“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you were on vacation from school. You spent the week sleeping in, reading, drawing, and watching movies. You also spent some time playing with your little brother, which I think is really good for you. Spending time with him gives you the opportunity to play in a way that you might not be able to with your friends, now that you’re older. We talked about this in the car on the way home from dance class — how the older one gets, the more difficult it becomes to really immerse oneself in imaginary worlds. I chuckled to myself when you said that sometimes if you use a funny accent it is easier to play imagination games. We both agreed that one of the tragic aspects of growing up is losing the ability to really play without inhibition. But, it’s not a total loss, sweet Lillia. Even as a grownup you will find things that make you feel happy and free.

Zane: This week you got a surprise gift from our church — a box with three little birdhouses in it. You were so excited you could barely get your words out! You picked up one of them and exclaimed, “Never in my life…a birdhouse with two holes…I LOVE IT!!!” It’s not uncommon for you to make such declarations; you are just so darn happy almost all of the time. You so often say things like, “It’s a great day!” And, your enthusiasm for life really is contagious. I find myself feeling better about just about everything when you’re around. We also got to spend some time outside yesterday — it was even warm enough to take off our coats! You rode your bike and sat in the sun with me. This coming week looks to be cold and more cold, but spring is coming.

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you have been terribly sick. Unlike your brother, you’ve enjoyed relatively good health this year up until this point. It’s nice when you’ve had enough illnesses to actually have an immune system, isn’t it? On Friday you were doing really poorly in the morning — you said your head hurt terribly, and felt heavy, and your tummy hurt. Unfortunately, you had already been out of school one day earlier in the week, and I really felt you should at least try to make it through the day. Your father was much more concerned about you, though, fetching you Tylenol, water, and whatever else you demanded. Our dynamic is interesting — you’re definitely a daddy’s girl, which I think is very sweet (though I do get mildly frustrated that I always have to be bad cop!). I’m so happy that you have such a great relationship with your dad, and I hope it always stays that way.

Zane: This week you are scheduled to go on your first ever sleepover at Nanny and Papa’s house (my parents). Originally, you were supposed to go last night, but the snowstorm postponed it until tonight. The whole thing is actually killing me. You see, you and I have never spent a night apart in your whole life; that’s 3 years, 5 months, and 23 days that we’ve been sleeping side by side. You are so excited about spending the night at their house, but I can’t help feeling completely gutted because we won’t ever be able to go back to a time when we had never spent a night apart. There might be some parents reading this who think I am being melodramatic, but for me this is really hard! Zane, you are my baby and, barring some miracle, my last baby. I know from having watched your sister grow up that once you let go of the baby stage, it’s over. Time moves faster and faster, and pretty soon your babies are tweens. Tweens certainly have their charms, too, but this whole growing up and leaving thing? I’m so not a fan.

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2015.”

Lillia: This week you played at your friend Anya’s house after school. I feel terrible because I am not very good at arranging for you to play with other kids. You’re kind of beyond the “playdate” stage of life, but I think that your introverted nature and your need for lots of down time, in combination with my absent-mindedness in this area makes it so that you don’t spend as much time with other kids as you should. That’s one of the drawbacks of living in a rural town, I guess. When I was a kid I lived in a big neighborhood and there were always lots of other children to play with — playdates just happened organically. I will try to be better about arranging for playtime with your friends, and hopefully you will also remind me!

Zane: In the last couple of weeks we’ve gotten a lot of snow so we finally got to build our snowman! You have been waiting all winter for this, and he turned out very cute (here’s a pic). I hope you won’t mind my sharing this, but I had to chuckle when you insisted that, in addition to eyes and a mouth, your snowman needed a bum and boy parts. Well, we can see what stage of life you’re at (potty training clearly having an impact on your psyche)! It has been very cold, so your snowman did not melt but he has, sadly, been completely covered up by the additional foot of snow we got this week. We’ll have to dig him out!