On being 3

Dear Little Prince,

You are three!  Three!!!  When?  How?  Where?  I think scientists should study life in the kingdom to determine how to replicate time travel, because time is travelling faster than should be possible.  It is doing the laws of physics and nature and definitely the local speed limit.

To start, I should apologize for the tardiness of this letter.  I know you don’t care, and I have more excuses than would fit on this page because life in the toddlerocracy is chaos at the best of times, but you still deserve better, and will try to do better in the future.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on to the good stuff…

I am so proud of you!  I craft words for fun and have nothing in my arsenal that comes close to accurately describing how amazing you are.  The conversations we have.  Your endless curiosity about the world around you.  The speed with which you picked up using the potty.  Your empathy.  The way you are able to cope with and enjoy the seemingly adventures in the Kingdom.  Your silliness.

Oh my, the silliness.  The giggles.  The laughter.  The dimples and mirth.  There is nothing more restorative in this world than hearing your laugh.

Thank you for your patience as the Queen and I continue to learn our parenting roles.  I fear you will need to also continue being patient for the rest of your life, but I know you will do so with aplomb.  That’s just who you are.  You can count on us to keep striving for our best as we learn and adapt.  It’s an ever changing journey for all of us.

Except, of course, for the one constant: we will always love you.

You won’t ever have to worry about that and hopefully you won’t ever have to worry about anything too serious.  Keep on playing.  Keep on laughing.  Keep on being amazing.  I know, I know, that’s all like telling the sun to keep on shining.  You are who you are: amazing.

I love you, kiddo!

Daddy / the Jester / Matticus

adventure update

Dear Little Prince,

It’s been awhile since I’ve written to you, and I’m sorry about that.  I will try to do better.  I know there is nothing to forgive, since the time I might have used to put pen to paper was spent playing with you instead, but do understand the importance of recording these words too just as we record your words.

Oh my, the words.  You seem to learn five new ones every day.  Yesterday you learned “dancing.”  The day before you learned “steamy.”  And last week?  You learned a word I can’t repeat here and you have thankfully stopped parroting back to us.  By the time you read this you’ll really know it and many much worse.  That’s exciting and sad at the same time.

Anyway, the way you said those four letters it sounded like fork…  It was adorable.

You know what else is adorable?  Getting home from work in the afternoons and hearing “Daddy!” before I even see you running from the other end of the house to give me a hug.  Running.  Hugging.  Tugging on my pants to follow you back to where you were so we can play together.

Playtime is the best.  You dribbled a soccer ball from one room to the next earlier this week.  You did it on purpose too.  You’d seen me do it.  You tried it.  You did it.  It was amazing!  And then I chased you down to celebrate and you giggled as we high-fived and I tickled you.  Then we tracked down your mom, the  Queen, and we both tickle-attacked her.

You are learning at a ridiculous rate.  You help with chores, putting food in the kitties’ dishes, washing plates and filling up the dish rack, sweeping, vacuuming…  Okay, so you can’t quite get the hang of all of those yet, but you do all of them with our help, and sometimes you manage them on your own.

You are growing at ridiculous rate too.  Some meals you seem to eat more than I do… and I eat a lot.  You are our mini-garbage disposal and I fear for the grocery bills in a few years.  I fear for the clothing bills, too, as you outgrow things faster than we can buy them.  You are definitely a toddler now, and I can hardly see the baby in you at all.

I understand these are typical milestones of parenting but that doesn’t take anything away from my experience with them.  This whole adventure, while terrifying and trying at times, continues to hold moments of wonder and delight, to an extent I didn’t know was possible.  Thank you for going on this adventure with your mom and me.  Thank you for your patience as we continue to grow and feel our way through these new roles.

We are proud of you.

We love you and can’t wait to see what new discovery you make each and every day going forward.

Love,

Daddy
aka: djmatticus, the jester