June 2022

Dear Rykelan,

You were such a photogenic kid, it’s hard to have a favorite photo. There are so many favorites. Even though this isn’t the best picture of you, it’s one that I really love (even though it doesn’t quite do your blue eyes justice):

It captures you so well. Your joy. Your ready for adventure personality. Your love of wearing shoes, even if we weren’t going anywhere. Your emotional support sippy cup. You never really had a special stuffed animal or blanket like a lot of kids had. Instead, so long as you had a cup in one hand, you were a happy camper. When you got a bit older, you swapped out the cup for a small car. (I still carry one in my coat pocket for you today.)

If I had to take a guess at one of your favorite moments this month, it was probably getting to sit on Papa’s giant lawn mower. You didn’t give to drive it around (safety first!) but by this point you loved all sorts of construction type vehicles, and this was the closest you’d gotten to something like that in real life.

(Also, my little dude, what was with your insistence on wearing boots during the summer? You would get so upset when I tried to put you in sneakers instead of boots. There was no snow! Shorts, a t-shirt, and snow boots was quite the fashion statement.

You also really leaned hard into your climbing phase this month. Every time I turned around, you were either trying to scale the cat tree or getting up into the living room windows.

You left so many handprints on those windows. They were already covered in doggie snot, though, so I guess it didn’t matter too much. It’d actually be nice to see your little handprints on the glass again.

Love you, Turkey.

Mom