7 years, 2 months.

Dear Holly,

If anyone has been the most prepared and was made the most aware that “kids go up so fast” before they became a parent, it was me.

For both you and your brother, I have been writing at least one letter to you each, since several months before you both were born.

I have made a point to take as many pictures as I could and document a particular story that best served as a highlight for your childhood development that week.

Yet still, that doesn’t slow things down. It’s my feeble attempt at sort of freezing real life happening right in front of me.

I do my best. I do everything I can to celebrate your life every day; to not take you or your brother for granted.

I cherish our morning routine of pushing you in the stroller on my daily three mile walk; only stopping to let you see if there are any good children’s books available in the tiny “give a book, take a book” community libraries in each neighborhood we pass.

It’s memories like that… I will always hold on to.

Love,

Daddy