Dear Eliza, 79 Months Old

A few weeks ago I got an alert from the school district. I should let you know that school communications have advanced tremendously and now we get a combination of email and text messages, as we prefer, about any number of events, most unimportant and some slightly embarrassing, like an unexcused absense because we didn’t want to end a long weekend away. I’m sure these communications sound archaic by the time you read this.

In any case, this specific alert was of real concern. Someone on your bus #33 used mace or bear spray sometime on the morning ride into school, and affected kids were going to be checked by the school nurse. I was working at home, as usual, when I saw the email come in and ran upstairs to tell your Mom. She had already seen the notification by then, ever prepared for these events that otherwise never happen.

The emergency made us… laugh. We knew you weren’t hurt and hoped you weren’t uncomfortable. In our relatively sleepy neighborhood, this was a significant event that amounted to a little kid probably taking a spray out of a garage and showing it off on the bus. When you came home, you confirmed as much.

We asked you about how you felt and you said that you were OK but everyone started sneezing at the same time. That must have been a sight (and super spreader event). Later, you drew a side-profile image of the inside of the bus and everyone sneezing, like you said, in a domino effect. I believe that scents can create the most vivid memories, like a bad cologne can take you back to a junior high dance. If you ever smell bear spray again, I bet you’ll be transported right back to that bus #33.

In other news, your Mom and I took a childless vacation to Austin, Texas, for the first time in years and left you and Matteo to stay between Grandma Vicki’s house and with our neighbors Lindsey and John. I think we cared so much about the childcare coverage and school hand-off logistics that we didn’t realize we set you both up for a first sleepover with your neighbor friends Aliyah and Austin. As expected, you both did really well, save Matteo almost getting hit by a car at the bus drop off. We were so excited to see you upon return and it only took about half a day before you begged us to watch Glitter Force and protested that Matteo got to watch more shows than you.

All things settle back to normal quickly, be it sibling rivalry or bear sprayed busses.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 58 Months Old

About 10 years ago, I got into a “season” of mountaineering. I came off a job at Eddie Bauer, where I got to meet and work with some of the best mountaineers of this generation — Viesturs, Hahn, Arnot — as well as the Whittakers. I then took a marketing job at one of the guide services and that sent me from a curiousity to actually chasing sufferfests. I climbed Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier that summer.

I’ve wrapped another personal season to varying results. I first have to thank your Mom for allowing me the time because mountaineering doesn’t take hours but days — long travel and a lot of training. Your Uncle Scott catalyzed this season of climbing as he’s been interested in peak bagging the last year, and got a Rainier summit himself.

To start this season, I took on Mt. St. Helens, which your Mom and I have climbed in previous years in the early Fall. This was my first time with skis in the winter, and I stopped short about 500 feet from the summit because of leg cramping. Lesson learned: get my hydration and pre-climb diet right. Then I climbed Mt. Ellinor in the Olympics with a large group and, again with skis, to a successful summit.

Finally, I just wrapped a big trip to Mt. Baker, which I had never climbed, and we went guided by Mountain Madness because of the glacier travel. That was a haul at 20-miles roundtrip with heavy packs. I have not been that cold sleeping overnight under a two-story snowdrift. On our second day, we stopped short about 800 feet from the summit, about 7,500 total elevation, to ski down in a white out. I felt good in my body, mind and decision quality out on a big mountain. The skiing was also really great — when we could see.

Here’s the thing about the mountains, they humble you because you feel so small and exposed. I had a lot of quiet time to think, putting one foot in front of the other for hours and hours. I found myself thinking about you, Eliza and Mom a lot. I thought about the responsibility to always return home safely. I thought about the adventures we’ll get to take together when you kids can go further and climb higher. I like that wilderness experience but I’d like to do that more with family than away from family.

Everything is on a balance. This has been a fun round of climbing, and I’m looking forward to more lowland time at beaches and pools this summer. It’s been fun spending time with climbing buddies and sleeping in tents, but I missed hanging out with you and Eliza and even your disasterous sleep schedules in comfortable beds! I spent a lot of time on the snow, and I’m excited to get back in the heat. Your Mom and I are flying out to Austin, Texas for a COVID-delayed anniversary trip.

I look forward to the next mountaineering season, hopefully sooner than 10 years out and definitely with you, Mom and Eliza on the crew.

I try to stay on topic with these letters, but one aside: puzzles. You love puzzles and your Mom upped the ante this past month trying a 1,000-piece emoji puzzle (lots of yellow circles). It took us a week and a lot of parent-only evening sessions putting that together. We’re going to stay engaged with puzzles but are probably going to get back into the sub-500-piece puzzle to keep sanity and use our dining table again.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 78 Months Old

As masks have come off, “normal” sickness has picked up. Sure enough, we got the brunt of it on vacation in Palm Desert last week.

Somewhere between our house and Gigi’s condo in Palm Springs, likely at the airport, we picked up a stomach bug. You gave us the warning signs and complained about being really tired that first day of vacation. Then the stomach symptoms started and lasted about three days for you. Matteo got the worst of it. He was sick for about 12 hours and threw up a record-setting eight times. That’s what I call “puke and rally.” He hadn’t really thrown up since being a baby and he was a champ making it to the garbage bin every time.

Eventually the bug got to me but only really caused heavy fatigue. Being that we were on vacation, it’s hard to tell how sick I was or if I just really needed to sleep for a day. Through it all, your Mom evoked her super power of taking care of all of us while only getting a little sick for a day.

Our real vacation started day five of nine. We made it to the zoo a few times and of course spent days by the pool. We finally visited Palm Springs together, and your Mom and I snuck in one date night.

You made friends with two sisters visiting from British Columbia who were staying next door. The friend time really brought you back to life, and that was a good reminder that despite all the entertaining we try to do, kids need to hang around with kids to have the most fun. I played my “Dad card” and drew some attention back by offering to throw you and Matteo around the pool. Of course, my shoulders can only take about 10 reps for each of you, so I got back to parenting from the pool chair in little time.

We came back home healthy but tired. Every family seems to have a story about a sick vacation. I’m glad we got through ours and hope it doesn’t happen again anytime soon.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 57 Months Old

I remember being addicted to video games as a kid, like so many of my friends coming up in the 80s and 90s. I grew blisters on my thumbs from hours-long sessions of Double Dragon, Super Mario Brothers 2 & 3, Golden Eye and Star Fox on my Nintendo 64. That mostly fell off as I got more serious with sports, but I enjoyed a revival in college playing a lot of Mario Kart with roommates and destroying Uncle Scott in Halo duels on Xbox.

I see hints of your gaming potential, and it’s hard to avoid. You get quite a bit of screen time on long drives to the cabin and on the occassional plane ride. I have to admit, I like to look in the rearview of the car, see headphones on your and Eliza’s ears and enjoy the quiet or conversation with your Mom without interruption.

Your Kindle Fire has had a good run so far, but the “little kid” games are starting to bore you. I’m thinking abotu upgrading soon. To its credit, the device survived your abuse — spilling drinks, tossing it to the side and actually stepping on it, frequently.

While we hold out as long as possible for the next device with bigger games, you’ve taken to our phones playing a lot of Wordscape and some Tetris variants. I tell myself that spelling is at least educational to justify our parenting leniency. You also like to contribute to Wordle, the trendiest of all adult word games at the moment and spew at us of plenty of 3 and 6-letter guesses for the 5-letter word requirement. To feed your new obsession, you’ve learned Mom’s phone code and have stolen her phone several times to hide under a bed to try and complete a Wordscape puzzle without asking.

As these things go, we’ve leaned into your gaming interest as a punishment option, like “If you hit your sister, no games tomorrow.” Sometimes that really works. Sometimes we all forget what happened yesterday and you get to play your games anyway. Parenting is an imperfect science.

On a recent drive back from the cabin, both you and Eliza were restricted from games on the car ride because of bad behavior. You both whined dramatically about the punishment for the first 10 minutes of the car ride, and I thought I was going to break. But after those early minutes, you got distracted by each other and the views outside. We made it the rest of the way back home in a far-from-silent but enjoyable ride home without games or headphones.

We can survive without the games and devices, but they have their place. A lot of the smartest people I know play a lot of games — and read a lot of books. I am personally excited for you to get into some more mature games and eventually kicking your butt at Halo.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 77 Months Old

Your second loose tooth is hanging on by a thread, but you won’t let us get a thread in there to yank it out.

I thought after you got over the anxiety of losing your first tooth you’d be a champ for a next one, but apprently you know too much now and aren’t eager to get a visit from the Tooth Fairy soon.

This baby-bottom-front-tooth has been loose for weeks, super wiggly for days and is now just plain disgusting to look at. We’ve been disinfecting because the gums around it are eroding. Gag. Your Mom got in there with toilet paper for a pull attempt yesterday and we were suprised it didn’t pop out.

In other news, your tone has been popping off a bit. You’ve regressed to some baby-like noises to express whiny discontent when you’re displeased with a dinner choice or a lack of TV show on the evening agenda. God created kids with a screechy pitch that uniquely drives their parents crazy and yours is optimally calibrated to make us rise into an instant fury.

I was reminded at your elementary school open house today that this is all for show and an audience of two parents. You were wholly extroverted, articulate and excited with your classmates and teachers. There was no ounce of the girl who kicked around the car, not wanting to pick up Matteo from his school an hour earlier. Was I supposed to leave him there?

Let’s pop a tooth out in the next day and alm the disagreement tactics. That might get the Tooth Fairy to sweeten the deal.

Love, Dad