7 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

One night last week in attempt to keep your sister occupied as Mommy and I rushed to finish cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, I saw Mommy’s newly retired “old” phone on the shelf.

I pulled up the calculator app, and my plan proved itself to be successful. Your sister had become instantly lost in a sea of numbers. She was additionally mesmerized by the water drop sound effect Mommy’s phone made each time a new number was pressed.

So for the past several days now, it has not been uncommon for your sister to crunch numbers, while you play Survival Craft on the Kindle.

Eventually, your sister made her way over to you, from the coffee table which had been serving as her work station.

Then you had a really cool idea. You pulled up the camera on the phone and began taking selfies with her. She loved it!

It was such a big deal for her to get to see how each new picture turned out.

Before your sister’s 2nd birthday, it was rare for me to let your sister have any screen time. But now that she has proven she has reached certain milestones in her speech abilities, I’m okay with a reasonable amount of her watching Netflix with you… or playing with an old phone.

An “old” cell phone from 3 years ago is actually more like a mini home computer. And we have two of them lying around; both Mommy’s and mine. So really, I can imagine how cool of a toy it must seem to your sister.

I have a feeling that from now on, I will need to make sure that one of our old phones is fully charged before any upcoming road trip; like the next time we make the 2 and a half hour drive to Nonna and Papa’s house.

Love,

Daddy