Dear Matteo, 24 Months Old

Happy birthday my two-year-old!!!

You bring me so much joy every day. You are a wild, rambunctious little man. Or should I say, dinosaur? You are obsessed with dinosaurs right now, and it’s taken over most of your imagination and play time. Eliza has adopted the trend and plays along. Your favorite game right now is “baby dinosaur” where you and Eliza both pretend to be baby t-rexes and I’m a dad t-rex that marches around trying to find you while you hide in obvious places. We play this for up to an hour at a time, which is a long time for me to march around and roar, but I can hang.

Your dinosaur obsession translated into a dinosaur-themed birthday party today. Your Mom will forever remember the day as one of bad traffic for our guests. Uncle Scott graciously picked up Grammie and Popa at the airport and they took two hours to get to our house after an already delayed travel schedule. A couple friends couldn’t come to the party due to traffic. We’ll also remember this as the night when Greta got really sick from some combination of sneaking party food and fireworks anxiety. And now we have a spot cleaner.

You took forever to go to sleep tonight, likely from so much excitement in the day. We can no longer predict when you want to nap or call it a night. We only know that your little motor runs at full speed and you sprint, imagine and explore until a great crash into sleep. You still cuddle your way into sleep every once in a while, and your Mom and I enjoy the expiring moments of a baby in our parenting careers.

I don’t know how you can hang so late in the day. You’re developing in so many ways, and that requires a lot of energy. You’re constantly playing ball sports. You’re learning how to use the potty and a stand-up urinal that Uncle Ty and Aunt Amber wisely bought you. We keep it in the shower until you improve your aim. You can count to 13. You love to play “sneak” and get scared when your Mom jumps out behind a corner or closet. I personally don’t love when she does that to me, so I’m glad you’re a willing target. You can ride a scooter on our family walks. You’re not as fast as Eliza and say “Wait for me!” when you get too far behind. When you are frustrated about anything, but especially being denied the TV or a bottle, you yell “yes and no,” and we try not to laugh because you’re so serious and the phrase is so nonsensical.

At night we’ve gotten into a good habit of reading books and you can hang with the more advanced books that Eliza prefers. I sit between you and manage the stereo effect of both of you asking “Who’s that? What do they say?” about every illustrated character on a page. I burst into laughter the other night because I couldn’t keep up with answering both of you at your rate of questions. It was one of those moments where I was truly overwhelmed and happy to be in that position at the same time.

You may one day find yourself as a young parent dealing with a hyper-active, highly intelligent two-year-old who is always a step ahead of you and surprising you with language, actions and disappearances that trigger major anxiety. I hope you do. It’s a blast.

Love always,

Dad

Dear Eliza, 44 Months Old

You can swim like a friendly little fish. And it’s a good thing because the weather has been bouncing between the 80s and 90s this week. This is the beginning of a lot of pool time. Welcome to summer.

We put you in swim lessons a couple months ago and you’ve really taken to it. Goggles encourage you to hold your breath so you could enjoy the underwater views. Now you can dive down to pick up training sticks on the shallow pool floor and aren’t phased by water in your nose and eyes.

You’ve also made some friends at swim lessons and like to introduce yourself and kids that you don’t think know each other. You are quite the socialite. When you saw your friend Mae at pre-school the other day, you introduced her to all of your school friends and she finally told you to stop so she could just start playing.

We went to Cannon Beach for a getaway long weekend and you met some kids at the Tillamook Creamery. The creamery is about 3.5 hours from our house, so it won’t be a place we frequent. Although the ice cream selection is tempting. Anyway, you had fun playing chase in the lawn of the facility with some random kids whose parents also had a passion for dairy. Your Mom and I were pleased with ourselves because we connected Matteo and Greta on the leash and they pulled each other trying to keep up with you. What a proud parenting moment. We ate a box of salted caramel ice cream bars so fast they didn’t have a chance to melt. When it was time to go, we asked you to say goodbye to the kids, your new friends.

You said out of ritual, “Bye guys, see you again soon!”

But of course you won’t, or perhaps ever. The sentiment was innocent and it caught an emotion with your Mom.

You were excited to make new friends and should always try to. Not because you necessarily need more friends but because being friendly and connecting with people, even when fleeting, makes life richer. Sometimes the fast friendships can be the sweetest, just like ice cream.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 23 Months Old

There’s a popular book right now called, “Go the F*ck to Sleep.” Every parent has a copy of this book because it’s new and naturally funny to gift new parents. The famed burden of parenthood is sleep deprivation.

Your Mom and I survived what were supposed to be the more difficult sleepless nights of your baby years, but suddenly you’ve decided to become a restless toddler. You regularly went to sleep at a pleasant 7:30 p.m. for months but those nights are long gone. These days you don’t agree to sleep until 9 p.m., 10 p.m., or one night a couple weeks ago at 1 a.m.! And you’re getting up once or twice a night! What gives?!

Our friend Halley said a restless toddler could be a sign of a highly intelligent kid. Back-pay me in college scholarships for this burden, please. Sleepless time is money.

Putting you to sleep has become a bigger chore. We still put you in the straight-jacket of a backwards sleep sack that you can’t take off, but you’re tall enough to climb out of your crib. We moved you upstairs into Eliza’s room so you could have each other’s company — and we could reclaim the downstairs. You stand at the top of the stairs at the child gate and bark orders at us for minutes that seem like days. It’s not that we are going to go to bed that much earlier if you did, it’s that we need a break at night from the non-stop parenting! Sometimes we hold our ground. Sometimes we give in and bring you into our bed, or usually your Mom will go upstairs and cuddle you in Eliza’s bed until the three of you are asleep.

What you’re losing in sleep points, you’re gaining in potty points. You’ve successfully used the potty a couple times this past week! You also like to take a leak outside on plants. It’s truly one of the joys of having male parts.

But most of all, you just like being naked. The weather is warming up so you treat our front yard like a nude resort. You jump in and out of the pool and try to pee on the shrubs. You talk about your junk pretty much constantly. When play time is over and you refuse to put clothes on, I chase after you around the yard like security trying to catch the streaker at the sports arena.

Try to keep the streaking to this life stage and college, which are the only times this level of nudity are generally acceptable. Start sleeping better immediately.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 43 Months Old

As we walked hand-in-hand down a busy Proctor street on the first warm Saturday of the year, people sitting at restaurant windows and passing us on the sidewalk couldn’t help themselves from smiling, giggling, smirking. They were in awe of the unicorn princess.

You wore a pink ballet leotard, a tutu, white sneakers, a unicorn crown and held a unicorn wand in the hand not holding mine. To top off the look, you put on a bit of pink lipstick with a professional touch. You looked amazing, really. During our walk in and out of the farmers market people stopped to give compliments. You politely said thank yous but were surprised by the attention. That sense of surprise was the best part. You didn’t see yourself as standing out with your look. You were just being yourself. That’s the right kind of perspective to keep as your style and sense of self evolves.

I’m continuing to see a young lady mature out of your small stature. Your imaginative storytelling has become more detailed and long-winded. You get so caught up in the details of a moment you forget where your story was going or forget the point you were trying to make. You look sideways when you talk, recalling your thoughts. You bat your big eyes and blink rapidly when you’re embarrassed. You have a new game where you spell letters with your fingers and quiz the nearest adult what they are. We don’t listen to kid music in the car anymore. Hip-hop is a little too intense, so we compromise on Maggie Rogers as you prefer to listen to “more girl voices.”

Some toddler behaviors linger. You still like to talk about the “baby in your belly,” which is most entertaining when you tell this to a pregnant woman, almost as if sizing her up. You used to call this baby in your belly Eliza but recently changed it to Ariel to minimize confusion and because The Little Mermaid is on your radar. Aside from being reminded by pregnant women, you often refer to your baby when you’re hungry as you’ve basically personified your stomach.

“My baby will come out soon,” you like to say.

“That’s just fine. Give it 25 years,” I reply.

“OK.”

And as long that’s the case, all is well, Unicorn Princess.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 22 Months Old

Or should I write the address, “Dear Mataymo”? That’s what you call yourself while still challenged to pronounce your given name.

I like the variation. It sounds like your rap alias. I occasionally call you Taybot, which was the alias for my college friend, Taylor. I produced a few tracks for him back then including the hit (to us), “It’s Friday,” which I can turn on sometime when your Mom is OK with lyrics about underage drinking and you’re over “Elmo Slide.”

In your verbal growth, you’ve been confusing manners with demands. A lot of your requests end in “now” instead of “please.” For example, when we get you in the car, you say “DVD now!” But you say now like meow so you really sound like “DVD meoooow!” You are a funny cat. Your frequent demands also include playing ball of any kind, watching Tumble Leaf and eating gummy vitamins. You’re going to want to get those manners down soon because “pleases” and “thanks yous,” which you are better at, get you far in life.

Aside from your demands you spent most hours listing off names of people and animals you see in real life and your imagination. We gave you some good source material last month when you got to spend a week and a half visiting Gigi in Palm Desert. You got to visit a zoo twice and spend daytime hours in the pool and learning to swim with a life jacket. At the zoo, you saw every animal under the hot sun and even got to feed a giraffe, which terrified you in the moment but seems to be OK in your mind’s rewritten history.

Our trip was only supposed to be a few days — and I returned early for work — but you, Eliza and Mom stayed longer while our house was under construction. We loved seeing you quickly progress from fear of water to a little swimming frog, jumping off the side into ready arms and playing around the pool stairs.

Now we’re all back home and the weather here is starting to feel like summer. We had “opening day” for our yard kiddie pool and you jumped in without hesitation. Add a group of friends and soundtrack and you’re set for your first rap video. Hopefully it’s that kind of summer.

Love, Dad