Sachs Press

Dear Great-Grandma,

How are you doing? I have a cold this week, but I am doing okay. I chipped a tooth on our driveway, though. It is a very little chip and you can’t really notice it unless you are looking. Mommy says it doesn’t matter much because it is my baby tooth and I will lose it anyway. Did you ever chip a tooth? I think it makes me even more special.

Mommy also says she needs to cut my hair but she doesn’t want to. She likes the curls at the back of my neck and she doesn’t want them to go away. I don’t really care what happens to my hair. It is not long enough to bother me except when Mommy tries to comb it. I guess it does bother me then.

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit me on Sunday. They brought a toy from when Grandpa was a little boy. It was a wooden stick with little discs that fit on it. You could take them all off and put them all back on again in a different order. I had lots of fun playing with it. I also had fun showing Grandma and Grandpa the bubbles in the yard. There are bubbles that grow all over our yard, did you know that? I will tell you about them. They are white and they grow on long green stems. They are all over the place. If you touch them they don’t disappear like some bubbles. They are soft and fuzzy. They don’t taste very good. The fuzzy bits come off in your mouth and don’t want to get back out. But if you blow on them or wave them in the air the fuzzy bits come off and float away, and that is very pretty.

Oh, Great-Grandma, I have to tell you what happened to me on Thursday. Mommy took me to the doctor and he looked at me and asked Mommy some questions and then they took me to another room and they put a needle in my arm and held it there. It hurt and I cried and cried, but then they were done and they put a band-aid on it and Mommy gave me some cookies and I felt better. Why would they do that? Has anybody ever done that to you? Mommy told me that the doctor wanted to find out if I have something called celiac disease that means I can’t eat wheat. Now we have to wait a few weeks to find out. I will let you know what they say.

Yesterday my Aunt Martha was here to visit me. She played with me all morning and I showed her everything I can do. I rode my rocking horse and stacked my stacking cups and threw my ball and bounced my balloon and showed her books and trucks and my car that I ride and we had a good time. Then I took a nap and when I woke up she was gone. It seems like everything interesting happens while I am sleeping. Sometimes I try not to sleep but I always have to give up and go to sleep after a while.

Speaking of sleep, Mommy wants me to go and take a nap now. She is probably planning to go outside and play without me, so I will see if I can stay awake and make her bring me out too. Have a good week!

Love,

Isaac

Dear Great-Grandma,

How are you doing now? I am doing all right. I was up last night for a while because I was confused and scared and maybe my tummy hurt, I’m not really sure. Daddy took me for a drive in the car and when I got home I drank some milk and went back to bed and then I slept in until 7:30. And when I woke up my friend Joseph was here!

I think I told you Joseph hasn’t been coming recently, but he is here for the day and we are having fun playing together. We were stacking cups together for a while. Well, I would stack them and he would pull them down. Then I was playing in his portable high chair. I like to sit in it and pull the tray over my lap and pretend to eat.

Well, I would like to tell you in this letter about what happened this weekend. Mommy somehow got it into her head that she needed to do some cleaning, and so she did. She got a bucket and a rag, and a bottle that sprayed some stuff and a big roll of paper towels, and she cleaned all the windows in the whole house. They look so nice and sparkly now! I can tell just where I put my hands on them because the fingerprints are so nice and clear in all the clean glass.

Anyway, so Mommy cleaned windows and I helped. When she was cleaning the window in the bathroom I pulled everything out of the drawers and put it in different drawers, and then I pulled a whole bunch of toilet paper off the roll, and then I tried to eat the little pretend sunflowers she keeps in there but she wouldn’t let me. I thought that would be a lot of fun but she didn’t think so. Then we went into my room and cleaned the windows in there, and I helped her stand on the footstool to reach the high parts. I also pulled everything out of the cupboards in my room, too.

Then she came out to the kitchen and started washing the patio doors, so I climbed up on the table to see what I could see. I played with all the placemats and the little card with a picture of a bunny on it and then I slipped and fell and I was very sad, so Mommy put me down for a nap and went and did some cleaning by herself. It is too bad I did not get to help her for that part. She says she went outside and washed all the screens and that must have been a lot of fun, so I wish I hadn’t missed it.

After I woke up I helped her wash some more windows upstairs and then we went downstairs and looked at all the spiders in the window-wells. Mommy stuck her hand out there and pulled it back in and said something about making Daddy do that part, and I guess she meant it because the next day Daddy crawled out into all those window wells and brushed away the spider webs and the mud wasp nests and washed the outsides of the windows. Anyway, I kept helping Mommy while she washed the insides, by pulling more things out of drawers and playing with her music box and ceramic puppy.

Later that afternoon, after I pretended to take another nap, we went to a festival and there were balloons and bubbles. I love balloons and bubbles! Balloons are fun because they bob around and go up when you expect them to go down. Bubbles are very pretty and always disappear when you try to touch them.

That was all on Friday. On Saturday I helped Mommy do some laundry and when I took a nap she washed some more screens because there were some that Daddy had to take down for her, so she had to wait till he was home. And Daddy cleaned those window-wells, and Mommy washed a whole bunch more windows outside and so did Daddy. He had to do all the ones that you climb a ladder for. I watched him from inside!

I also helped Daddy clean out our shed outside. I stomped around on the floor in there and it made a wonderful booming sound. I also played in my little swimming pool. It didn’t have any water in it, just cherry blossoms. They are falling all over the place and it looks like pink snow. On Saturday evening after everything was clean, Mommy and Daddy and me and two other people from our church all went and got ice cream. I liked the ice cream but it was kind of cold and I got tired of it after a while. Then I went home and went to bed because I was TIRED!

On Sunday we went to church and I came home and didn’t even eat lunch because I was so tired out from playing with my friends in the nursery, and after I woke up we went to church again and played with a whole bunch of junior high kids. They like me so that was fun. And that was Sunday, and then my weekend was over.

It is rainy and chilly here today. I want it to stop raining so I can go outside and play because Mommy won’t let me go out in the rain. But at least the windows are nice and clean so I can see what I am missing.

Love,

Isaac

Dear Great-Grandma,

I would like to tell you today about some of the things I enjoy doing. It is so wonderful to be able to walk around and do things–much better than when Mommy had to carry me everywhere.

My very favorite thing to do is go outside. I love to be outside and look at everything. There is a big yellow box right outside our back door and when I go outside I go to that yellow box and get an empty milk jug out and I carry it around with me. I’m not sure why, it just seems like the thing to do. Anyway, so I get my milk jug and then I walk around on the patio for a while and look at stuff. We have a beautiful pink tree right now. Mommy says it is a weeping cherry tree and she loves it too. There are also some pretty flowers growing next to the patio and sometimes I pull their petals off but sometimes I just look.

Then when I am done on the patio I go somewhere else. Mommy has to help me climb down off of it but then I take off by myself. I can go look at the bunny in the back yard and feed him dandelions. Mommy picks a dandelion leaf and gives it to me and I stick the end in his cage and he nibbles it up. I squeal when I see the bunny because he is exciting and soft and furry, and I like feeding him.

I can also go around to the front of the house where there are more flowers. There is also another yellow bin and sometimes I trade my milk jug for something else like a juice container or something. Mommy isn’t really thrilled about that but I like looking at the different things and carrying them around, so she mostly lets me. I also like to pull on the little purple flowers. Mommy says they are grape hyacinths. The flowers are made of little tiny balls and I pull them off and rub them in my fingers. There are fuzzy yellow flowers all over the yard too and sometimes I pull them, but they are harder to get off. And they make my fingers yellow.

There are bugs outside that crawl around. I like to follow them and try to catch them. Sometimes I also help Mommy pick up pine-cones and put them in a bag. One time there was a cat that came and played with us for a little while. She was all white and had a bell around her neck and I liked her.

One thing that Mommy won’t let me do is go into the road. I would really like to because there are interesting things on the other side of the road, but she says no. I don’t always listen to her and then she makes me go somewhere else and I get mad and sometimes I have to come back inside and that makes me very upset. I don’t understand why I can’t go in the road. But sometimes she carries me across and I can go exploring over on the other side too, and that is nice.

So that is what I do outside, and it is a lot of fun. I would rather do that than most anything else. But when I have to be inside there are good things to do, too. For instance, I can ride my rocking horse. That is always a good thing to do. Sometimes Mommy sings me songs while I ride, and sometimes I just ride by myself. I can do funny things with my horse, like make him bob up and down instead of going back and forth. Once in a while I stand up while I ride but Mommy doesn’t like that and she makes me sit down, which is okay because it is kind of scary anyway.

But I can’t ride my horse all the time because I get tired, so there are other things I like to do, too. I really like to stack things. I think I showed you the cups I like to stack. I am getting pretty good at them and I can sometimes get them all stacked up in the right order all by myself! I also have some blocks that I like to stack, and those are easier because they don’t have to go in any particular order. Grandma and Grandpa gave me those blocks for Christmas.

I also have a puzzle with shapes and I like to take the pieces out and put them back in. I can mostly figure out where they go but it is a bit tricky. Sometimes I get close but Mommy has to help me get them in. And other times I get totally mixed up and frustrated and that is not so fun. But other times I can put them in all by myself.

I also like to read books. I do like having Mommy or Daddy read to me but sometimes I like to do it myself. I climb up into my rocking chair and pull a book off my bookshelf and I sit and read it. I think my favorite book right now is “Down By The Bay.”

I like to cuddle with my toys, too. Grandma bought me a lamby for Easter that sleeps in my crib with me. I think I showed you that, too. It is big like a blanket and very soft. I look forward to getting in my crib because then I can cuddle with lamby and bury my face in her wool.

Mommy has a puppy that she keeps in her room and I like him, too. I say “Rrff!” and get the puppy off the shelf and then I lay on the floor and snuggle with him. He is a very nice puppy and never scratches me at all.

I also have a bear, and another puppy, and a lion, and an elephant, and a couple more lambies, and it is good to have so many friends.

Speaking of friends, my friend Joseph is not coming to see me any more and I kind of miss him. He will be here once this week, on Tuesday, and I will enjoy playing with him again. I did get to play with some friends this weekend. I went to my friend Ethan’s house yesterday evening and played with him and all his toys. It is always fun to go to a new place and explore all the things to do there. It does get kind of boring at my house after a while when I have already played with all my toys and ridden my rocking horse and I can’t go outside anymore. That is when Mommy starts looking a little funny–sort of tired or something, I’m not sure what.

Oh, there is one more thing that I should tell you about–I like looking out the window and watching things happen. There is a field across from my house and it is called a “baseball field” but I can’t say all that, so I just say “bay-ball.” Mommy knows what I mean! I like to watch them play baseball. They are often out there these days. Mommy says our team isn’t too good, but I don’t mind–they are still interesting to watch. And when the cars go by I say “brrm-brrm” to let Mommy know what is happening.

Well, as you can tell I am busy these days. Those are only some of the things I like to do. And when something unusual happens that is better than anything. Once in a while Mommy will leave a cupboard open that isn’t usually open and that is a good adventure. I can carry a lot of potatoes around! Or she will leave her shoes somewhere and I will put them on. I think they took a picture of me wearing her shoes once, so maybe I will include that for you. Anyway, I have a lot of things I want to do today, so I will just end this by saying that I hope you are feeling better because I heard you were in that place for sick people again and now you are somewhere a little nicer but you would still like to be back with Grandpa Al. So I hope you can get back there pretty soon.

Love,

Isaac