Dear Matteo, 91 Months Old

This was supposed to happen years ago and never did, until this week: you cut your own hair.

I shouldn’t be surprised, given that you are your mom’s son, and she cuts her hair consistently. Every few months, I’ll walk into the bathroom and find your mom following a YouTube video, cutting inches off her hair. She leaves up to half a foot of hair she couldn’t reach in the back, which I help clean up. This is all based on her humble upbringing and unwillingness to spend more than $100 for a good haircut, which she can mostly do herself.

After you took a bath, I found the aftermath of your scissor experimentation. You cut your wet hair straight across, leaving bangs resembling Jim Carrey’s character in Dumb & Dumber. You were proud of yourself initially because, well, you did it. You cut your hair. Unfortunately, you didn’t think through cutting wet hair, which sits longer, and how your hair would look drier and shorter. This is also in the context that you’ve been growing out your hair, especially on the sides and back, so the rest of your hair was quite a bit longer than your new bangs.

After cycling through some mixed emotions about the ordeal, we agreed that I could get you into my barber to “finish” the haircut a couple of days later. You’ve been to barbers many times before but not this particular barber that I’ve been seeing since we’ve lived in Gig Harbor.

I took some classic, fatherly pride in taking you to my barber. The barber for some men is almost like church. There’s a community and trust there. It’s where you take your stories and hear stories. Your motivations were more elemental. The barbershop has a pet squirrel named Amanda that they hand-feed when it comes by for a snack. Although we arrived in the 7 a.m. hour on a cold February morning, the squirrel arrived for her morning snack, and you got to enjoy the wildlife while the head barber and shop owner, Mark, took care of shaping your mane. We left a little “party in the back” at your request, and you got a lollipop when the job was done.

Like I told you on the car ride home, seeing a barber is part of taking care of yourself. You’ll want to see him or her every 4-6 weeks, plan to pay cash, and know that your mom will always be excited to see your fresh look. Maybe you’ll inspire her to see a hairdresser regularly, too.

Love,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 111 Months Old

Everyone is sick.

Thankfully, this isn’t one of those pandemic moments where the world feels like it’s shutting down. No, this is your classic “everyone-has-the-same-bug” week, and we’re about halfway through the family cycle. The symptoms haven’t been too bad—just fevers and runny noses—but it’s surprising how much these little bugs can take over. Our home has been full of call-and-response sneezes and coughs lately.

You and Matteo have both been trading “sick days” from school. Of course, “sick days” in our house are code for all-day screentime, books, and popsicles—not a bad deal if you ask me! Your mom, on the other hand, has had it rough with a fever that lasted several days and body aches. She’s been so desperate for relief she’ll take a massage from anyone, including Matteo’s karate chop style. As for me, the earaches are annoying, but I’ve probably fared the best. Mostly, I’m just tired with all the activity at work, teaching, and trying to help everyone around the house as much as I can.

You’ve definitely earned some rest. The holidays were busy, and weekends have been full of skiing. On top of that, you’ve been preparing for your school choir program and waking up early on Wednesdays and Fridays to make it to practice before school. Honestly, I’m not a fan of before-school activities at your age—you need your sleep! And you’ve made sure we remember that with your dinosaur roars and scowls on those choir mornings.

Even with everyone feeling under the weather, we’ve managed to find ways to pass the time. We’ve gone skiing a few times (you can’t get anyone sick out on those open-air runs), watched family movies, built puzzles, and spent some evenings out at the cabin. One highlight was our first family Scrabble night. Now that you and Matteo can spell enough words to play, it was a lot of fun—though we had to allow proper nouns and names to make it work. It worked, though!

I expect we’ll all be back on our feet by next week. Until then, enjoy the quiet and downtime. You need it to feel your best—and I’ll do my best to help keep things peaceful.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 90 Months Old

We are off to a great start this ski season. You are bombing down the hill and chasing down anyone you know, friends your age and adults alike.

We got a good early season snowpack and skied at Crystal Mountain right after Thanksgiving. The first morning, you were hesitant being on new, longer skis and didn’t have confidence. We left some friends go to ski on their own so we could refocus on our form and speed. By that afternoon, you were back where you left off last season. That happens to most of us. We have such long breaks between seasons that we need to get our legs fit again and remember good technique. You’re not alone!

After a few more days at Crystal Mountain, we went to Whistler before Christmas and you were able to ski everywhere. Mom and I have to really work to keep up! We skied a day with our friends Joe and Kim and their children around your age. That family skis a lot more than we do and spend weeks at Whistler, but you were able to keep up on the terrain, no problem. The more you pushed it the more you seemed to have fun and expressed yourself with hoots and hollers as you popped off small jumps and ripped through the trees off piste.

Back at Crystal Mountain, you and Eliza are insistent on skiing the Magoos run as much as possible. There’s a nice kicker before the chair lift — hence a persistent audience — and you two like to fly off the jump to occassional applause from above.

You brag back on the chair lift to Eliza: “That was a three-footer!” alluding to how much vertical air you got. Like most of us, you double the actual airtime because it feels so big. I don’t go much bigger, to be clear.

Mom and I convince you to ski more of the mountain, so we’ll scoot around the tree hits off of the infamous Queen’s Run and around Lucky Shot. We fuel you on gummy worms while we wait for the next chair at the bottom of the runs.Y

ou know there’s more to ski and asked me if you could ski Powder Bowl this season, which is off the higher and most technical Chair 6. In the right conditions, you’ll be ready soon enough. For now, enjoy the bumps and kickers and keep working on those parallel turns.

Love,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 110 Months Old

The culmination of hours of practice on Monday and Wednesday nights over the past few weeks paid off for your holiday dance recital.

You advanced from performing just one number last recital to three this time and even delivered some storylines for an interlude skit. That’s a lot of choreography to memorize! It was also more rewarding for your family audience, including grandparents, who had to sit through a lot of other kids' dances as we waited for yours—and waited some more after for the program to conclude. This time, it felt like we saw you every two or three dances.

Your first dance was ballet to the Bing Crosby classic “Mele Kalikimaka,” followed by a hip-hop dance to “Just Got Paid” by *NSYNC (your favorite dance and Mom’s favorite because of *NSYNC), and finally, a jazz dance to “Like It’s Christmas” by the Jonas Brothers.

You had great stage presence and confidence all night. You danced gracefully, with strong movements and an easy smile. You said you got a little nervous waiting for your dances but felt fine once you were on stage. That’s how these things work: all the anxiety and anticipation leading up to your big moment (expressed in small fits of rage at home the week before the recital—we could tell), and then enjoying the performance and the audience’s reception.

After receiving all the flowers and taking photos with family, we jumped in the car the next morning to drive up to Whistler for some pre-Christmas skiing and to celebrate Uncle Scott’s birthday. We stayed at the fancy Westin resort, thanks to your old man’s Marriott points accumulation. You and Matteo enjoyed the heated pool as soon as we arrived, and you spent many cozy hours on the fold-out couch watching movies in between our ski outings.

Because of the recital timing, we missed skiing with friends but got to ski a lot as a family, which we tend to prefer anyway. The timing worked out fantastically because, by skiing later in the weekend, we missed the rain and enjoyed much better weather and snow than our friends did.

On the way back from Whistler, we stopped at Aunt Nina and Uncle Jeff’s house for Christmas with cousins, Nonno, and Julie. You opened a Magic Mixie crystal ball that you couldn’t wait to try and perform the magical spell, eager to see what stuffy reward would pop up.

Your Mom and I are holding on to what we know are the scarce years left of wondrous, magical Christmases. You and Matteo still run each morning trying to find your elves, Tinsel, Elfie, and Tiny. You’re still full of excitement for Christmas Day, eager to see what Santa will bring. Trust that he’ll deliver, and keep that big Christmas spirit in your heart long after you’re in on Santa’s secrets.

Love,
Dad

Dear Matteo, 89 Months Old

You are legit the coolest young man I know.

Your use of "legit" is high volume these days. You legit want a certain Pokémon card. A friend at school has a legit crush on a girl. You legit don’t like music class.

I get the legitimacy of your word choice. The way you adopt slang at your age is so funny. It’s fast, and you shift keywords frequently. Sometimes you parrot my phrasing, but a lot of it comes from the bus and the older kids (up to 5th grade) you come across on the playground. You’re practicing your phrasing and tone, which happens to be a lifelong pursuit.

The other day, we were watching old videos from before you and Eliza were born, and your mom had a higher voice. I have claimed this before, but I don’t think she believed me until she watched them. I’m not sure if you kids wore out the sweetness of her higher pitch or if it just happens with age—likely both. As for diction, I have certainly adopted business phrases and jargon at work and probably cleaned up a lot of my casual slang for the sake of professionalism. Your mom and I read more than ever (and watch less TV), so I’d like to think we have more words at our disposal, or at least sharper minds to process them. Your vocabulary is growing because of reading and classroom time, too.

Now, if only you had enough words to process your big emotions. They still come and go, especially before bedtime or when you’re hungry. Or worse, both. You resort to slamming doors, throwing nearby objects, or stomping to express your anger or frustrations. It’s hard to cut through to you sometimes to let you know that we want to help or to reinforce how you did something wrong. Even our adult words fail us in those parenting moments.

Of course, this is just a phase, and the more you grow inside, the more you’ll find the words to let us know what’s wrong or how to make it better. Otherwise, and most of the time, you’re legit just having fun and enjoying the ride.

Love, Dad