Dear Eliza, 21 Months Old

Dear Eliza,

You are a big sister now, hooray! Welcome to the Oldest Sibling Club. 

A few hours after Matteo was born, you came to the hospital with your Grammie and Popa to meet him. I'll never forget how you curiously peeked around the open door of our room to see if we were there. When you saw your Mom, you lit up and ran to the bed. You kept saying "Oh wow baby!" over and over. 

You were so sweet and excited to see Matteo. You looked him over for several minutes and cuddled with your Mom while he slept. After some practice at "gentle touches" with Matteo, you became distracted with your own voice and how you could make it echo with high screeches in the room. Such a toddler. That was your sign that you were done with visiting your brother, and we sent you back to the house. 

Just a week into being a family of five (I have to count Greta), we're getting used to a different dynamic. Just as we're keeping an eye on Matteo, you are getting quick on your feet. It's a concerning combination that made us lose track of you yesterday. I was cleaning up the garage and your Mom was tending to Matteo. Everyone thought someone else was watching you, and in no time you had snuck out of the house, behind me in the garage and out to the front yard to find Popa. Very dangerous! Whereas a week prior we'd probably be talking to you and keeping track of your whereabouts, now we have to coordinate who's watching you. We're also installing some door latches to make it easier on your Mom when it's just you, Matteo and her when I'm at work. 

Your Grammie and Popa are leaving tomorrow to drive back to Indiana. You read that right: DRIVE. West coast people like yourself like to fly places to save time. Midwest people like your Mom and grandparents like to drive, take their time and see the sights. Crazy, I know. They are heading south from here to the Oregon coast and on to the Redwoods before heading back east. 

You've been a crank-pot the last couple weeks and showing signs of the "terrible twos." You have stronger opinions of what you want and don't want, whether it's a game, clothes, music, or food. I think your legs have grown a couple inches, which explains the crankiness and long naps. Growing up is hard work. 

You're getting smarter with the days. You can sing your entire ABCs without error and identify most of the letters at random. You can also count to 15, though you usually skip from four to nine and then rattle off the teens. Your favorite song right now is "Wheels on the Bus," and you can sing on time and know all the steps in the song. 

You're a bit of an adrenaline junkie. You love fast motions like swinging and spinning around. I've taken advantage of that and started to take you on jogs with Greta. I appreciate it because I could use the exercise. You squeal with delight when we start running because you hold the leash (attached to the stroller) and think you're getting Greta to run fast ahead.

Greta has become your buddy. You like to feed her and always look up and say "One more scoop" in between scoops of dog food. If Greta has gained some weight, it's credit to your consistent overfeeding. You like to lean over and give her hugs and have started to give her commands like "come here" and "back up." You have quite the stern tone and sound like a little general.

You are pushing your athleticism. You like climbing the rocks at the Ruston spray park and run all over the yard, falling often. Your knees have constant "boo-boos," but you're a tough kid and brush it off. You have an impressive arm throwing arm, just like your Mom, and can throw a tennis ball overhand at my chest from 6 feet away. We got you a balance bike and you're starting to get the hang of pushing and steering. 

Seeing little Matteo reminds us that you are no longer a baby. We talk about how he reminds us of you and how much fun we've had with you these two years, growing from a baby into a little girl. When Matteo was born, I wondered how we've affected your life. Most people would say parenting is selfless but I'd argue it's just as selfish because you bring children into an uncertain world and, with siblings, you create new, unsolicited relationships. No one asked you if you wanted a brother! As you'll observe through life, not all siblings get along well. I hope you two will because you'll always have a common upbringing and the longest relationship in each other's lives. That's pretty special.

You're already benefitting from having a brother because it's creating more time for you and me to hang out. A couple days ago, I got to take you to the Proctor library for story time so your Mom could stay home with Matteo. I've never done that before because I'm usually working. It was fun to see you know the routine of songs and try to get me to play along. We turned the day into a date, grabbing coffee and donuts afterward.

I look forward to a lot more dates, and you can thank Matteo for that. 

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 20 Months Old

Dear Eliza, 

This is likely the last letter I'll write to you while you're an only child. It better be. 

We saw your brother on an ultrasound yesterday, and he is big -- 97th percentile across the board. He's probably 7.5 pounds already with a month to go. The doctor kept saying, "He's definitely on the bigger side" and "I'm sure he won't be an 11-pound baby." None of these statements encourage your Mom. We were already excited to meet him, but now we're hoping to meet him ASAP.

At points in your life you will think and occasionally say aloud, "Why couldn't I be an only child?" Being an oldest sibling, the answer is, "You were."

And I hope you enjoyed the time. I think you did. I did.

About a year after you were born, your Mom and I started discussing if we wanted to have more children: Do we want you to have a sibling? What's the impact of spreading our resources more? What is the vision for the size of our family? Does your Mom want to be pregnant again, and up to what age? What about the frozen embryos that we have left from IVF?

We hadn't entirely answered all of those questions by the time we learned we were pregnant with your brother, which is 100% how life always works. We didn't really need to. We are already enrolled in being parents, we're just deciding our major. 

Naturally our concerns now are how we share our attention and how you'll adapt in the near term. I think you'll be OK. You recently chucked a baby doll across the room and giggled, so we just need to work on your baby handling or a much more evil laugh. 

Here's the way I think about having another child: It won't take any love away from you. The capacity for love simply grows.

It's not unlike when we became parents. I didn't love your Mom any less when you arrived to make room in my heart for you. I loved your Mom even more just as I immediately loved you. Isn't that something? Now I'll get to watch you embrace being a big sister and love you for that, too. You're already helping out by taking more of an interest in potty training and proving to be a great negotiator, bartering for an M&M at every step of using the potty. 

Our attention will spread raising another kiddo. We won't grow eyes in the back of our head to watch you both. Thank goodness for that because I'd have to keep my hair very short to keep the hair out of my back-eyes. 

What I can promise is that the important stuff will still happen for you. We'll still read books at night. We'll still play on the patio when the weather is nice and get you on a balance bike soon. We'll still eat meals together, just with another messy family member at the table. I'll still write you letters on the 10th of each month. 

Do you know what we're most motivated by in this last month of pregnancy? You. That's why every night before bed we say, "Dear Lord, please watch over Eliza as she sleeps, and we pray that her brother is as smart and healthy as she is." 

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 19 Months Old

You will occasionally hear from new parents about how impressed they are with their own children. Every new thing is treated as a scientific achievement, and parents wonder aloud if their children are advanced for their age, or they hope so. Grandparents entertain it. Aunts and uncles tolerate it. The rest of the world finds it a breed of annoying.

I call this phenomenon "baby goggles."

When you're drinking in your 20s (and not earlier) you will occasionally get "beer goggles" that blur the world and people into something more attractive than they are in a sober state. In your 30s (and maybe earlier), if you have children, you'll find that beer goggles become baby goggles, making you see everything your baby does as extraordinary. Ideally, there's no direct correlation between beer goggles and an outcome that results in baby goggles.

Well, we have the baby goggles on right now because we are so impressed by how friggin' smart you are.

This is the point where grandmothers keep reading, Aunt Nina gets distracted with her own kid, and all of my friends bounce to see what else is in their news feeds.

Out of nowhere you are connecting possessive phrases and correlating people and places and objects. It's crazy. Some of your new favorite phrases include: "Daddy work" (when I'm teaching upstairs or actually at work), "Daddy home" (when I get home from work, or phrased as a question), Greta home (when we're away), "Mommy [eye] glasses," "water please," and "Hold you Mommy" (when you want to be held). So cute.

You've also become obsessed with warm milk, aka lattes. Just tonight you connected "latte please hot." That was a little out of order, but better than I order a coffee at Starbucks. It was news to me that you're starting to order hot or iced drinks. I guess the weather is warming up so it makes sense to specify.  

And you are spending plenty more time outside as the days are getting longer. It's a good thing because your Mom is getting super preggers. When you're outside, you're more independent and don't need to be held as much as you burn energy in the sun. Mom has also found super-human pregnancy strength as she's in full nesting mode getting the house ready for your brother and the yard ready for a "sprinkle" baby shower this weekend. She's spent the couple weeks running around and doing things she doesn't need to, like mowing the lawn and pressure washing the patio. I did my share of voluntary chores, staining the fence and digging up sod to reset the yard borders -- and getting a massage. My back hurt after all that work, OK?

You aren't holding up your share of responsibilities, but you are expressing more personality as you jog around the yard chasing Greta and jumping between conversations with us.

You complain when your hair isn't up and gets in your eyes. You brush it aside ineffectively as it feathers back in your face. You have a preference in your clothing and like to wear hats and sunglasses. The style looks a little like you're dodging paparazzi in LA, but it works. You do you. 

You love reading a version of "Hush Little Baby," which you call "Hush." Sometimes you let us read and sing it to you, but a lot of the time you ask to be left alone and flip through the pages.

You take time mastering small challenges. Tonight you spent all dinner trying to drink sparking water out of a regular plastic cup. You did well and hardly spilled by the end of it -- and had a very wet diaper. When you come across a new stair height or gap in sidewalk around the neighborhood, you'll walk up and down it until you feel you've got the hang of it. Only then you will move on. 

I'll be curious to see where that dedication to mastery takes you in life. It may be the baby goggles talking, but I bet really far.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 18 Months Old

Dear Eliza,

I know these letters are about your age milestones, but I'm turning the tables. A couple weeks ago I turned 34, concluding my "Jesus year." I called it that because Jesus did a lot of amazing things when he was 33. While I knew I wouldn't live up to that standard I figured it would be an amazing year anyway. 

(I had also thought up a brilliant, Jesus-themed birthday party when I turned 33 -- fish, water, wine, sandals, long hair, etc. -- but figured that would be frowned upon by the Almighty.)

The year turned out spectacular. We vacationed in Hawaii and Italy. That's not going to happen often. I also returned to Italy a couple months later for work. We found out you're having a little brother! At work, I got a promotion and leadership award. I was able to get more good people good jobs, too. All these things make Dad happy.

Among the many things that Jesus did that Dad didn't in his 33rd year was perform truly selfless acts. Jesus went so far as dying for our sins. I got along fine with the Romans when I was overseas, but I am going to make this next year more about being selfless. I could argue that I already spend a lot of time helping out others, but sometimes there's a collateral effect so I benefit or am recognized. I've had my share of that recently. 

We're on vacation right now in Encinitas, Calif., and I've been reflecting on a couple concepts during downtime: presence and fulfillment. It's a trick of the mind to feel fleeting fulfillment (alliteration!) when you're busy or achieving a lot of things, but that can be also create distractions and prevent you from enjoying the moment and company you're with.

Maybe it's because I'm a little older and wiser, but I've found that when I help out other people, I feel a lot better myself and am naturally more present. So here's to more of that in the next year. 

Speaking of presence, you're currently fighting a nap and rattling off a lot of your new phrases:

• "Mommy go?" -- As in "Where did Mommy go?" usually followed by fake crying
• "Me too" -- In general agreement
• "Pool whee" and "Beach whee" -- Suggesting to go places that are more fun than taking a nap
• "Hap birf'd you" -- One of your favorite songs that you usually like to sing to your cousin Harry
• "News doo doo Elmo" -- Short for "I want to watch 'Elmo's World' on the same screen that you old people watch local news."

How about you do Dad and Mom a solid and take a nap? I guarantee that by helping us you'll wake up feeling a lot better yourself. See how that works?

Love, 
Dad

Dear Eliza, 17 Months Old

Dear Eliza, 

You have the best little laugh. Your Mom and her mom are quiet chucklers, but you let it out loud like me. You proclaim your delight.

I'll paint you a picture from the other night. Your usual witching hour is 7 p.m., about 30 minutes before you go to bed. You get especially wild when you're just running around in a diaper before we put on pajamas. Your Mom was pretending to be a dog and crawl up and bark at you (don't ask), and it made you hysterical. Though you can say the words, you still signed "more please" as you wanted her to do it again and again. You shrieked with delight, followed by a gasping laugh. I soon took over, and it was more of the same. All the noise bothered Greta and caused her to rotate around the room looking for lower decibels. Her disgruntlement seemed to spur your delight. 

More shrieking. More giggling. "More please."

You're achieving so many milestones that it's hard to keep track these days. For some reason I commit the more peculiar behaviors to memory. For example, I realized that you can thumb through book pages. You do this with ease and could probably bridge a deck of cards. You also like to put items over your head -- scarves, bandannas and especially dog harnesses -- and choose jackets to wear around the house. I didn't realize toddlers liked to pick out their clothes so soon.

When you have on the outfit and "necklace" of your choice, you walk over to the fireplace glass, which you use as a mirror, to look at yourself. You are always very animated as you evaluate your outfit. I don't know where you got this from because your Mom spends zero time in front of a mirror (natural beauty needs no prep time), and I'm cleaned up and ready for the day before you wake up. That's another way of saying I spend more time in front of the mirror than your Mom, but you don't know that just yet.

All of this makes me wonder if you'll be into fashion when you're older. I guess I work in retail so that's not too far off. 

Here's a little life hint: Some people will like your style, but they'll fall in love with your laugh. Keep laughing out loud, kiddo. 

Love always, Dad