Dear Bently,

Since we put you in a school we're technically not in the district for, I have to drive you/pick you up every single day. It's honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. Mostly due to the fact Dad has Monday through Wednesday off of work. So there are only 2 days a week I do it all myself. My favorite part is picking you up. There you stand with the other kindergartners, mostly you are off staring into space. As soon as you see me, your whole face lights up in a huge grin. Then you run towards me screaming "Mom!! Mom!!" I of course wave enthusiastically back! I love it! Every single time it melts my mama heart to watch you be so excited to see me! I hope you never stop greeting me this way! :)

This morning we found out Grandma Hodson died. It was sudden and very shocking. We decided to not tell you till you got back from school. I wasn't sure how you were going to handle it. We went to Grandpa Stetson's funeral in June so I knew you had semi understood death. You were a lot closer to Grandma Hodson than Grandpa Stetson. Mostly because they lived a lot closer to us. I was really worried. We asked you what you knew about death and who we knew that had died. That's when you began to act very funny. You didn't want to listen to us anymore. You didn't want to hear what we had to say. It was so sad. I didn't want to have to tell you. But of course, that wasn't an option. You cried. For a good 20 minutes. It was so sad. You told me you loved her and liked to play games with her Grandma Hodson was the best Grandma! She spent so many hours doing puzzles with you and playing toys on the floor. She loved you so much. She always lit up when she saw you! I hope you remember something about her. Hopefully something good. She was amazing! I know we'll both miss her!

Love,

Mom

Dear Bently,

We told you something really exciting yesterday! We told you I'm pregnant! I really really wanted to wait till we had an ultrasound with a heartbeat but I am awful at keeping secrets! Horrible! I was so excited to tell you! We told you and you were pretty excited. You smiled and seemed genuiely happy. But then you started making the I'm about to cry face. You Dad and I kept asking you if you were okay. You kept insisting you were. With a little prodding you finally broke down and cried. I thought you were sad we were having a baby and I was sad! You had always told me you did want another baby in our family! But then through your tears you told us it was a happy cry! I asked why you were so happy and you said, "Because you're having a baby!" I'm gonna be honest, I cried with you! It was stinking adorable and I am so very grateful we got it on video! :) It is such a special moment that now I get to relive forever!

I love you my very sweet boy! :) I hope your feelings are always close to the surface and I hope you always feel comfortable talking to me about what you are feeling!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently and Olivia,

You both are in this phase where you ask me how to spell things. A lot of things. It usually happens while we're in the car driving somewhere, but we also do it at home. You say, "How do you spell, House." Then I spell house. I don't know why this game entertains you so much. But you both love it and want to ask me to spell things all the time. Sometimes I don't mind, sometimes it's pretty annoying! ;) It sure makes me feel like I'm in a spelling B! It also reminds me how many words I don't know how to spell. Sometimes I have no idea what Olivia is saying so I just make up a spelling. I figure, you're not going to be able to remember it anyways! :)

You both love each other so much. It has been so much fun watching your relationship with each other grow! You can fight like none other, but you also play together all the time! :) Sometimes, if one of you isn't coming fast enough I threaten to leave you. This causes the other sibling to go into hysterical crying and screaming! Today I just walked out of the house ahead of you and Olivia began to scream, "Don't leave Bently!" Then she ran to Bently who was sitting in the hallway, helped him up and brought him to the door! It was pretty adorable! I love the fierce loyalty you have to one another! I hope you always feel protective of each other! :)

I love you both so much! I hope you know that!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

I have been writiting you these letters for a long time. I haven't always been great about keeping up on them, but I've always tried. It's so strange, starting this letter like any other. Because today is your very first day of kindergarten! I can't even believe it's here. It's funny, when you entered preschool at 3, I remember thinking kindergarten was forever away! Even last year I still felt like you were never going to go to kindergarten! But suddenly the day is here! Time is so funny! I seriously feel like you were my baby just yesterday! How can you be in Kindergarten?

You did pretty good. I could tell you were nervous this morning. You kept asking questions about school. You also have this face you do when you are trying not to cry. That face kept cropping up and I hated it! I was banking on you being so excited I wouldn't feel sad!

You had that face on when I left you at your desk. I hope you are okay. I can't believe you will be gone for the next three hours! I miss you!

I love you so much Bently! I love watching you reach these milestones and hate it all at the same time! I may have cried pretty much the whole way home and again while writing you this letter! :( I hope you have a fantastic first day of school and I can't wait to pick you up and hear all about it!

Love,
Mom

P.s. Last night Dad cried with me as we cuddled you while you slept. He told me he was just going to take you to work with him today and keep you instead of letting you go to kindergarten. Part of me was hopeful he would! ;)

Dear Bently,

We are one week from kindergarten! AHHH!!! You are so ready... I am not! I cry about it almost every day. I often get misty just watching you! I worry a lot! I know you'll be fine and love it! I just can't help but worry! I also worry about poor Olivia! She is going to miss you so much!

Today we went to your school and you did kindergarten testing! You did really really good over all! You missed a couple easy ones! I'm sure you were just nervous! So here is what I wrote down!

You could recognize all the number 1-20 except you missed 19.
You knew all your shapes and colors.
You counted from 1-100. That surprised me. When I asked you to count for me a few days ago you didn't make it past 50! ;)
You recognized and named all the capital letters except you missed V.
You recognized and named all the lowercase letters except j and k. (You got the lowercase v which confused me why you missed uppercase. I meant they look the same!)
You knew the sounds all the letters made but you missed Q.

I love you handsome boy! You are so smart! You are going to rock Kindergarten!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

Tonight we had smashed potatoes. That's right, you call them smashed potatoes instead of mashed potatoes. I never correct you. If you call them smashed potatoes forever, I'm okay with that! You also say a pin-yawn-a instead of pinita. Also hilarious! I love how you say things. Speaking of tonight at dinner, you had your dad and I cracking up at your dance moves. Olivia and you will sometimes perform for us while we eat. It's as adorable as it is annoying! ;) Olivia has an Elsa microphone that plays two songs from Frozen. "Let it go" and "In Summer". Olivia always sings the let it go and you do the Olaf song. It's cute but after you've sang it for us 10 times in a row, it looses it's cuteness somewhat! ;) But like I said, boy can you dance! Also you read me 3 books today while I was cooking dinner! I hope you always love reading as much as you do now! Even after the newness of it wears off!

I love you cutie!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

You have been fighting bed time like none other. I don't know why. It's not like you are sleeping at all. You just hate going to bed. You lay in bed wide awake till 9 or later. We put you in bed between 7:30-8 so it's no small amount of time you are just laying there. You  had the stomach flu a few weeks back and we let you lay on the couch and watch tv in the middle of the night. Well last night you kept telling me you were sick and you needed to watch a show on the couch. I knew you weren't sick. You are not one to hide you illness well. There's usually lots of tears and dramatics. So when you are simply telling me you "don't feel well" I knew you were fine. After many no's you finally started to melt down. Yelling at me down the hall. So I brought you a bucket and told you if you threw up then you could come sit on the couch. I was secretly praying you wouldn't throw up, because then I would feel really guilty about not believing you! ;) I walked away and a couple minutes later you screamed you threw up. Not hearing any gagging what so ever we (your dad and I) assumed it was a false alarm. So your dad went back and in the dark looked into the bucket. He came back and told me he thought you had dumped water from your night time drink into the bucket. Though he did mentioned it look orange for some reason. We listened to you scream for a minute longer and I decided to go look. I walked in and looked into the bucket. In the dark I noticed it looked orange too, not like water at all. I opened the blinds to let some light in and looked more closely, gingerly sniffing at it.
I said, "That's not throw up!" And you proudly exclaimed, "It's pee!" "Pee!" I exclaimed as you nodded your head. It wasn't funny. It was awful. You lied and peed in a bucket. But I couldn't stop laughing! I tried to hide it from you but I couldn't stop! Kid, you are one sneaky boy! I don't know how you came up with the idea but it was a pretty intuitive one.

I love you my smart disgusting boy! :)

Love,
Mom