Dear Sylvan,
“Mommy, why do fires sometimes burn?” you asked as I pried my eyes open from sleep this morning. I could almost focus on your little bowl-haircut head above my mattress as I mumbled “fuel and oxygen.” (sorry to the scientists; I know now that I missed “ignition”) Your mind whirs along, considering possibilities and pondering which questions you’ll spring on me. Do your Mom a favor, huh? Wait until I’m awake.
We hiked at Waldo Lake last week on a foggy, rainy, chilly fall day. You ran down the trail, blazing the way. You stopped at a bridge over a dry streambed. “That’s a stream.” Daddy asked how you knew that, since there was no water in it. If I recall, you looked at him a little funny; I mean, there was a bridge over it, after all. Then Daddy asked why there was no water in it. “Because it hasn’t been raining,” you replied. And now my three-year-old will lead us in a discussion about intermittent streams. Thank you, thank you, thank you for expressing interest in what interests me.
You are quite interested in Elena’s breastfeeding — getting Mommy milk, in our parlance. I’ll admit, it does seem like magic; I eat waffles, and Elena gets milk. You always want to know whether Elena’s eyes are open when she’s eating. It’s something I’ve noticed, too: how intense babies look when they breastfeed with their eyes open. Yesterday, you started breastfeeding your baby, a frightfully red bear in a green bunny suit. You let me know when his eyes were open, too.
Today, I went downstairs to find your Curious George stories, and I left you and Elena in your room. “You entertain Elena, and I’ll run down to find your book,” I said as I left. When I returned, you were 
sitting in front of Elena, playing your ukulele (which you’re calling a mandolin this week) like a stand-up bass and singing Skip to My Lou. Charmer. Of course, the charm wore off when you bebopped out of your room no fewer than 78 times at bedtime…
I’ve always been impressed by your verbal capacity, and our readers are undoubtedly tired of my high praise, but there are a couple of things you’re now doing with words that are really neat. Daddy asked whether you were going to teach Elena all the words you know. You started reeling off words that rhyme with “ock:” clock, chalk, block, knock, etc. It’s as if you already had a lesson plan for teaching Elena: “Today, class, we’ll start with words that rhyme with ‘rock.’” Another thing that makes me think writing poetry will come naturally is your ability to take a word and make a decision to use it as a different part of speech. Jesse James “robbed the Glendale train,” as Bruce Springsteen made us aware in a song you like to listen to. You smushed a stuffed animal into a small space the other day and told me that you’d “glendaled” it.
You started preschool three weeks ago. I dropped you off that first day, and, while you’re in the same building you’ve been in since you started “school” when you were fifteen months old, this was the first day of being with kids who really are a lot bigger and further along developmentally than you are. I had to admit I was a little surprised when I dropped you off and saw the 5-year-old “toughs” on the playground: “But my baby…” The verdict? You love it. You use scissors all the time. And a stapler!
When I was making dinner the other day, you were cutting away in the other room, showing me your paper pieces, both cut and ripped. “Mommy, this is the bottom of a tree,” you said, holding it up to me. “The trunk?” I asked. You were silent for a moment. “No, it’s the big part that you hug.” Ah, my little tree-hugging Eugenious.
Love,
Mommy