I-N-T-E-R-V-E-N-T-I-O-N

Dear Tante Ingrid,

Thank you for your very nice letter back to me. Mama read it to me and said you’re a really good writer and you give very kind and good advice. She got a little teary.

Mama says she thinks someone may have given her family an intervention. I think that’s different than the show Mama and I watch sometimes at night called I-N-T-E-R-V-E-N-T-I-O-N. In that show people drink and cry and drink and cry and their mamas and daddys cry and help and cry and help. Then they have a big meeting where all the crying people get together and the drinkers promise to get on a plane and go someplace where they have to do chores and learn how to be big people.

Mama says it’s not the drinkers fault, some people grow up on the outside and don’t grow up on the inside and then later have to get their insides and outsides to match. Kind of like Peter Pan, but the opposite. After the drinkers agree to get on a plane and go do chores the helpers cry again but this time happy tears.

Here’s the intervention: yesterday morning Oma came downstairs and said she felt really bad that Mama thought all those helpful little suggestions were criticisms. She said that she really just meant them as suggestions. She said some other nice things too; like that Mama was a really good mama, and that she can’t think of anything Mama could do better, and that just watching all the things that Mama does around here makes Oma tired.

Mama didn’t cry, but you could tell if she had they would have been happy tears. Mama said it was OK, and that she knew Oma couldn’t really help herself. That’s a lot like those people on I-N-T-E-R-V-E-N-T-I-O-N. Then Oma went to the airport just like they do.

When we got home from the airport, Daddy came home because Mama was really tired and her head hurt and she needed a nap. Mama’s head hurts a lot of the time. An hour into Mama’s nap Daddy brought Mama a really tired wiggly baby named ME! He said it would be a good idea if Mama and ME! slept together because we were both really tired. I might have slept for a little while, but mostly I wiggled and chatted and squawked and cried and spit out my pacie and looked at Bella and grabbed parts of Mama’s face and pulled really hard. Mama called for Daddy but he and big sister Sabrina were outside playing. So Mama’s two-hour nap was a one-hour nap. She says it’s time to put the KI-BOSH on letting Daddy put little people in bed with her during naptime. She says if it’s such a good idea then I can go to bed with Daddy when he hits the hay at 8:30 at night. I don’t like the sound of that.

Well, what you said about sleeping with my tribe is sure true. I like to hear Mama breathe and smell her even when it doesn’t smell like soap and whatnot. I also like to see her, no matter what she’s doing and no matter what her hair is doing. What you said about Oma and the undershirt is true too! She puts undershirts on me and big sister Sabrina all the time! I think it might be a German think though, ‘cause Miss Mirjam always has baby Marie in tights and undershirts. Mama says when she was little but even bigger than big sister Sabrina, Oma always made her wear an itchy blue sweater covered by a windbreaker, no matter how hot she got playing or rollerskating or riding her bike outside. You and Mama sure know a lot of stuff.

Well, I better go. I think I might need to poop again. Don’t tell big sister Sabrina—she’s too interested in poop already.

Love,
Little Linnie Lou-Hoo

P.S. Mama sings that beans in your ears song! Except Sabrina likes it “toes in your ears.” Silly Sabrina.

P.P.S. I have lots more to tell you, but it might have to wait until tomorrow. Mama says she has to lie down, and I can’t type by myself yet.