When Greg went to mow the lawn for the first time back in March, our lawn mower refused to cooperate. It would run for two or three minutes before deciding to quit and refusing to restart. If he tried again an hour later, it would usually start and quit again. I’m sure a few head of cattle could have handled our yard much more efficiently.

Greg felt secret jubilation. He will not admit this, but I am a wife and I know these things. He suggested that we call a teen in the neighborhood to handle our yard care. I suggested that he fix the lawn mower.

You see, Greg had never actually done any sort of maintenance on the lawn mower, unless you count adding gasoline. Five years without an oil change or a sharpening of the blade. And now that I think about it, he’s probably been waiting every day of those five years for the mower to die. So I suggested that he try a few minor fixes, such as an oil change and a new spark plug. Maybe there was a simple $10 fix.

Greg grudgingly went about the fixes, but still the mower failed. Should we buy a new one? Greg thought that we should hire someone, and I thought that we didn’t need the extra expense given that we had a new baby. In the long run, buying a new mower was cheaper than hiring someone.

Well, Greg wasn’t going to buy a new mower now, not after he had invested a couple hours already trying to fix the mower. So the following weekend he tried a few more things – putting in new gasoline and checking the fuel line. A few more hours were lost, and still the lawn mower failed. At this point, Greg was trying to do most of our yard work with the weed whacker. Another week passed, and he spent more time working on the mower. I insisted we buy a new one. He insisted that after spending eight hours and about $75, he couldn’t quit now.

After four weeks of this nonsense, I persuaded him to buy a new mower. And it wasn’t even new. It was refurbished. The mower works great, and I saw how relieved Greg was to not have to worry about the old one.

Except it’s still sitting in our garage. I asked Greg how we could get rid of it. He said he wants to keep it, that he’s going to work on it in his “spare time.” What spare time? It’s been three months since he had an eight-hour night of sleep.

And why does a man who hates to mow the lawn want two lawn mowers? He’s punishing me, right?

After Eleanor was born, they cleaned her up while the doctors finished my surgery and then brought her into the room where I was recovering. I’d had a notion of how she would look, and when I saw her I thought for an instant that maybe the nurses had brought the wrong baby. I know that sort of thing is rare, and I was on a lot of medication, but this didn’t look like my baby. Greg and I both had light hair as babies, and this girl had dark hair and rosy skin.

By the time we took her home, I was pretty sure I had the right kid. And now? Well, take a look.

I’m on the left; Eleanor is on the right.

Dear Eleanor,

Today you turned two months old. I considered skipping this letter because the past few weeks have been rough, and I feared that I might not be able to remember anything beyond your crying and fussing. You’ve decided that napping is a waste of your precious time. So the past few weeks, I have watched the clock tick past 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., with you crying in my arms. You usually drift off between 5 and 6 p.m., right before your dad gets home from work so that he probably wonders why I complain so much about his sweet daughter.

On the bright side, you have discovered that the world holds more than just milk and diapers. And perhaps the most fabulous thing the world contains is ceiling fans. Nothing can tear your eyes away from a fan, even when it’s not spinning, though you prefer the moving kind. You’re also fascinated with the ground beneath you. Sometimes I’ll lay on the couch with you resting on my chest, and you’ll lift your head as high as you can, which is only a couple inches, and try to look at my shirt. Your eyes get really wide and then cross, and then you lose control and your head crashes down.

One morning, while I had you on the floor for tummy time, you were doing your usual head lifting but getting farther off the ground than normal. I called your dad into the room to take some pictures, and as he walked toward you with the camera, you lifted your left leg and rolled onto your back. Mobility! You probably won’t get far by rolling, but I’m sure there’s more to come.

Your Dad and I have been talking a lot about the sort of childhood and the sort of life we wish for you. Now that you’re here, I think more about how rich the world is, how many amazing things a person can see and do. As a sort of introduction to all this, we’ve played a lot of different music for you. This isn’t some effort to create a baby genius or make sure you get into Harvard. In fact, you definitely prefer disco to classical, so I’ve spent a lot of time spinning you around the house to “Dancing Queen” and “Stayin’ Alive.” The joy you seem to find in this gives me hope that you might share my love of dance someday.

With all the crying that has gone on, I sometimes wonder how we’ve survived the past few weeks. And I think the answer lies in your smile. It starts as a sly little half-smile, and if we smile back, your cheeks plump up and you give us a giant, gum-revealing grin. And so this time with you has reminded me of life back in the Midwest. Life there can be downright dreary. The summers are humid and stormy, and the winters are interminable, with gray clouds that seem to hover just above the ground. But then in March or April, a magical day will arrive when blue skies finally overcome the clouds. The sun kisses your cheeks, and the air that had seemed so metallically sterile smells fresh and sweet. Eleanor, your smile is my spring day.

Love,

Mom