Jen Russum

Dear Zianne (Six Years)

Dear Zianne (Six Years)

Dear Zianne, I look across the room, and I see a big girl. None of your babyhood lingers. You have long legs and a tall, slender frame. Your mouth is missing all your front teeth as you laugh at sarcasm and jokes you wouldn't have understood just a year ago. It's been a year of learning. Learning to read. Learning to write. Learning to swing your body across the monkey bars. Learning to dive in the pool. Learning to unload the dishwasher. Learning to hang up your own clothes. The transition from baby to child is not always an easy one. You haven't napped in nearly two years, but every once in a while (often on a Friday at 4pm) you collapse onto your bed, filled with frustration and exhaustion. Sometimes I have to poke and prod you to wake up for dinner. You have been learning to read for the past year or so. Sometimes you sound out your words eagerly and amaze me as you fluently read an entire book, and other times you grow frustrated with vowels and consonants and refuse to finish even a page. Just like you, I am in transition too. I am learning how to be a big kid mom. I am learning how to grant freedom in the right measure while trying to discern how to create boundaries to keep you safe. I am learning to take a deep breath and show you how to fold your laundry or help in the kitchen instead of doing everything for everyone, as I did when babies were crawling and toddling around my house. You are not a baby any longer. You are a child with long, running legs and funny stories and hopes and dreams and interests emerging every day. It's a joy to watch you grow. Each year with you has been beautiful and, yet, each year is better than the last. Love, Mama ... Read more

Dear Talitha (Four Years)

Dear Talitha (Four Years)

Dear Talitha, You are four years old. Sometimes it seems like you can't be four yet, mainly because you are my most petite child and such a gentle little soul. But then I hear you explain an event of your day in a long, descriptive paragraph with quite a large vocabulary, and I blink and think, "She's really four!" You are the most tender of my children. The one I snuggle with every night. I delight in hearing your soft voice tell me the lows and highs of your day. You are the child I picture taking care of me when I am old. You are the most likely to run off and play by yourself, and you are sensitive to the actions of your peers. When other kids are loud or obnoxious or aggressive, you withdraw a bit and later report to me how so-and-so was chasing people on the playground at school. But you are not always shy. You and Zianne have become great playmates over the past year or so, and you interact with confidence when her older friends come over to play. You love church and Awana and your new school and generally find one or two close friends in any social setting. You are simply the most likely to want a day off every once in a while. Your dream day is a "mom day" where "all the sissies go to school" and you get to stay home with me all day. That sounds like a dream to me too, so we need to make it happen soon. I love you, my little bean. Mama ... Read more

Dear Eisley (Two Years)

Dear Eisley (Two Years)

It's like I've never had a two-year-old before. Technically, I have. You are the third child, after all. But with your older sisters, there was a new baby in the house well before their second birthdays. By the time they were 21 or 22 months, I needed them to grow up. They needed to walk themselves across the parking lot because my arms were holding a newborn. They needed to act mature and not throw toys at the baby's face. But there is no baby in the house right now. You get to be a baby for a while longer. And for the first time, I'm realizing how young age two actually is... your words are just emerging, you are still in diapers, you vacillate between doing it all by myself "me, me!" and wanting to be held while you suck your thumb and hold your lovey. After a whirlwind of having three babies in three and a half years, I am thankful for the time to savor who you are as a toddler. It's like I'm witnessing age two for the very first time, and I'm loving what I see. Love always, Mama ... Read more