Monday, April 18, 2005

Found while moving offices....

For the past three years I've been writing letters to my son during particularly boring staff meetings. At my previous job I was writing one a week.

Today I moved from a large cubicle to a small office with a window (and a door! whoo-hooo!). While unpacking boxes, one of which had not been unpacked through 2 other moves, I found the oldest letters. One letter was written while I was still pregnant ("Dear Muffin Man, Please stop kicking me. Thank you, I love you kiddo!") the others were written after my maternity leave was over.

The letters chart his first smile, his first laugh, his first word, his first sentence ("Bye-bye, Dada!") , the first time he slept through the night...

I've taken them out of the various notebooks they were in, added the more recent letters and put them in a binder. I'm looking forward to giving the binder to him when he's all grown-up. In the meantime...today I shut the door of my new office and read the letters over again.

9 comments:

Phantom Scribbler said...

What a great idea, writing letters to your kids during staff meetings. I'm going to tell Mr. Blue; he got bored of writing meeting haiku.

Liz Miller said...

Meeting Haiku?!? I never even thought of that. I've been enjoying reading your blog, and thank you for the Judith Viorst poem. I've got to get that for Muffin Man. He loves Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Liz Miller said...

I love that idea, APL. I think the proof that his parents converse about him every day will be a treasure.

Betsy said...

Oh, I wish I'd have done that with both kids. I have hardly any paper memories of them - but tons of posts and emails and such online that I really need to collect, print out, and save...

Liz Miller said...

Betsy, your posts about your kids are great. Print 'em out!

jenn said...

Hmmm, I don't have any children. Err, but I do have a bunch of email I've printed out from fiance as we are supposed to have proof of our relationship for immigration and all *wink*

Not quite as "awwwww" as what you're talking about here though. More along the lines of "hey sweetie, did you get a chance to look over my chapter two yesterday?"

Oh, and I'm much better at blog comments than emails, Liz. So this is great!
xoxo
jenn

jo(e) said...

What a great use of meeting time.

I've been thinking that I need to get a laptop so I can blog during boring meetings ....

SuzanH said...

Just found your blog via Phantom Scribbler and I'm really excited to read your upcoming reviews. Like you, my favorite feeling is opening a new book. I doubt there's a better feeling in the world. I'm thrilled that my daughter is just as avid a reader.

I like your letter idea--my usual thing is to doodle. The haiku idea from PS is great, too.

Phantom Scribbler said...

I posted about meeting haiku a long time ago (in blog years). I keep hoping that someone will take the idea seriously enough to post their own meeting haiku!