Dear Spencer,

You were once a tiny baby, who cried and cried. I had to do the funniest rocking dance on a repetitive loop to shush your overstimulated brain and allow the calm to overtake you. Even at your fussiest, your baby days seem so much less complicated.

Tonight I learned you have big boy problems in the big scary real world, and oh how I wish I could wrap you up in my arms and do the funny rocking dance to shush the problems away. But this is just the beginning, Buddy. It's a big, mean world out there. I wish you didn't have to know this fact, but it's true.

Tonight I listened to you talk to me in your little boy voice about how your friends at school won't let you play with them. I doled out advice calmly and assertively, trying to reassure you that this thing is really no big deal. But the truth is, Cub, it breaks my heart. I wish we lived in a world where everyone played nice.

Tonight, as you laid under the quilt I made you in your little boy bed, I heard you talk about how the kids at school are labeling things and chastising you for not conforming to those labels. I tried to erase their words from your memory, telling you that toys are neither boy or girl. I've created a world for you here in our family where gender lines are blurred. I'm sorry if that doesn't translate into the real world, Buddy, but oh how I wish it did.

Tonight I heard in your own words how it breaks your heart that a friend that you adore so much just pushes you away. I shared with you my own experiences where friends broke my heart, and I tried to offer up the best advice I could, when really I wanted to weep. I wish all kids were created equal, sweet, sweet boy of mine.

Tonight I saw you as a person aside from me, and I tried my best to separate us; but it's too hard because you're mine and I'll always want to protect you. The other day my heart sank to the floor when I learned a kid had teased you about your stutter. The real kicker is that you laughed and called them your friends. You didn't know, Spencie, that they were being mean--pure evidence that your heart is still pure, and oh how I wish I could keep it that way for always.

Tonight as we sat in your dark bedroom, I realized that you've really just begun your journey, and this is but a little speed bump along the way. Soon enough you'll have issues that can't be resolved with hugs and kisses and proclamations. I don't like this realization much, Bud. I prefer you to be that crying baby, where all I need to do is the funny rocking dance to make the world right again.

But you have me, always. And I love you so.