Dear Matteo, 65 Months Old

You can read!

Motivated by watching your sister, you proactively picked up the book “100 Super Sight Word Poems” and began practicing every night before bed. You first focused on your school sight words like “a,” “to,” and “the,” circling them with markers, and completed reading the lines with the picture clues. Now you can read damn-near half the book.

More important than the reading itself, you are excited and proud to read. When you complete a poem you light up as if you hit a game-winning 3-point shot.

Your favorite poem is “Where To?”:

Some day I go…
to the bus stop,
to the school,
to the park, or to the pool.
But every day,
I like to go home.

You have that one memorized now and practice speed reading it like an auctioneer.

Reading is so powerful, and now you can see words everywhere and ask what they are if you don’t know them yet. You also hold us accountable to help you read your book every single night. This of course extends your tactics to avoid sleep that also includes demanding food several times and asking for someone to snuggle you. Reading, food and snuggles all sound like reasonable demands to me.

Love,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 85 Months Old

That’s a wrap for another epic Halloween.

After realizing last year that we moved into a destination trick or treat neighborhood, we upped our game for the main event. Your Mom irresponsibly purchased two gigantic inflatable spiders for the front yard as well as a movie projector that we used to show movies on the garage door. I also picked up a propane gas firepit so we could hand out candy in the driveway with some warmth.

So far as cosumes, you dressed as the prettiest little witch I had ever seen. The rest of the family went full D.C. with me as Superman, Mom as Superwoman, and Matteo as The Flash.

You got to enjoy two Halloweens, really. On the Friday before Halloween, we drove around for your elementary school’s Trek or Treat event, which was a nice way to visit some friends in other neighborhoods and pre-load on the candy haul. We had some technical difficulties in that I wore a costume with integrated sleeves and gloves, so my phone couldn’t read my hand gestures. I had a hard time accessing the map and had to use the end of my nose on the phone to get to anything, which was odd from the start and got old quick. Even with that costume inconvenience, we got around just find and you two got a candy haul that was equivalent to a good Halloween by most standards — but no match for what was to come.

On proper Halloween, we tried to set off early as a family to trick or treat at some friends’ houses. By 5 p.m. the streets became swamped with families, and I flew home (in Superman costume) to finish our set-up. By 6 p.m. our neighborhood was in full swing with kids lined up by the dozen at every house. Parents confirmed that they drove from other parts of Gig Harbor and Fox Island to come to our neighborhood.

This Halloween felt big. Maybe it was sheer volume of kids that swelled into our streets. Maybe it was the off-duty patrol car the HOA hired to crawl through the streets and scare off any real shenanigans. Maybe it was the fact that I could see what was going on this year, not blinded by the full-face Spider-Man mask I wore last year. To that point, I heard from some dissapointed kids who expected to see Spidey again. I listen to my consituents, so maybe next year?

As for you, well, you braved extensive trick or treating again with your Mom and friends while I held down the base. Matteo folded earlier again this year, but mostly because he wanted to watch a movie on the projector. I think we’re really dialing in our Halloween vibes and can’t wait for the big show again next year. This is the kind of stuff childhood dreams are made of, and we old guys have some fun, too.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 64 Months Old

We just wrapped a weekend hosting the Ballew family, which means that you and Eliza had a non-stop cousin party with Harry and Winnie. Lennon is still a little too young to hang.

Growing up, I thought that cousin time was simply the best. I was fortunate enough to have both sides of my family closeby, so I spent consistent and countless weekends bouncing between Italian family meals and Americana backyard BBQs. In that relatively short window of life, my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles made weekend villages to raise us, and therin our imaginations raised forts and castles. Of course, as we cousins grew up and spread out, the villages were largely abandoned and replaced by family reunions to remember what they were like.

I saw a lot of that over the weekend. Your Mom, Aunt Nina, Uncle Jeff, and I brought everyone together only to pick-up after the cohort of cousins moving from one game to the next, leaving behind the relics of fun in the form of Legos, magna blocks, and art projects. I honestly felt like I didn’t talk to you much, nor could I keep up. You’d check in at stages for food and water like a marathon runner and move along to keep with the pace of your crew.

All this is to say that I was happy for you. It’s mostly coincidence that any of us have cousins of similar age to play with, and you lucked out. Your cousins are gone until the next hoilday, and we’ll get back into our school routine tomorrow. I hope you get to look back on these silly, wild years like I did: with great memories and gratitude to keep connecting with cousins even after you’ve outgrown the games and sleepovers. You’ll never outgrow the bond of family.

Love, Dad

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