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Dear Jack: Your First Paid Job, Pet Sitting

10 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

This month was historic for you, in that it made the first time you truly had a paying job!

When you friend Landon’s family went out of the state for a week, it was up to you go to their house each day to feed their 3 cats- as well as a huge tank full of fish.

You took special care in making sure you could locate all 3 cats before we left their house each day. A few days in, you were able to more predictably figure out where each of the cats were hanging out; whether it was under the couch or on top of a bunk bed.

I am proud of you!

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: The Family We’ve Become in the Past Decade

10 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

Tonight before bedtime, as a family, we ended up randomly looking through our family’s photos on Mommy’s Facebook account. We spent about 20 minutes travelling back a solid decade; back to when you were still just a baby.

Back to when Mommy and I were brand-new parents, still in our 20s… and now we’re both 40!

And now, you’re less than a month away from turning 11 years old; as strange as that sounds to say.

From my perspective, it almost seems like when Mommy and I got married over 13 years ago, we were just playing house. Then, after a year, we found out about you coming along.

Flash forward to now: This is your last year of Elementary school. You do Taekwondo. You don’t really care so much about plastic toys anymore or Pokemon cards.

You’re growing up. And this whole time, I’ve been doing my best to not let a minute slip past me.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Carving a Jack-O-Lantern with Papa

10 years, 10 months.

While Nonna was inside the house, painting baby pumpkins with Nonna in the kitchen, you were outside in the front yard with Papa carving up our family’s official Jack-O-Lantern for this Halloween season.

Thanks to some cheap props from the dollar store, you two were able to make a really cool, and scary, Jack-O-Lantern for us to display out on our front porch.

And that carved pumpkin alone serves as the extent of our family’s Halloween decorations, despite being surrounded by neighbors, and neighborhoods, of just about every other house decked out in huge inflatables and plastic skeletons in their front yards!

Dear Jack,

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: Finger Painting Baby Pumpkins with Nonna

5 years, 5 months.

Dear Holly,

When Mommy visited Grandma in California last week, I invited Nonna and Papa to come up from Alabama for a few days.

I took off Saturday morning to go to the gym and then meet a friend for coffee. Meanwhile, you and Nonna decided to have some good old-fashioned fun, by turning our kitchen table (which usually serves as my “office” for work) into an arts-and-crafts station.

The week before, our family had visited a nearby pumpkin farm and you chose two little pumpkins as your souvenirs.

You decided that you wanted to paint them with Nonna… with your fingers!

So you did- and you sure had fun!

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Jack: Showing Your Sister How to Play at a Pumpkin Patch

10 years, 10 months.

Dear Jack,

It is our tradition as a family to visit one of the nearby pumpkin patches each Fall season. This year, with your sister being a 5 year-old girl, not a preschooler, it was clear she was interested in participating in more adventure than in previous years there.

You were sure to show her the way- and she was just as eager to follow you.

Whether it was going into the spooky house, jumping off the mountain of hay, and going down the huge tunnel slide together.

I loved being able to watch the two of you have fun together.

Love,

Daddy