, when your father and I sat down and thought about having kids, I never really considered that I was going to have to live through school all over again. But here I am getting up early with you, making sure you're there on time, worried about whether or not you're meeting your goals, and preemptively throwing up at the thought of the physics exam you're going to take in eleventh grade.

Maybe because you are a lot like me, you like to perform things well, and if you accidentally write an S backwards you tear up the piece of paper, pull out a fistful of hair, and declare that you'll never be able to write another letter right ever in the rest of your life. I SO UNDERSTAND. This frustrates your father to no end, and in moments like this I have to step in because I know exactly how you are feeling. It's called the We're All Going To Die Homeless And Alone Spiral. I am the valedictorian of it.

One fantastic thing about kindergarten is how it has made you much more interested in physical activity, and whenever it's my turn to pick you up from school you want us to take a certain route to the car, the one through the playground where there is a hopscotch grid on the sidewalk. In fact, yesterday you took off on one foot, and as I tried to follow right behind, you whipped around, held out your hand and said, "STOP. YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR THIS."

I was recounting this story to your father, and he said, "Let me guess, you then jumped perfectly through that hopscotch grid to show her that you were the valedictorian of hopscotch." Well, DUH. You can't just call me old IN FRONT OF TWO OTHER MOTHERS and expect me to go down like that. I would have ended my routine with two back hand springs if I'd known I wouldn't end up in a full-body cast.

You're thriving in school, making a lot of new friends, and sometimes you can't wait to get in the car and head off in the morning, you're that excited. I know this will change soon, and that's why I'm pointing it out now. Our little geek likes school! And I say that with all the love and pride a geek mother can muster. Just this week you have been begging, pleading, dropping to the floor and wrapping your arms around your father's leg, "PLEASE! PLEASE TAKE ME TO THE LIBRARY! There are so many books there that I haven't read!"

This year you got to meet your little sister, and on my death bed when someone asks me to talk about the moments in life that were most surprising, I will talk about how much you adore and fawn over that baby. You have to understand, we were scared. No, terrified of what your reaction to her would be. Because it's been two years since we brought Coco home, and you still refuse to look at her.

But you immediately took to Marlo and ever since her birth have been very occupied with where she is, and is she okay, and HELP HER! SHE IS CRYING! You run to her the moment you get home from school, get on the floor beside her, and try everything you can to make her giggle. You kiss her goodbye and goodnight. You love to bring us diapers and wipes. And when one of her diapers is filled with poop, you're always quick to point out that if she would just do it the right way, she could have a handful of M&M's! GET ON IT, BABY.

I love that you love your sister. It is an inspiration unlike any other in life.

Leta, you've grown up so much this last year. Your arms are longer, your hands are bigger, there is no baby fat left in your face. You're no longer an infant or a toddler or a preschooler. And even the label Kindergartner doesn't quite do you justice. You're a full on kid.

A kid.

One full of stories and ideas and imaginary hour-long soap operas between your Barbies. One who still goes OUT OF HER MIND at the thought of a sleepover with her cousins, that is just the best thing ever in the world that could happen. You are full of superlatives: the best in the world this, the most horrible thing ever that. You also have the emotional intelligence and ability to wield it like someone twice your age. Like, totally and completely, your life is ruined because we dared to move your dollhouse to the other side of the room.

And yet, your innocence is magical. You are still unweathered by all the crap that life will eventually dump on your head, and that is another thing I never factored in when deciding to have kids. That I would get to see the world through that innocence again, because I don't really remember what it was like. It's something your father and I have to remind each other to bask in at times when we're frustrated and seriously, CAN YOU PLEASE JUST GET IN THE DAMN CAR. Because you're not thinking about traffic or why congress is one huge mess or how much that airline ticket is going to set you back. You're thinking, I cannot wait to get to school and show my kids these new shoes!

And I have to agree, your kids are going to be BLOWN AWAY. Those are the best shoes in the whole world ever.

Love,
Mama