Dear Eliza, 84 Months Old

Happy birthday, my beautiful 7-year-old daughter!

We got the party started a few days before your actual birthday, returning to an Oktoberfest-themed party and throwing one of our biggest parties ever. Now that we have so many school and neighborhood friends alongside long-time friends and family, we can really throw down. You spent the party hours leading your friends around the backyard playing a lot of chase and pretend games, including the class favorite, “Copy of Luna.” Your Mom made her famous beer sausauges and we ordered pretzels. A lot of adults showed up and stayed into the evening, which is the sign of a great party.

To signal my long-term commitment to the Oktoberfest theme, I bought real leather lederhosen this year. Your Mom wore her dirdl outfit. Matteo wasn’t into the theme and stuck to his Flash Halloween costume. You looked cute as a button wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume with a touch of red lipstick.

Unfortunately, my first work trip in months coincided with your actual birthday, and that made both of us sad. We are truly spoiled to spend so much time together and forgot what it’s like to be apart for a few days. You cried about my trip on your birthday eve, but we cuddled and said everything would be OK. And it was.

You’re growing into such a smart, interesting kid. You’ve really gotten into reading and went from reading sight words to complete, multi-syllabic paragraphs in what seems like a matter of weeks. The school year is no coincidence. You’re also practicing writing long-form, copying complete paragraphs from books to recreate them. Your second book is titled, “Curious Kids Nature Guide.” Very on brand for us.

Social life has picked up, too. We’re in the middle of a soccer season for you and Matteo and we’ve got two birthday parties for friends today around Tacoma. It’s a little hectic and a lot of fun hanging with this life stage. You keep pushing and Mom and I will be along for the ride, and chauffeur you, of course.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 63 Months Old

Your musical tastes continue to grow. Mom laughed as she told me about how you two were in the car and while listening to “Free Fallin;” asked if the song was by John “Cougar” Mellencamp.

Of course, that song is by Tom Petty, but wow you are right on genre.

I wish your favorite song was “Free Fallin’,” but it pales in requests to another classic from the modern era: “Sexyback”. That’s your age-inappropriate jam. You like to sing the “yeah” line in between bars and like the challenge as you’re still trying to catch the beat. Your broad taste has been accelerated by your unwilligness to go to sleep at night and affinity to command Alexa to play music in your room long after your bedtime to practice lyrics and Home Alone bed-jumping-style dance moves.

You also like to dance to “brain break” videos on YouTube, like one for the Ghostbusters theme song. Because of that Ghostbusters interest, you asked to watch the real movie, starring Bill Murray. It ages well, so I was just as game to watch the movie and start the Halloween season. We pushed the limits of age-appropriate content there too, but I mitigated nightmares through some strategic fast-forwarding through the scarier parts.

What I love most about your musical interests is your willingness to perform. You try to rap Macklemore songs. You perform dances for us to the newest Pixar movie soundtrack and sometimes get roped into Eliza’s plays, often involving and annoying Luna. Your Mom and I are always a happy audience. Whenvever you pull on my shirt and say, “Hey Dada. I got a new dance move to show you,” I gladly moonwalk to the couch to enjoy the show.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 83 Months Old

Don’t judge a book by its cover or even your skim of the pages.

I thought I’d seen it all in the Midwest after more than a decade of visits to see your Mom’s extended family. We mixed things up this time and met everyone at a beach town called Three Oaks on Lake Michigan.

Lake Michigan has Hawaii-quality beaches. I couldn’t believe it.

It doesn’t compare with Hawaii’s climate, scenery, cultural aspects, etc., but that window of late summer was hard to beat. The beaches were large and clean. The water was, of course, salt-free and warm. You and Matteo could entertain yourselves for hours, building sand pies and teasing crashing waves. We also enjoyed the cute towns of New Buffalo and Sawyer, where we memorably ate at Greenbush Brewing BBQ and got our morning fix at Infusco Coffee.

We stayed at an Airbnb cottage with Grammie and Popa, and your Uncle Ty, Aunt Amber, Abby and Mason made a day trip to visit us. It was important to see Uncle Ty has he’s been fighting and beating cancer.

We bookended the trip in Chicago. On the front-end, we went to Shedd Aquarium and on the back-end we visited the free Chicago Zoo. You can guess which I thought had the best bang for the buck.

In addition to the sightseeing and family visits, it was nice to be traveling again as a family. We were delayed a couple of hours leaving Chicago, which made for a 12-hour travel day. You kids took it like champs. That’s about the same amount of travel as getting back to Europe. Picture me shopping airfare with that in mind.

Love,
Dad

Dear Matteo, 62 Months Old

You’ve started full-day kindergarten, and now Mom and I are midday empty nesters. Whoa!

This has been a long-time coming as you had to sit on the sideline all of last year to watch Eliza catch the bus each day and disappear into the mysterious world of elementary school. Now you get to enter that world.

You couldn’t have been more ready. We counted down the days starting mid-summer. We learned about your kindergarten teacher, the same as Eliza had. We tested the sizes of your jackets to make sure you didn’t grow another arm’s length over the summer. We got you to the barber to make sure your haircut was fresh — incredibly important.

The main event, at least for us parents, was the first morning bus pick-up. Our bus stop was packed with excited students and eager parents. You weren’t nervous at all, being so familiar with the bus routine for Eliza and probably knowing that she and a few neighborhood friends would get you to where you needed to be. You couldn’t fail. We caught up with neighbor parents. You found and started playing with friends. All was right.

Unlike Eliza’s first bus day last year, yours went in an emotionless blur. The bus arrived much earlier than we expected (like 10 minutes!) and you had just started playing before the bus pulled up and you dashed to be amongst the first in line. We gave you a quick wave and you got to your front seat (all kinders sit at the front), peering back at us through the half-mirrored window with smiling eyes.

That’s your magic: you don’t take on the weight of the world at once, you go with the flow and help everyone enjoy the fun of the moment.

Your Mom and I walked the three short blocks home, a little surprised to have reached this parenting stage already. It’s familiar but a little strange not to have a child pulling on a shirt or patience or heartstring at all times. We were ready for the break but also immediately missed the labor.

Of course, our “break” just makes for more distraction-less working hours for me, and time for Mom to get some life and order back. We barely recharge before you and Eliza come off the bus hours later bringing back all of the chaos that we missed. And so the virtuous cycle goes from here.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 82 Months Old

Your Mom looks out at the late afternoon sky and sighs, “Summer is almost over.”

That’s true. Sunsets shift closer to dinnertime and Back to School signs flood the stores. You’re back at school next week, and your brother starts the week after.

This summer has been one for the records. We did a lot of shuffling life around last year and it paid off. We spent tons of time at Harstine Island, enjoying beach walks, pool time and evening bonfires at the spit. That was the main event, of course, spending as much time as possible at the family cabin. You and Matteo got into a good habit of commuting there once or twice per week, settling into your “Kindle Firepads” (not exactly the product name, but close) on car rides, and sleeping pretty much anywhere you had to as friends and family often stayed over, too.

In between those island trips, we still got to other places. We took a trip to spend the night at Paradise Inn at Mt. Rainier. We hiked high up on the mountain, wandered the lodge at night and took our time hiking some trails, motivated by gummy worms. Oh, and we crossed the gnarly Nisqually River on one of those hikes! We took SUPs out to surprisingly-warm Lake Cushman and floated out on the lake for hours. We might go back again this weekend. Your Uncle Scott picked up a Sea-Doo jet ski, and you got plenty of hours getting pulled on floaties or just driving around with an adult.

I’m re-reading what I just typed above and that all happened in the last month. This is the good life, kiddo, and don’t you forget it. It’s been an amazing summer and we have many, many more ahead.

Love always,

Dad