Dear Eliza, 61 Months Old

We’re back in quarantine. Don’t forget your toilet paper.

We made the last of our freedom and skipped off to the non-fiction, coastal Pleasantville that is Seabrook. We didn’t know at the time of booking it would be our last excursion before a new stay-at-home order, but I sure am glad we made the call to go. The weather wasn’t great, mostly rainy, and the sea was rough and unpredictable. That didn’t prevent my hardened Pacific Northwest children dressed like Alaskan fishermen from wanting to dig into the wet sand.

Getting to the sand was more the challenge. The carriage house we stayed in was a good half mile away from the beach. Oh did you whine about the walk both directions. Your Mom and I like to walk. We are a family that walks and takes the slower, tougher path sometimes.

You complained, “My legs are too tired to walk” and “Why do we have to walk so much?”

My same reply: “We are a family that walks.”

It’s all about getting some exercise and fresh air, even through a mask.

This stay-at-home order feels a little less shocking this time. The seal is broken. We sort of expected it with record-breaking COVID cases. For the first time, we know a lot more people who have contracted COVID. Knock on wood, we’re staying healthy.

A lot of schools are closed down and even our home school pod is slowing down. We’re likely to have a very small Thanksgiving and Christmas season ahead with little extended family interaction. I’m trying to figure out how we logistically make the most of the ski season ahead (the most wonderful time of the year) without the benefits of staying at friends’ cabins.

It’s all the same to you, and your resilient, creative personality reminds me of that. I just wish “the same” was a little easier, a little more social, a little more fun to navigate. Yet, we walk ahead.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 40 Months Old

“What?” is your most common refrain. You say it as a deadpan “WUT.”

You picked that up from my own failing hearing reply and think it’s just the way to acknowledge a question or comment.

“Hey Matteo, what do you want to drink with dinner?” Reply: “Wut.”

“This is such a cool movie.” Reply: “Wut.”

“Can you put pants on?” Reply: “No.” (There are exceptions to this pattern.)

I’ll chalk this all up to a typically masculine trait of selective hearing and polite acknowledgement in absence of attention. When you’re checked in, you’re all in. Recently, Legos and Hot Wheels have captured your imagination and hours of playtime. You love creating Star Wars characters and spaceships with the Legos (as they masterfully intended in that licensing deal) and multi-height tracks and jumps for your cars.

The playtime has been a nice distraction for your Mom and me. Your monthday is the same as Election Day this year. The country had to decide to keep Donald Trump in office for a second term or replace him with Joe Biden. I’m writing this a couple of days later (though I always timestamp letters on the 3rd of the month) and we still don’t know the outcome. The results of tight state races trend toward Biden, but we’re not out of the woods yet. The country has been holding its breathe and might pass out soon. The compounding stress of the election and COVID is just a lot to deal with.

My sincere hope is that by the time you can make sense of presidential elections we’ll have a calmer political environment and maskless society. I don’t know if I’m being hopeful or nostalgic in that statement.

Either way, you have your toys and imagination, and most days that’s all you need. No matter wut.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 60 Months Old

You’re 5 years old! Woo hoo!

You ramped up your excitement the past few weeks like your birthday is its own holiday season. You told everyone you saw that you were turning 5, practiced writing the number 5, and told us (often) what you wanted your birthday to be like: Cake, candles, balloons and all things Frozen 2.

You spent your birthday eve like Christmas Eve, full of anticipation. You got to open a good number of presents early from grandparents and Uncle Ty and Aunt Amber. I think we delivered on the big day itself with a special gift (for the whole family) in a trip to Palm Desert to spend the week with your Gigi. You were so excited to get on the plane and didn’t hesitate to tell the flight attendants that it was your birthday plane ride. A lot of people still aren’t traveling because of the pandemic, but we took a lot of precaution in how we managed our timeline and kept the travel experience as low-germ as possible. So far, so good.

In Palm Desert you got a lot of pool time and continued to impress us with your swimming progression. That might be your sport, kid. Goggles are like your superhero cape. You put them on and can do just about anything. You could swim the width the pool and started trying to touch the bottom of the pool near the deep end. You figured out how to somersault underwater and could do two in a row before coming back up for air.

During rest time you played with a Frozen 2 Lego set we bought you and of course drew a lot of pictures. You’re experimenting with a new style where you draw outlines of figures with pencils and color them in with markers, creating a mixed media effect. You created a five page “book” that way in a sequence that told a story: You went swimming and got wet (page 1); Mom got you dry clothes (page 2); you put the dry clothes on in a bedroom (page 3); you went to a jungle gym with Matteo (page 4) and climbed around (page 5). That’s quite the autobiography.

You are such a wonderful kid and I’m happy to help make your birthday a special one. Being a parent is a little like creating art. You have an idea of what you want and try to shape it as you go, but you often end up with something you couldn’t have fully pictured in hindsight. That’s you. You are so bright, creative, imaginative, and beautiful. Everything I’ve wanted as a parent and so much more.

Happy birthday, kiddo. Year cinque is going to be rad.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 39 Months Old

M is for Matteo.

Pandemic-era virtual school has begun. We joined a “school pod” with another family in the area, so you go to their house and they come to ours once a week. Everyone is about the same age and pre-Kindergarten, so the rigor stops and starts with crayons.

Because your sister writes and draws nearly all of the time, you’ve taken to trying your hand at it. You are writing your Ms really well and can accurately trace the rest of the letters in your bold name. You’re also getting good at making shapes, like circles and triangles. What cracks me up is that both you and Eliza hold a writing utensil properly between your fingers. I always thought it took awhile for kids to figure that out. Parenting is full of funny little surprises like that.

Of course, your attention only sticks to schoolwork and art for so long before you find a ball to play with or object to fashion into a “shooter” (gun). I’ve realized I turned you on to Star Wars far too early because of your tendencies to want to have a shootout or lightsaber battle at any hour. Right now you’re playing with what you call a “doo doo,” which is both a potty joke of yours and set of bath tubes that you’ve connected and claim to be either a space ship or a shooter depending on the moment in your imagination.

You can settle down, occasionally. I enjoyed a classic father-son sports marathon with you this past Sunday. We cruised through some early morning EPL soccer into a Seahawks win (4-0 start) followed by watching some ski films. You’re really into the action sports right now and gave a “whoo” everytime a skier went airborne and twisted or flipped. I can’t say I’ll be a great model for hucking off a kicker, but I’ll cheer you on when you want to try.

We have also been watching the NBA playoffs and dominant LA Lakers. By the time you’ll read this you’ll probably put the 2020 NBA Finals into the last act of Lebron James’s career. Despite the drama of the game, you fell asleep the other night in my arms and I got to enjoy what felt like the last moments of a toddler quickly growing into big boy. I’m not sure how many of those I have left, so we sat on the couch like that for a long evening. And the Lakers won.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 59 Months Old

We’ve been on the move.

We’re escaping the constraints of COVID-19. Escaping the usual surroundings. Escaping the smoke.

Thanks to the Chaffee family, we’ve been able to get in some rotations on the peninsula. A couple weeks ago, we hit the road for a weeklong family vacation in eastern Washington. We were supposed to be in Italy most of last month. Eastern Washington was sort of a consolation that delivered on the heat and wine, but not quite the beaches, food or culture.

The trip was really good for all of us. We nailed the Airbnb choices, staying at a small farm and a winery to split the week. You and Matteo loved the farm life. We stayed in a converted pull barn and had a horsepen across the driveway. You two ran around saying hi to the horses, goats, pigs and stray cat. The property also included a large pool that we had to ourselves. You jumped off a diving board for the first time and with major confidence, quickly progressing to canonballs and aerial spins. You also got more comfortable without a life jacket on the shallow end and could swim the width of the pool without assistance.

The winery was less entertaining for you than it was us. The condo was super spacious, and we bought some toys and puzzles to keep you busy. We turned down the heat in the hot tub and got in there a couple times each day. We drove into Yakima to grab some baked goods and got on the Yakima River one day. In the evening we turned on the TV as babysitter for you and Matteo and walked across the driveway to the Freehand Cellars tasting room to enjoy a bottle of wine.

On our way back home, we drove alongside Mt. Rainier National Park and stopped at Rimrock Lake for one more dip in a natural pool. Well, I swam while you and Matteo caught frogs on the shoreline.

We escaped home again this past weekend because the air quality was so bad, and continues to be. There are wildfires up and down the West. We’re lucky to just be dealing with bad air while others are being evacuated from their homes or have lost them entirely. Still, we didn’t want to be stuck inside so, on a whim, drove up to Bellingham to crash with your cousins. That was a primo decision as you got along so well with Harry and Winnie, and your Mom and I got another break to have some time with your Aunt Nina and Uncle Jeff.

We’ve been on the move a lot and I think that’s in our family’s nature. We can’t sit still for too long. I can’t explain why. It’s an energy thing. Your Mom and I get energy from going different places and interacting with different people. You’re along for the ride and don’t know any different. Thanks for hanging with all the twists and turns of the year. 2020 has been scary, hectic and is now literally on fire. We’ll get through it. And if we get into a tough spot, we’ll keep on the move — and always moving forward.

Love, Dad