A Letter to Hadley

Dear Hadley,

Of all the books we've read together, What Happens on Wednesdays by Emily Jenkins has been my favorite. I love it because the family in the book has so much in common with our family. The little girl wakes up when it is still dark out, the mom drinks coffee, the dad drinks tea. I think that the people in the pictures even look a bit like us.

There's a scene where the little girl gets the paper with her dad in the morning, and it reminds me of our Sunday morning ritual. Still in our PJs, we walk down the stairs to our building together to get the paper. For awhile, I needed to hold your hand and our venture down the stairs took several minutes to complete because climbing up and down the stairs was a new concept for you. But now you bolt down before me, and you carry the Post up by yourself with me trailing behind you holding my coffee cup. One morning there were two free samples of cereal packed in the newspaper, and that was quite exciting. You couldn't wait to get upstairs and try them out.

There is a neighborhood bagel shop that the little girl goes to with her daddy. She gets a poppy seed bagel toasted with cream cheese and "an orange juice with a special straw." One of your favorite places in our neighborhood is the bagel shop. You usually get a blueberry bagel with cream cheese and the ladies behind the counter frequently give you the best little butter cookies with sprinkles.

A trip to the library happens in the book, and I'm not sure there has been a week in your little life when we haven't gone to the library. You used to call it the "waabare" but now it's the "whyberry," and sometimes, if you are concentrating really hard, it's the "library." I suspect you will be saying the word correctly more and more in the future, and while I'm proud that you can say words correctly, it's sad to see part of you go away.

But you love the library. There's a fish tank in the children's section and we always check out the fish first thing. And there are big magnetic letters that are posted to the back of some bookshelves that you enjoy playing with. But mostly you like looking at the books. We spend lots of time reading books together.

I don't know if What Happens on Wednesdays is as significant to you as it is to me. You are really into books with animals, trucks, planes, trains, and books with things only Dr. Seuss could make up. But when we are reading it you sometimes say, "Hey that's just like what we do!" And then we might talk about our bagel shop, or our library. And while nothing fantastic happens in the book compared to a cat with a huge hat coming over to turn someone's house upside down, for me, it serves as a little scrapbook of our life together when you were a toddler. It will help me remember what a fun time I had with you exploring our neighborhood together.

Love,
Mom