7 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

Leading up to this week, it was already on my mind; how exactly a year ago, you and I spent several days together in the children’s hospital after you got a parapharyngeal abscess as a side effect on Strep Throat.

And then this past Sunday, your sister got the flu, with a temperature of 106; therefore needing an IV for fluids.

So I just hoped then when you inevitably go the flu from her, that you wouldn’t have it as bad.

Fortunately, it appears you got a bad cold instead, more than anything. Your temperature peaked at only 104 degrees.

Therefore, on Tuesday, after you finally got to go back to school for one day (after nearly an entire month off due to the Christmas holidays, Martin Luther King Day, and a week of being snowed in), you were back at home with me and your sister.

It was surely a day of rest. We watched all 2 hours and 25 minutes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which you suddenly declared is your “favorite movie ever”; as well as 2 entire DVDs of Pink Panther cartoons. Your sister gladly went along with it, as it was a special treat for her to have access to that much screen time; though really, she was playing with her toys most of the time.

I would like to think that February will be a less chaotic month for our family. Hopefully we can just all be healthy and enjoy my TV premiere on “This Time Next Year” on the Lifetime Network.

No more snow. No more sickness. Just back to school and back to the routine of homework and your Pokemon obsession.

You are an intelligent boy with plenty of energy. You were weren’t meant to be cooped up in the house all day.

Love,

Daddy