june 28, 1984

My dear Kathleen,

I learn so much from you and from your natural innocent impulses. It's true that those impulses will have to be disciplined later, but your simplicity of your feelings are a delight. You can go in a second from miserable - because you don't want to put on your sleeper - to laughing - when Daddy gives you a peanut and then pulls it away saying "No!" And how you express what you feel without restraint or pretense.

And how you love to observe and learn! I wish I could always be stimulating to you, giving you new ideas and fuel for your inventions and games. All of your new ideas in just the last few days - how to play with the hose, playing and arranging cards, parking your tiny cars in line, your "house" upstairs made out of the old crib bumper - shows your limitless potential for new ideas; and how I wish I could encourage that to the very end! But to see things as so new and so possible from your point of view - I try to see the new and the new-in-the-familiar, but I'm afraid that even when trying, I don't even match your ability and curiosity.

Sometimes you seem to be more clingy and helpless, and other times you're very independent and separate. Sometimes you want a lot of holding and close playing, but at other times you push my hand away, "No! My back!"

Often now, you can tell me what's gone on in your life when I'm not with you. You can tell me incidents [?] about going to the duck pond with Donna, about playing with Naomi, about spilling your milk. How perceptive that you realize that I don't know what you've done if I wasn't with you!

[letter ends]

june 26, 1984

Dearest little Kathleen,

I have you in my mind so much - your funny little laugh with your head up and your hands over your mouth and your high-pitched laugh; your frustration when something goes wrong and you throw the offending thing; your whimper when you sense something's different; your growing social senses.

And your growing sense of yourself - how you can take off your own sleeper when you're too hot at night, and (I think) cover yourself with your blanket when you're too cool.

You're really learning how to run fast now, and to be really inventive with what you do with your body. I love watching you walk on tiptoes, stomping, kicking something. I also love to watch how your feet seem to be independent of yourself - moving independently, curling and uncurling toes. And when you put on shoes or slippers or socks, your feet move to get to the sock rather than putting your sock onto your foot.

[letter ends]

june 15, 1984

Dear little Kathleen,

In all of your photographs I have at work, I see your different facets of your personality - the playful and silly, bashful, coy, self-conscious, innocent, & pouty. Your bright eyes can show a myriad of moods and feelings - oh, how I love you!

I seem to know you well, of course, and to understand what you're thinking. But much of the time I don't understand you much at all. You're already too complex a person for that. I don't see your motives, your developing personality or mood, your way of thinking about something, the reasons for some of your actions.

There are also a lot of other things that I don't know - how much you need to eat (your appetite varies so much), when your bedtime really is, how many hours of sleep you need, what your mental development is now, what new learning or experiences you're ready for now.

[letters ends]

june 13, 1984

My little Kathleen,

I think you are beginning to understand when we teach you how to do things - how to ask Daddy for a piece of his toast, how to say what you prefer, as well as how to take care of yourself. You're also very much of a very little girl sometimes, needing a lot of support and attention and - comfort. But whatever you are, you are so beautiful that the only thing I can think, at times, is that I don't want to mar that beauty or break your character. But part of growing up is to adjust to the world as you are learning how to do now, and to find out how the world works - that your shoes get too small, that there are special ways to put on clothes, that you're too little to do some things without our help.

I love it when you have your own ideas. When I touch you, sometimes you say, "No! My back!" And I love the way you are so free and easy about yourself and your body, and the way you seem to be so happy with yourself, singing and playing in your crib, hamming it up in front of us ... Pau Pau (grandmother) always said what a doll you are!

[letter ends]

june 12, 1984

My dearest Kathleen,

While you're away being taken care of by someone else, I am missing you terribly. Even though you can be very trying at times, being with you is always like a moment of miracle, just what I want. I do wish I never had to hurry you, to restrain you, but perhaps you will learn that that is part of the world that you are growing into - of schedules and deadlines and limits; things you can't do, and things you must do faster. Sometimes, I hope enough, I let you work at something at your own pace, taking off or putting on your shoes, eating your dinner, getting dressed in the morning, walking to the car, going home from Donna's.

How very special you are! The world is your oyster - you are a gem in this world, you are the pearl.

[letter ends]