Dear Eliza, 54 Months Old

Well, we’re still in quarantine. It’s been long enough that this is now normal. The days all blur together. There are no weekdays or weekends. Tom Hanks (who was among the first celebrities to get and recover from Covid-19) hosted an “at home” SNL and in his monologue said something like: “There is no Saturday, there is just today. And tomorrow will also be today.” That sounds about right.

You and your brother have been incredibly resilient and adapted to our new normal much better than your Mom or me. Your school time is now a Zoom meeting with a dozen or so other wild children and a teacher reading to you all, likely with her own volume off to help pretend that you’re listening. We trade Marco Polo videos with family members. Of course, your quarantine coping mechanism is art. That is a wise choice and much healthier than your Mom and my choice of drinking more — though we are also running more. Trade offs. I honestly don’t know how your art can improve so much and so rapidly without any instruction. Sometimes you disappear in a room and an hour later come out with pages of drawings. Your quarantine series is an impressive volume.

In the 5,000 square foot world of our home and yard you’ve also found more of your leadership voice with few dissenters. You more often take the lead on what game you want to play and you give marching orders to Matteo constantly. If he interprets a game or imaginary play different than what’s in his head, you are quick to correct him. He can’t read your mind so I’d say you are a little tough on him, general. Though he’s not your only target. Just as often, you correct my every move down to which way I swing my arms when I pretend to be an animal or what my posture should be when pretending to be a tree. There’s no improvisation allowed in your games. I’ve been quick to remind you that everyone can play how they like, though you contest that your way is the better way.

Matteo seems to be OK with taking your orders, but i think that has something to do with how you know how to use the TV remote now. With great power comes great responsibility. It’s amazing what people are willing to do when they’re dependent upon someone else for a key life source, like TV. I suppose as long as you hold that high ground, you’ll get what you want there.

Through this era of quarantine, it’s been fun to see you so much more than when we had weekdays and weekends. Even in seeing you so often, I notice how much you’re growing intellectually, emotionally and physically. For some funny reason you like to compare our foot sizes as a way to prove to me your growing. You most certainly are.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 33 Months Old

Dude, this is a really weird time.

We’ve now been under a state-mandated “stay-at-home” (self quarantine) order the last few weeks to help minimize the spread of COVID-19. This will be our way of life through the rest of this month, at least.

What has that meant for you? A lot more parent and sibling time, but no school, friends or extended family time. School has effectively been cancelled for you young kids two months early. It’s been interesting and somewhat disheartening to see how you and Eliza have processed the circumstance. You talk a lot about making sure you don’t spread germs and don’t want to be sick. You also want to try wearing masks like the people you see on the morning news. Kids shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff, but you do.

There are a lot of comparisons being made about what’s happening. We’re somewhere between 9/11 and World War 2 in terms of casualties. We’re heading toward a Great Depression. It’s all happening really fast.

None of this stacks up to the kind of world your Mom and I imagined bringing you into. But we’re doing our best to make sure you’re still playing, learning, getting exercise and seeing friends virtually. The silver lining in all of this is that we get to spend a lot more time together as a family, so we’re making the most of it. We’re reading, playing catch, swinging on the hammock, puzzling, coloring, watching TV, going for walks and at a rate faster than we would have done all that by the end of the year under normal circumstances.

I have had mixed emotions these past weeks: frustrated, helpless, inspired, motivated. It’s hard to express myself because the news changes so quickly and society is shifting behaviors in a lot of positive ways and also not fast enough to minimize the damage. I finally published how I felt last week in my primary social media channels, with pictures of you, Eliza and your Mom:

“These are the faces of Covid-19. Fortunately, due to home quarantine and social distancing, they (my wife, son and daughter) have not contracted the virus but they have been affected. They can't see their friends. They can't go to school. They can't see grandparents. I could wait to post this until after one of them or me contracts Covid-19. Or I could wait for another couple hundred cases in Seattle announced tomorrow. Or I could wait to learn my grandmother is sick and really worry. Or I could acknowledge that I'm not seeing my coworkers at all and that my brother in the food service industry can't work. And if this is hard for two weeks, what about two months or longer? Younger people under the age of 60 aren't worried about dying but they should be worried about making a living if this goes on for months or until we have a vaccine. We can wait for more federal and state government mandates or we can do what we know we should do anyway: stay home. “

I’m taking my own advice and staying home as much as necessary. We’ll see where this virus goes. It’s going to get a little better before it gets worse. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with all of this but I think you’ll also be young enough that what comes of Covid-19 will be “the way it’s always been” to you. Selfishly, I’m really glad to have you around because you bring so much joy and simplify life down to playing, eating and sleeping. That's a good way to live. Let’s do that.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 53 Months Old

These are strange times. Schools, events, offices and even our local ski hills are shutting down because of COVID-19. Italy is in total lock-down, and we’re seeing videos of people singing from their apartment balconies and harmonizing with neighbors to pass the time. Resilience can show up in surprising, beautiful ways.

I’ll be curious to know what the history books have to say about this moment. Since about the time I wrote your last letter, the virus expanded out of China and has become a global pandemic. President Trump recently restricted travel to Europe. Governor Inslee cancelled schools statewide for six weeks and limited group gatherings affecting churches, concerts, etc. We cancelled your Mom’s trip to Australia next month to attend a wedding.

These are major bummers but intended to slow the spread of the virus, which has now caused nearly 6,000 deaths globally, mostly impacting the elderly. More than 150,000 people have confirmed cases. That’s very under-reported globally as tests are limited to mostly people who are hospitalized. There’s no vaccine yet. People are scared — and buying wartime supplies of toilet paper.

We’re not in a great spot geographically. The epicenters of the outbreaks happen to be in the greater Seattle area and northern Italy. It’s certainly odd to be an Italian-American right now and witnessing the real effects of this thing.

The silver lining of this moment is that I’m working from home full time and get to see you, Matteo and your Mom a lot more. The work-from-home dynamic has proven to be really effective, too. I’d argue I’m more productive at work and spend more time working because I’m not commuting. The work-life balance for me is at an all-time high. By the time you’re a professional read this back, I bet virtual working is at least as common as working at an office. I sure hope so. Virtual work has been around now for more than a decade thanks to technology, but it takes a moment like this to realize how efficient it really is.

Though your school is cancelled for the next six weeks, you have some work ahead yourself. We’ll figure out some homeschooling, and you’re starting up piano lessons. I am really excited about that. As you know, I learned to play guitar and bass guitar basically by ear, but piano is a super versatile instrument and reading music is something I never got around to and regret. It’s a selfish desire to have one or both of you excel at playing music and especially the piano. We found you a good teacher who is a woman, per your request, just down the street and I bet with your artistic sensibilities you’ll pick it up in no time.

I might try to learn a little piano at the same time. With all of this “public distancing” and minimal travel I’ve got to do something with my leisure time in the house, too. You teach me everything you learn and I’ll try to keep up. Deal? In exchange, I promise I won’t sing.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 32 Months Old

You give the best hugs. There’s really no contest.

There are people who hug well and those who don’t. Some people hug and pat (RIP Gramps). Some people side hug. Some people hug with limp arms (Courtney). Some people go for the neck strangle (Aunt Nina). All hugs are good but few are great. Probably the best person at hugs I know is a guy named Anders that I work with. He gives anyone a hug who wants one, and it’s a measured full body squeeze. It’s a gift.

Most women are huggers, to varying degrees of comfort, as that’s the American norm for women greeting women they know and men greeting women they know. Cheek kisses never made it across the Atlantic. A lot of men aren’t huggers by choice, but this is a mistake. Hugs are an expression of affection and respect. Everyone needs more of that.

You sir, put all 32 lbs of your weight into every hug you give. Even when I lift you in the air for a hug you seem to summon twice your weight to slam into my chest. When you hug you get your arms out wide and around. You squint your eyes and grin big. You smash your face into your recipient. Most important: You hold your squeeze and try to see just how much more you can try to crush. It’s a masculine hug because it’s about showing affection with your growing strength.

You’ve been the subject of a lot of hugs lately because you’re doing so well at being potty trained and generally listening. When you’re tired, you can go off a cliff into psycho-two-year-old-scream-mode, but aside from that you’re usually doing something deserving a hug or in a cuddly mood and initiate hugs almost as a form of “Hello!”

The real trick to all of this will be keeping the hugs up as you grow into a bigger guy. Hugs tend to fall off for a lot of young boys for a lot of reasons. My recommendation is to keep hugs on the regular with people you love and respect and they’ll always appreciate it. You’ll never get too big to hug your old man.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 52 Months Old

You have been rolling in and out of a stutter in your speech these past months. It’s been tough to watch you hang on a word while the burst of words behind stack up in your mind. Fortunately, I think the emotional effect hits me harder that it does you at your age. You’ve recognized it happening, reciting “um” multiple times over.

Your Mom tagged along on a work trip to Sundance last month. We needed the general parenting break and Grandma VIcki delivered the heroics of multi-night childcare. (Thanks, Mom!) We were obviously excited to see you and Matteo when we came home. You were so excited to see us that you really couldn’t get your words out that night, and honestly that alarmed me. You came around and had an easier time communicating as we got back into a routine over the coming days, which was a relief.

Your Mom and I did our best to slow down how we spoke to you and each other (a tough task for me, as you know) and waited for you to take your time to talk when you wanted. That was a good exercise for us all. By slowing down we all looked at each other more and really focused instead of moving fast and getting distracted by the next thing or screen in front of us.

The irony of it all is that some days you have no stutter and those seem to be the days when you have some complaining to do. Particularly around dinner time, which may very well be your tipping point to nighttime crankiness, you start complaining about whatever glorious meal or fast Trader Joe’s cuisine is put in front of you. I don’t know how you got so picky with food and moreover how you got so opinionated. You’re a food critic who doesn’t like to eat much. This is a phase that needs to move along, sister.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with stuttering. My concern is that it’s one of those traits that can draw out some undesirable attention in formative years that we’d like to minimize for you. We are getting an appointment together for a speech therapist to help you and ensuring your teacher at school is keeping an eye out for any changes. We’re doing what I think good parents are supposed to do: act quickly on any potential challenges to ensure your maximum comfort and self-confidence in your own skin before you have the chance to question it. I’ll be curious to see how this plays out: a short episode, a season of life, or part of the whole show.

No matter the outcome, I’m always here to listen to what you have to say, no matter how long it takes to say it. Except for complaining about dinner. Let’s cut that out entirely.

Love, Dad