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

Dear Matteo, 52 Months Old

Body language: Perhaps the most effective form of communication.

Your eyes, facial expressions, hand gestures and posture can exhibit layered tones. Your four-year-old mind is still learning all the ways to leverage body language more effectively than the volume of your voice or the limitations of clenched fists alone.

As you’ve gotten bigger and stronger, you’re able to push your way around a little more. You’ve become tempted to hit, kick and slap a family member when you’re angry about something or winding down for the night. Those actions sometimes trick me into thinking that you’re intentional about what you’re doing, and I have to remind myself that you’re still figuring out how to productively express yourself.

When we catch you flailing at us wildly like an extra in a kung fu movie, we try to say, “Matteo, tell us how you’re feeling with your voice, not your kicks,” or “Matteo, use gentle hands.”

And usually nothing needs to be said. You just want a hug or cuddle with your Mom to calm yourself down. I personally recommend the last option there.

The trick with being a strong boy and eventually a strong man is to control and manage how you are perceived and act physically, especially during stress. It’s easy to use size and strength to get your way, but it’s rarely the best solution.

While you’re in your fourth year, fire away. We’ll help you know when you’ve got it under control and when you’re over-the-top. We’ll probably tell you with body language first, and you’ll eventually get the hint and chill out. That’s the whole idea.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 72 Months Old

Happy birthday, my six-year-old!

You’ve been looking forward to this one. You wrote several birthday lists and drew several iterations of your party, cake and presents. You liked to ask us several weeks ahead of your birthday “how many more sleeps?” until the big day. I hope it lived up to the hype.

We made it an extended birthday week. Your Mom invited over all of the kids from your bus stop for a neighborhood party. We had an awesome turn out and I got to meet a lot of parents. Spiked cider is a good icebreaker for adults. We invited the Oars out to the island cabin (more on that below) so you could have a sleepover party with your friends Mika and Cici and ended your birthday with a proper present session and cake with Grandma Vicki and Poppa Steve. You scored some presents like a small robotic puppy, some art supplies and an umbrella. When I type that out, it’s a funny mix. That’s how presents work when you’re six years old.

We gave ourselves the family gift of a cabin this month, too large for a bow or for words. It’s been a long time planning and a little anxiety at the home stretch to make it happen, but we did it. I couldn’t be happier to have a place to entertain our friends and family and have a place to go to and make memories. The summers are going to be dialed! And I bet you’ll have more than a few birthdays there.

In past, pre-pandemic years, we threw some rager Halloween parties. Since you’ve been around, we traded in scary costumes for Bavarian ones, shifting to Oktoberfest birthday parties. This year, like last year, we’ve had neither big celebratoin out of caution for COVID. I hope that next year we have one or both, and we have a couple of venues to host at now. I feel like those verions of parties represented my and Mom’s lifestages and we’re entering a new, very exciting one. There will be more parties.

Happy birthday, kiddo.

Love, Dad