Dear Ben,

I've forgotten how fun you are when I just sit down and play with you. You were crying this afternoon, on the last day of school, after I had taken you and Katherine and Caroline to Wendy's. I thought Oh no, it's already begun. Crabbiness rooted in boredom, and your crankiness makes me cranky very quickly. Poor girls. It's not their fault they have a crank for a mom and a crank for a brother. But I made a decision and brought you up to your bedroom and blasted some of your favorite music from your boombox, and I let you decide what we'd do. The only rule was we had to stay in your bedroom. At first you cried harder and didn't want to do anything but escape. I just lay on your floor. Finally, you sat on top of me. After that, you calmed down and let me play a couple of things with you. We laid on your bed and went pretend "ni-ni". We took turns putting blocks on top of one another and I showed you how to knock them all down. You dumped out all your elephant links, but you decided you didn't want to play with them so we put them all away. We just hung out together. And before we knew it, it was 4 o'clock. Time for your therapists. Your mood was much better by then, and so was mine. Perhaps we are too much alike. You are my baby boy and I love you. P. S. It was so cool when you said "mama" today when I was helping you change your clothes. Could you do that again sometime? Love, Mom