Dear Eliza, 69 Months Old

We just came back from a great week in Lake Chelan.

Your Mom and I snuck up lake to Stehekin for a night and got to explore that wonderful time capsule of a town. No phone or internet. Decades-old expired tabs on the couple dozen vehicles we saw. There’s not much there but tourists, PCT backpackers and concessioners catering to both. We loved it and we’ll take you there soon to see the bakery, garden, orchard and waterfalls for yourself. Mom would like to go as soon as this fall.

Back in “busy” Chelan, we got plenty of boat and pool time in. I preferred the lake, which was crystal clear and warm enough for extended swim and float sessions. You had a tough time around the water for good stretches of the week that were mostly based in attitude and made for some challenging parenting moments. It stemmed from you and Matteo somehow managing to cut your heels on the condo stairs. Band-Aids seemed to make everything better until you decided the water would make it hurt again. Matteo did not share this view, proved the theory wrong and hence spent a lot more time splashing around. Alternatively, you expressed your concern and water hesitency with a whiny pitch tuned perfectly, uniquely to agitate your parents. Despite calm reminders that our job is to keep you safe, and occassionally infuriorating attempts to get you to stop whining and start swimming, you resisted. That is, until you saw something exciting, got into the water and forgot about your hesitency until hours later.

The scenario is a perfect example of what I’ve come to understand and accept at this stage of parenting: the joys and pains of a very young person getting a grasp of the expanding world around them. Sometimes that grasp is flawed to hilarious outcomes. For example, Grandma Vicki asked you what I do for work. You said I shop for a job — because you know I work at REI and whenever we actually go to the store, I shop. All that computer time at home 40+ hours didn’t bring you to a different conclusion. Your grasp of your heel “boo boo” and water contact led you elsewhere but eventually back into the water.

Your Mom would say I have the same meandering logic, so age won’t help you all that much. I think we’re OK the way we are. We always get to same result that our loved ones told us about hours or days earlier.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 48 Months Old

Happy birthday, 4-year-old!

You’ve obviously been excited for this day to come and can now enjoy the short, annual window when you are just one year under Eliza in age identification.

We’ve got an exciting red, white and blue birthday ahead (of course, preceding Fourth of July) with some monster truck elements at your request. We started off the morning building a fort and playing “horsey” at the downstairs couch. That horsey game is one where I build small “stables” out of cushions and you and Eliza pretend to be horses while I feed you goldfish. Later in the day, we’ll head to Bella Bella Beach and hopefully with a new yellow kayak just for you, which is one of your birthday presents currently en route to our local Home Depot. We’ve also got cupcakes in all sorts of flavors that we’ll surround with monster trucks decor. We’ll reserve some of the goods for your birthday party with friends in a couple days.

Of course, the big gift this year is the week-long company of Uncle Ty, Aunt Amber and cousins Abby and Mason. Desite the huge age gap, you’re finding all sorts of ways to play and hang out. Your Mom procured a free basketball hoop that has become a main attraction. Uncle Ty and Mom teamed up for a game against Abby and Mason last night, and your Mom was a baller with a game winning shot.

You’re a big four-year-old with a big personality and big potential. You’re using bigger language, saying phrases like, “That’s incredible!” You’re super tall and seem to keep pace with Eliza at her growth spurts. You’ve got confidence to make new friends at any occassion and are a true alpha — willing and wanting to lead any decision at any time with any company. What to eat? You want to decide. What to play next? You want to decide. If anything, your growth is going to be less in confidence and more in compromise. The difference between being an alpha and a leader isn’t making the decision, but bringing people along. My job is to help you be that awesome leader that you are so naturally becoming. Best job ever.

Love always,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 68 Months Old

We’re adapting to this new Gig Harbor lifestyle and how we’re spending our time.

On my end, working from home has become the rule instead of the exception. I can’t quantify how huge this shift is. No, wait, I can. I’m spending about 500 more hours at home annually by not commuting to an office. Some of that time is shifting to working hours, which is why companies are so inclined to embrace more remote work, and a majority of that time is shifting to more time hanging out. Of course, during my breaks I can also check in with you, go for a neighborhood walk, grab a coffee upstairs and just be more present with myself and with you. It’s a major shift and largely beneficial on all accounts.

You started a first summer camp. This one is focused on pottery. Mom signed you and Matteo up for a string of camps to help get you out of the house and connecting with more kids. That’s a good transition for you in absense of completing a school year. The pandemic created an academic “skip year” of sorts for you, so it’s good to get you back on track. Yesterday you realized that you’ll be a “new student” again at your new school, Artondale Elementary, and equated that to being welcomed by a lot of new friends. That’s exactly the right mentality. So far as this pottery camp goes, I look forward to being the receipient of some new plateware. I like these camps where I get something at the end.

Although we’ve only been in the new home for a month, we had our first chance to entertain guests this past weekend. The VanOrder famiy arrived in an RV from Indiana, by way of Denver, to visit for a couple of nights. The parents, Ben and Gwen, go way back with your Mom and we always love to host our Indiana friends. The youngest, Trevi, is a couple of years older than you, and you two hit it off. All of the kids got along well and we made maximum use of our big backyard, rain or shine. We also took the around the neighborhood, exploring Bella Bella beach and eating at Gourmet Burger Shop in downtown Gig Harbor. The dads peeled off to Heritage Distillery for some drinks.

You had such a big first day with them, you woke up the next day feeilng a little overwhelmed that our guests were still at our house and went back to bed to process it. That was the first time I saw you express your feelings about how people effect your energy — some introversion. That kind of self-awareness gets to be more important as you get older, and it can change. I personally feel like I’m getting more introverted over time, preferring smaller groups to socialize and more alone time to feel productive and recouperate.

Maybe that’s another benefit of being in Gig Harbor now: a lot more personal space. Use all of it!

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 47 Months Old

You just got to meet your new cousin, sort of.

We spent the weekend in Bellingham to see your Aunt Nina in her final days of pregnancy with a big, round tummy. We hadn’t seen them for the past six months due to the pandemic, so we almost missed seeing Nina’s bump entirely. Will it be a boy or a girl? We’ll know by your next letter. The out-of-womb cousins all got along great. You and Harry roughhoused as expected, and we got to hear a lot more from a verbose young Elowen.

The weekend was a nice break from all of the moving in we’re doing. It was easy getting beds and dressers in place (because we hired movers to do that). Now we’re down to the small stuff — art boxes, framed pictures — as well as junk-drawer-worthy miscellaneous items.

You’ve wasted no time taking advantage of all of the extra space here. You built racecar tracks across our furniture-less family room, canvassed your bedroom floor with monster trucks and books, and climbed the highest point of the backyard playset. Mom bought you a Paw Patrol water gun with a backpack resevoir, which you’ve used to hose down the patio and the side of the house. All in all, you’re proving out why we wanted to get more space and more house.

You have been an awesome playmate around the house, too, constantly asking if I want to play with you or work on a project together. You helped me build some of our new outdoor furniture as well as a living room chair. Sometimes we get to play and sometimes I have to disappoint you when, say, your request is at 10 a.m. on a weekday. But oh the jealousy I have that every day of the week is a play day for you. It’s just turning to be summer now and we have a lot of outdoor playtime ahead!

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 67 Months Old

We finally made it home!

Just a couple days ago, we moved into our new house in Gig Harbor. This has been a long time coming and required many crash pads in between. I’m not sure that you or Matteo believe we’re staying put because we’ve “moved” so many times between our Tacoma house, the Tacoma condo rental, Grandma’s house, Chaffee’s house and Gigi’s condo.

Of course, who can complain about these last couple of weeks in Palm Springs? I’ve said it before: you swim like a fish (you prefer mermaid). You are already and somehow a faster swimmer than me and swam circles around me in the pool. We need to get you signed up for a swim team soon. It might be your sport. We also played a little tennis. I’m unsure if you’re motivated by the sport or outfits (not unlike Gigi), but we’ll probably get you swinging a racket more, too. Good thing tennis clubs usually have pools.

Now that we’re home, I can assure you that we’re done with the couch surfing because I don’t want to move us or any more couches for another 15 to 20 years. You and Matteo were incredibly resilient, often more than me or Mom, in just hanging with all of the change. You stayed motivated by planning on how to decorate your new room. You’ve drawn the room many times over and inspired by the “Fancy Nancy” books we read some nights.

The night before we got here was something like Christmas Eve. You were so excited to get here. We all were. When we made it to the house, we were able to sit back (on the floor) and relax. Because of aforementioned unwilingness to move couches again, I hired a moving company who got everything into our house in mere hours, so now we’re unpacking for what appears to be weeks to put the our lives back together.

We’re going to have a lot of fun here, and we’ll get to documenting it as soon as I can find my camera in one of these dozens of bags and boxes.

Love, Dad