Letter to my children: As you wish

Dragon stood next to the door, holding it open for Minuit. “Come on, go in or out.”

10 month old Minuit smelled the air, tail twitching. She took one tentative small step forward into the threshold then moved the same paw back into place.

“Okay, as you wish.” Dragon shut the door.

Later that afternoon.

“Bean, would you open the door for me? My hands are full.”

“As you wish, Momma.”

“Oh Bean. Thank you.”

Two days later.

Dragon was holding the door open for Mordechai. “Mordsies, do you want to go outside?”

Seventeen year old Mordechai balanced his bulk precariously as the fresh air poured in. His slow movements were no match for Dragon’s agenda. “I can’t wait.”

Dragon shut the door.

“As you wish.” I whispered from across the room.

When you two get older you will, no doubt, pepper your lexicon with movie references your Momma doesn’t grok. I want to pause now with this first movie reference that has entered our lives.

Almost a year ago I wrote to you about all of the ways you can say “I love you” without using the words. It makes me incredibly happy that a phrase that means “I love you” has entered the family in overt homage to that idea.

It also makes me very happy that it is from a movie I loved so much as a child.

The first time I saw The Princess Bride I must have been around 11 or 12. Tia and I watched it again and again. And again.

“Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?”

“If there are, we’ll all be dead.”

“Hello! My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

And, of course, “aaaas you wiiiish,” as Westley rolled down the hill in his black pirate outfit.

You two now know, “as you wish,” means, “I love you.” I get such pleasure from watching you two drop that into your daily lives.

It also gives me pause to realize how much influence my childhood pleasures have on your lives. It feels in some respects I have deliberately inoculated you with this cultural handshake from my childhood.

That sounds hyperbolic as I write it - it is, after all just a movie. However small things add up into a shared sense of family identity.

Reveling in the smell of sun-dried laundry. How to cut a mango. Why books are amazing. The importance of writing thank you notes. Swimming naked. Being loved beyond our wildest dreams by The Good. On and on and on.

Our family beliefs are anchoring you to what your father and I inherited from our families, what we enjoy doing ourselves, and what we are figuring out together. At the end of the day, the details are trivial but I will leave you with this bottom line for when you create your own family inoculation situation.

Love is the most important inoculation.

But of course, as you wish.