Dear Matteo, 66 Months Old

Just when I thought I had everything figured out in this stage of parenting, you humbled me.

We’ve had a good start to the ski season, and you and Eliza have been stoked to learn and progress. After a couple consecutive days the week prior, Eliza needed a break, so you and I went up to the mountain for a “boys weekend” that I was excited about. Mom also had some fun plans for Eliza. Because you two are so close in age and twin-like interests, we rarely get you apart.

All was well at the beginning. We went out to dinner as a family, and then you and I drove up to the Chaffee cabin. You played with the boys for a couple hours and went to bed easily and on time. Double bonus. I spent the rest of the evening talking to Jim and Cassandra about travel, Andor on Disney+, and a disastorous Speaker of the House vote for the Republican party, in that order. I went to bed around 11 p.m.

At midnight, you woke up and crawled into bed with me. Not unusual. But then you started to breathe quickly and murmur about where Mom and Eliza were and how you can’t ski without Eliza. Then you complained about your ear hurting with some real tears. By then we were both fully awake. I tried to diagnose what was wrong. The remedy for any problem is “Mom” so I gave her a video call but she didn’t answer because her phone happened to be in Do Not Disturb mode (major fail!). We moved to different rooms around the cabin to help change your outlook, and you ate a satsuma. If Mom is unavailable, eating is usually a good Plan B. Despite those efforts you were still upset and communicated that you wanted to go home through more quick breaths, now two hours into the episode.

I was surprised because you have slept at this cabin many times since you were a baby. But you’re as a full grown kid now with growing feelings and increased awareness that things away from home and without Mom and sister are different. That seemed to hit you with the impact of a winter storm.

Running out of options and disappointed by my failed attempts to calm you down, I was able to give you a name for how you were feeling: homesick. That much helped. “Yes, I feel homesick” you replied with an ounce of relief.

But naming the problem didn’t change it. I was now looking down the barrel of time at 2:45 a.m. and, realizing that a ski day would not happen on this little sleep for either of us, packed up and hit the road home. It wasn’t an ideal time to drive but the night was warm so the roads were safe at least in terms of weather. You seemed to be more calm with every mile we drove. We zipped home through a freeway of green city lights, opened up the garage, surprised the hell out of your Mom, and went back to sleep in our own beds. I think I woke up at 10 a.m., still confused about what happened and feeling mixed on my decision to drive so late.

We will have more ski days (as luck would have it, we dodged a different problem because the day we were going to ski the main cabin bathrooms broke!) and more sleepovers at friends’ houses and cabins. Soon enough you’ll ask for those opportunities on your own and forget how uncomfortable you felt that transitory night. Like I told you so many times those late hours: Dad is here and everything will be OK.

Love,
Dad

Dear Eliza, 86 Months Old

Wash your hands. Take your vitamins. Do what must be done to help end this season of sickness.

The better part of the last two months — naturally coinciding with the school year — has knocked us out with a series of bugs, viruses, and infections. All the fun stuff.

A silver lining of the pandemic is that we got used to masks, social distancing, and other measures that kept us healthy for a streak of years. Now that we’re back to normal behaviors, we’re back to normal germ spreading and catching up sick days.

I got it first in a series of back-to-back COVID and seasonal flu. A couple of weeks later, the rest of the family took the hit. We thought you had a stomach flu after some early-morning vomiting on our bedroom carpet. The cat joined in by coughing up a hairball nearby. Nice. It turns out you and Matteo both contracted strep, surely through one of your friends at school as Matteo was already home for days dealing with a crunchy cough. Then your Mom contracted COVID at the exact same time but not strep. Along the way, Matteo got a double ear infection and could hardly hear for more than a week and responded to most conversations or questions with, “WHAT?!”

Somehow I didn’t have any illness but became the family driver between doctor visits and phamarcy resupplies. We encouraged you to “smash” the liquid antibiotics to get beyond the undesired flavor. College Greek systems have proven the method to be effective with other liquids.

You both do a pretty good job at being sick because it means a lot of screen time, which you don’t mind. You also kept the Christmas spirit alive, focusing a lot on our household elves, Elfie and Tinsel, who move around our house at night. Every morning you wake up to hunt for them and beat Matteo to finding out where they wound up. Then you proclaim your win and get on with the rest of your day. It’s not quite the holiday spirit, but close enough.

I think you’re going to have a great Christmas season ahead, and I’m glad we’re all feeling a lot better so we can enjoy it. Less medicine, more merry.

Love, Dad

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