Dear Yuna

You are an amazing child. 

Tonight was my weekly tennis night. Usually, I lay down to sleep with you on our giant family bed (actually two mattresses put together) where the entire family co-sleeps every night. My job doesn't require me to be away much, so as a consequence you are used to my getting you ready for bed, reading, then actually falling asleep with you every night. So my tennis nights were hard for you.

After my match, I checked my phone and there was a text from your mom: "Yuna is crying, misses you". It was sent at 9:30PM. It was close to 10PM by the time I saw it. I raced home but was relieved to find the apartment dark and quiet. You had managed to fall asleep, on your side of the mattress. 

This past weekend, we were in Brooklyn. It was Easter weekend. We stayed with Ethan and Alice, as usual. They are close friends of ours and have a big apartment. But they also live around the corner from our old apartment on Garfield Place. 

Yuna, you had an all day play date with Emilia, your best friend from Brooklyn. The two of you had been close since you were both six months old and tiny babies in day care. You two always got along so well. With other children, I had to keep a watchful eye. There was the child that went through a biting stage. There were bullies. But with Emilia, the two of you are so busy in your own little worlds that every minute you are together is a sheer joy for the two of you. So your mom and I made it a high priority to time the visit to Brooklyn so we can fit in the play date with Emilia's family.

I know you love Brooklyn. You went to the Park Slope Presbyterian Church, where you know almost the entire congregation, or at least they know you. On Sunday, the children were going to sing some special songs in front of the congregation. You arrived at church in the morning and when you saw Kaila-chan, the two of you started jumping with joy in place. It was so cute. Then, you immediately joined the children's choir practice. Later, you stood in the middle and sang the songs with the rest of the children from the church even though you hadn't even practiced before. I noticed that you learned the chorus after the first verse and were able to sing along. 

Chi-ling remarked to me after the service how amazing you are, that you walk into the church for the first time in months, then without any hesitation just join the children's choir and get up in front of the congregation and sing.

I think you have a winning personality. When I attend the parent-teacher conferences at your Montessori school and ask your teacher who your best friends are, they always reply that you love to play with everyone, and everyone, in turn, loves to play with you. 

It was very difficult for me to leave Brooklyn. All of our friends were there. We loved living in Park Slope, living in that tiny apartment on Seventh Avenue and Garfield Place. The night before the movers were to arrive, a crazy thought went through my mind: I should just call the whole thing off and just stay. Sure, I had no job in Brooklyn while I had a great career opportunity waiting in Albany (a job that took some four months to finish jumping through the requisite hoops). I didn't want to leave "home". 

But you made it easy for me. If you had thrown a tantrum and cried, refusing to leave Park Slope, your friends, Prospect Park and everything you knew (after all, you were born and lived every single of your three years in Park Slope), this would have made it very difficult for me. I was barely holding it together myself. But you were open to the idea of going to a new place, somewhere you didn't know a soul, more than a hundred miles away from the only home you've ever known. I am very thankful to you for making the transition easy for me.

You read your first book last week: Hop on Pop, by Dr Seuss. You can read most words and can read most Dr. Seuss's books by yourself at this point. We have been practicing your numbers. You often write them mirror-imaged, like Leonardo da Vinci's secret handwriting. It's because you are left-handed and it feels more natural for you to start right and go left. We have been working on correcting this problem on your 3's, 4's, 7's, and 9's.