Dear Sylvan,
When we picked up a few items at Sundance the other day, while hauling a grumpy Elena, you were the magic man. You found a grocery cart, steered it into the store, and then started grabbing the items we needed off the shelves: “Where’s the tofu, Mom?” “Do we need milk?” Whoa. Really? It’s a far cry from the child I’ve had to restrain, occasionally kicking, in the cart – and that was only last week.
You’re helping out more in the kitchen now, too; you love to cut vegetables with a plastic knife 
(which means that you have to REALLY want to cut vegetables, because those knives are about as sharp as fingernails), you like to help make PBJs, and pouring and mixing flour is clearly on the road to heaven (you’d drive your trains through the cookie batter if I’d let you).
All this after being quite concerned about you a month ago. After flying to the east coast for Christmas, you had become a little monster I didn’t recognize while we visited family. I was, frankly, really worried about flying back to the west coast with you. Yes, to be fair, I worry too much, but I thought you might pull some sort of kicking/screaming tantrum for the entire twelve hours, because that’s the kind of behavior you’d been exhibiting during our visit. The moment our family again became four people, though, you morphed back into a human – even a lovable human. You sat and put stickers into a sticker book, you watched movies on my computer, you wanted to ride the train at the Denver airport, you made polite requests for juice and cheese. It’s interesting how I expect that my three-year-old to behave perfectly when faced with unfamiliar surroundings when I certainly don’t behave perfectly when faced with my everyday life. I’ll try to remember that you need space, too. You like being alone, which only makes sense, given your parents.
You’ve acquired a best friend, an older woman named Camilla. She’s four and a half and in your class at school. On her sharing day, she chose you to guess what was in her Elmo sharing bag, “because he’s my best friend” (you guessed rain, by the way). You’ve told me that you’d like to go to school every day that Camilla’s there: “Sunday and Monday and Thursday and Friday. Is that all the days?”
While we started a “Sylvan says” list here soon after you started stringing words together, your classroom teachers have recently started a “Sylvan says” list. In fact, the pre-school room NEXT to yours has also started a list for you, because you visit them, too, and, frankly, the next thing that comes out of your mouth might be hilarious. You recently announced to your teachers that, “actually, pickles are an acquired taste.”
Love,
Mommy
