Dear Eliza, 75 Months Old

You have become quite the reader these past weeks. I wish I could take credit, but seemingly out of nowhere (or regular practice at school) you can read “learner” books end-to-end.

I was shocked, I repeat “shocked,” when you read an entire Pete the Cat series to me the other night. I thought I was in charge of reading, but you quickly retired me. You became so immediately confident in your reading abiilty that, the next day, you asked your teacher if you could read a Pete the Cat story in front of your entire kindergarten class.

This is a very big deal. People of all ages typically loathe public speaking or public reading but you sought it out. I have to admit I was a little nervous that morning you would get stagefright when given the chance, but you told us that the reading event went great. Your friends applauded and asked you to read again the next day. I’m sure you inspired them to practice reading a little more, too.

Reading is sort of magical if you think about it. You get to put letters together and see them as words and ideas. You get to understand stories and concepts from other people this way. I hope this new abiilty to read inspires a reading habit more than I have. Your Mom and I might get through a dozen books a year combined. We like to read, but we don’t make enough time for it. Some of the smartest people I know seem to read at inhuman speeds and volumes, so take a page from their book and read a lot.

I guess I just prefer to write more than I read. But I also talk more than I listen. My character flaws are consistent. It’s better to be a good listener and a good reader, so you’re off to a great start.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 54 Months Old

You have a nomadic way of going to sleep. You wander between couches and bedrooms trying to find a comfortable spot to wind down. It’s not about brightness or darkness because you’ll shift between rooms with either option. It’s not about space because sometimes you find a big bed to sleep in alone, and sometimes you are snuggled in with Eliza or your Mom.

Some nights you defy sleep altogether.

“Sleep is bad!” and “I’ll never go to sleep again!” are common, last-stand refrains, as if sleep slighted you and you have yet to make amends.

You always need a “softie” ultra-soft blanket to finally settle whereever you do, which is never your own bed. Because of that, Mom and I carry you every night into your room after you’ve given into sleep.

The effort has gotten to be more and more difficult as you’ve gotten heavier and longer. I feel the stairs now when I have to climb them as the task has turned into a weighted lunge exercise. You also have a stretch reflex when picked up that turns you into a solid plank, which makes things a little harder as we have to turn sideways around corners so we don’t bonk your feet or head on a wall.

I’ve recently started to wonder how long this routine will last. When will my back not be able to take it after you gain a few more assymetrical pounds? Will you one day concede and more often choose to sleep in your own room, knowing you wake up there anyway? Sometimes, after an awkward, tired carry I can’t wait for the change to come. Sometimes, I hope the pattern never changes.

I promise to carry you to sleep as long as I can. And then you get to carry me.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 74 Months Old

A couple of weeks ago I randomly asked, “Eliza, do you have any loose teeth?”

I put my finger on one of your lower teeth, figuring those are the first to go. To my surprise, it easily bent backwards.

“You have a loose tooth!” I said.

You replied with wide, excited eyes, felt for the tooth and confirmed, “I have a loose tooth! I have a loose tooth!” Immediately sentimental, I grabbed my nice camera and took a portrait of your current smile with all the baby teeth that will take their place under pillows in time.

Since the news broke, you have been working that tooth like a puppy on a bone, consistently wiggling it with your finger or tongue. Your new adult tooth also emerged behind it, truly double the size of your baby tooth, and resulting in temporary stadium-seating teeth.

Loosing a tooth has been an initially exciting event. You’ve talked about friends who have lost teeth and joining their ranks. You’ve been asking about and drawing the Tooth Fairy, which looks something like Tinkerbell. You’ve told us that each child has their very own Tooth Fairy that brings them something special. Yours brings jewelry, I’m told. I think she shops at Kohl’s.

All of the initial excitement and curiousity has turned to anxiety and fear in the last two days that loosing the tooth has become reality. You asked Mom what the red stuff was on a banana you were eating, and she told you it was blood from the tooth. Since the banana incident, the realization is all too real and you’ve shifted to protecting the tooth instead of trying to lose it. That once-shiny white tooth is turning pale blue, and blue means it’s time for the main event.

While you are in guarded-puppy-mode, your Mom and I have entered into our own instincts as we plot how to remove the tooth in its final days. I remember when I was losing my first teeth how my parents hounded me trying to get access. Any trust I had in them was meaningless as I was sure they were just trying to pull on my tooth. Of course, there were and eventually did.

It all comes full circle as your Mom and I try countless ways into convincing you how we need to check on your tooth with a paper towel or floss. Matteo has suggested, from his encyclopedic knowledge of AFV, that we do as he saw on TV and tie the tooth to a string and slam a cupboard. We’ll save that trick for him as he’s so inclined. To that end, the personalities really come out when loosing teeth. I was hesitant about losing teeth and a little scared like you as a kid. As for your Mom, she says she would bang her teeth against countertops trying to loosen them in the first place. To each their own. And you don’t need to know that your Mom has been trying to pull the tooth out with tweezers while you sleep open-mouthed at night. You’d be too scared to ever fall asleep!

Because you and I are on the same emotional wavelength, I’m trying to reassure you everything will be OK. No hurry. This too shall pass and fall out. Then the next tooth, and the next one. And you’ll look back one day with adult teeth and all of that Kohl’s jewelry and wonder why it was all such a big deal.

Love,
Dad

Dear Matteo, 53 Months Old

You’re learning how to charm.

This is a fairly powerful Mottola male trait, though I think it skipped me in my generation and fell directly to Sergio. I see the early signs in your inclinations to make art for girls you know and flatter them for a reaction.

We were out back on the swings the other day and you told me about your friend at school, Mickey, who you said is, “So cute… She’s the cutest girl in the whole wide world.” You made her a bracelet and Mom says when you gave it to her she responded with the biggest hug and said how much she loved you. Good game.

You also told me on the swings that one your friends, Calvin, said a bad word, “hate,” as in “I hate walking to the woods.” That’s a tough spot to be in at an outdoor pre-kindergarten. You remembered that the other bad word is “stupid” and we agreed those are the only bad words in the whole wide world. That’s relieving to me because I use a lot of other words that I thought were bad.

You like to tell Mom that “you’re so beautiful” and of course the imprecise pronunciation melts her and anyone around her. Sometimes she’ll reply with a big hug and kiss, and that, young man, is pretty much the big idea.

It’s not all that hard, paying attention to people and communicating how you feel about them, but it’s also easy to forget to do. Make it a system.

When I was a young man, I remember watching an episode of Oprah. The guest, who I perceived to be a super smart guy, said he compliments his wife every day, and that was the key to their marriage. That stuck with me for some reason, so that’s what I do. I try to compliment or say something I like about your Mom at least once every day. She usually brushes it off as just another thing I say and do in passing, but sometimes I get the reciprocal affection. Seems to be work enough of the time and makes up for the absense of charm otherwise.

As for you, just keep up the good work.

Love,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 73 Months Old

You woke up early the other morning and walked downstairs into my office, where I was working far too early myself. You entered with a mess of hair and hands up blocking the overhead office light from your eyes. You crashed into me and said, “I need to make art.”

That is the sign of a true artist: waking up and needing to make art.

I said, “OK, what do you want to do?”

“I’m going to go paint,” you replied, and then you stumbled away as your body was still waking up. You weren’t really excited to make art. It wasn’t a chore either, but something you just had to do.

I get it. Sometimes you have to get something out of your head: an idea, anxiety, a song… art.

You painted a mermaid and got on with the rest of your day.

You’re staying busy into the fall, making a little less time for art and making you crash harder at the end of the day. In addition to the work week of school, you’re signed up for swimming and art at the YMCA and have plenty of playdates. You express your moments of resulting exhasution through outbursts towards Matteo or baby crying and squealing. Those aren’t my and Mom’s favorite moments to manage, but it’s a phase. I don’t always manage my own tiredness much better.

Last night, after swim lessons, Mom and I caved at the grocery store and got a large slice of cake for dessert. When we got home, you and Matteo dropped your faces into that cake out of some combination of excitement, hunger and being too tired to hold your heads up and eat like civilized little kids. The sugar crash was immediate. No whining session or delays to get into bed.

I’m sure you had big dreams about art as you woke up the next day with more work to put on paper.

Love, Dad