YAEL “How to Do Your 9x Tables”
I’ve had a lot of sisters in my life: great friends who were everything to me, women that I could talk to about anything, girls I did everything with but live under the same roof. But thanks to my mom, for whom two were plenty, I never had an honest-to-goodness real life sister.
Until now.
While Yael and I are not related by blood–she’s your Uncle Brett’s wife and the mother of my one and only niece and I love her like she was my actual real life sister. In reality, she and I couldn’t be more different. She’s far less obnoxious than me, for example. Reasonably reserved and a little shy, Yael is sweet where I’m boisterous, demure where I’m outspoken. And yet somehow we click.
The other day when we were driving somewhere to do something, one of us said something and the other answered back and we laughed so hard we cried (exact circumstances and jokes redacted for top secrecy of sister time). That’s happened at least four other times with Yael and I can count the times in my life that I’ve laughed that hard on both hands.
And when was the last time you called someone just to ‘talk’? Well, it doesn’t happen very often to me, but Yael is so easy to talk to, I just call her for a mood boost and to shoot the breeze. Some people are just amazing to be around and she has that magical chemistry.
Once when you were even littler than you are today–in fact only weeks after you were born–you had terrible colic and cried all day and night. Exhausted, Mark and I went to lie down for an hour while Granny and Grandpa took care of you. Yael was there and instinctively lay down next to you and sang a few songs. By all reports, you stopped crying and were such a happy baby for the entire time we were gone.
Your Auntie Yael is a special and incredibly generous person. She’s always listening for hints of things that might make you happy. If in conversation, I mentioned something I loved that I could no longer find anywhere…Yael would manage to track down a bunch and give me a bunch for my birthday/ anniversary/ christmukkah present.
Note: the greatest gift Sebastian, is to give to others and take joy in the act of giving–that’s a quality in your Auntie that would be wise to emulate.
Because we live so close to our family, you can benefit from all of of their special skills–and in Yael’s case, you have especially scored in the math department–an area in which your mommy is not very naturally gifted. PLUS since Yael is a teacher, she can show you all the tips and tricks for getting it right. So, to start–your first lesson is a very clever and secret trick for learning your nine times table.
May you be especially gifted in the universal language of math, my darling.