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It’s Like Talking To An Actual Human Being…

November 7, 2013 at 10:49 pm , by 

2 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

Tonight was the first time I’ve ever talked to you over the phone.

Mommy picked you up from school instead of me today, so I called you both to check in.

When Mommy handed the phone to you in the back seat, I had an actual conversation with you:

“Hey Jack, what are you and Mommy doing right now?” I asked.

“We’re at Whole Foods. I’m gonna eat pizza for dinner,” you replied.

Prompted by Mommy, you ended the call by telling me that you missed me and loved me. I can tell your words were sincere, though.

I mean this in the best way possible, but that was pretty weird for me. I was actually carrying on a legitimate conversation with you… like I would an actual human being!

Without your visual right there in front of me, I was forced to absorb only the sound of your voice.

I mean, I’m used to talking to you during the whole ride to school and back every day, but it’s a whole other thing without any prompts or crutches.

Wow. You and I can actually talk… over the phone.

I heard your voice. I’ve never paid attention to your voice before. Normally, I’m so focused on the circumstances surrounding the conversation that I hear the words you say, but not your actual voice.

Even though it may seem like I’m making a bigger deal of this than I need to, this for me is a bookmark as your Daddy.

Just days away away from your 3rd birthday now, this is a significant moment as I recognize you as a boy; as a fellow human being. Not a baby.

I can talk to you. And not about just superficial stuff like the “monster trucks” (Toyota Tundras) you see as we’re driving down the highway.

But instead, you can tell me what’s going on in your life… over the phone.

Cool, man.

 

Love,

Daddy

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Why I Just Googled, “What Does ‘Soaked Up’ Mean?”

November 3, 2013 at 9:20 pm , by 

2 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

Yes, I know what “soaked up” means; it means that something has either physically absorbed a substance or that a person has absorbed new information.

But after the way you used the phrase today, I just wanted to make sure there’s not some underground slang used nearly 3 year-olds that I didn’t know about.

Turns out, there’s not. Google had nothing new to teach me, on this one.

This morning while we were at church, a friend Mommy and I both knowwalked up to us and with a whispered, dead pan performance, and jokingly explained to you that your parents shouldn’t need a nametag to identify their own son.

(Our church’s daycare requires computer-printed nametags for safety reasons.)

You didn’t say a word to him. You just stared at him with a somewhat serious face during his joke.

As soon as we got back to the car, you asked Mommy and me, “Why was that man soaked up?”

For the entire car ride home, we were inquisitive as to what you meant by him being “soaked up.”

“Did you think he was wet, somehow?” Mommy asked you.

“No! He wasn’t wet… he was soaked up,” you explained.

There was nothing about his appearance that should have seemed any bit out of the ordinary. So maybe “soaked up” had something to do with the way he was talking to you?

For the rest of the afternoon, I tried to use context clues to figure out the meaning of this mysterious phrase. But I was unsuccessful in getting you to say it a second time. And when I said “soaked up,” you just adamantly insisted that I was wrong to say it.

I suppose this is one of those mysteries I will take to my grave.

Like, why does the witch in the Wizard of Oz melt away simply by getting water poured on her? Why was it not problematic for there to be so few female Smurfs compared to males?

Most importantly, what does “soaked up” mean when referred to another human being, if it has nothing to do with them being wet in any way.

Only you hold the answer, Son.

The interesting thing is that simply by writing this letter to you today, I’ve helped make “soaked up” more identifiable in a non-traditional sense. In other words, I’m enabling your strange vocabulary.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

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Patience Is A Virtue… That You’re Still Working On

November 2, 2013 at 10:06 pm , by 

2 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

Two weeks from today, you’ll turn 3 years old. Today Mommy picked up a few Hot Wheels pick-up trucks as party favors for your very small birthday party coming up; the theme is “Trucks.”

The intention was for you to receive one of these party favors yourself, at the time of your actual birthday party.

Yeah.

You convinced Mommy to let you “just hold” your favorite truck out of the bunch, a brown 1987 Toyota.

That’s right, you carried it, in the package, all day, out in public. We went to your school’s Halloween party today, with each member of our family having to hold your in-the-package pick-up truck at some point.

As you were receiving candy and prizes from your teachers along the way, there we were carrying around a packaged toy.

On the drive home tonight, you announced, “Somebody said I can open it.”

You’re unsure of exactly who it was, of course. Being that the only other two people in the car were Mommy and me, it really made the “somebody” a real mystery.

By the time we walked in the front door, Mommy left it up to me. The ridiculous compromise we settled on was that we would let you open your truck, but we had to keep the package in tact and “pretend” to open it in front of your birthday guests so it would seem like a surprise to you too.

Patience is a virtue… that you’re still working on. But hey, so am I. Honestly, who’s not still working on that one?

It’s so hard to hold back sometimes, even though the timing just isn’t right yet.

I know I’ve lived that lesson more times than I wish to count.

The good news for you is, I don’t see a lot of repercussions with you privately opening your own birthday party favor two weeks early.

No one ever has to know, especially since we managed to open the package without tearing it too badly.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

 

 

 

 

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Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Since Becoming A Parent, My Facebook Pics Have Matured

October 22, 2013 at 10:39 pm , by 

2 years, 11 months.

Dear Jack,

Sunday night, Mommy scrolled through the pictures on my personal Facebook page going back all the way to March 2005, when I first joined the social media website.

After doing so, she remarked, “Your Facebook pictures have obviously become a lot more mature since we got married and especially since Jack was born.”

She’s totally right.

I haven’t gone through the trouble of removing them yet, but at the time of writing this letter to you, there were still quite a few pictures of me posing for purposely stupid pictures.

Like the one where I am inmpersonating a pro-wrestler, with my shirt off, standing in front of a huge British flag.

Oh, and my hair is down to my chin.

Then there’s the one where I’m mocking the year 1976 where I have the same long hair, accompanied by a creeper mustache and an unbuttoned silky shirt.

And don’t forget the entire picture folder which contains several shots of me in Mr. Potato Head pajama pants pretending to fall down a flight of stairs.

Completely stupid, but at least on purpose.

But in the year 2005, I was a single, 24 year-old dude. That’s the kind of stuff I could put on Facebook and easily get away with.

Of course, back in those days, the only people were who my Facebook friends were people I knew from college and expected my deadpan sense of humor.

These days, everyone’s on Facebook- including semi-distant relatives, my former elementary school teachers, and church staff.

I can’t get away with being that goofy like I used to. It confuses people. I’ve learned irony, sarcasm, and dark comedy don’t quite translate on Facebook like they did when I was 24.

Even over the recent past several months, I have totally toned down my Facebook behavior in general.

It used to be that I would post fake status updates to see who would think I was serious. Turns out, more people did than I realized…

It used to be that I was more opinionated, but I realized it actually divided people and that’s not something I want to be known for.

So needless to say, my Facebook lifestyle has evolved.

I’m not saying I never have fun on it anymore, but considering that posting pictures of Mommy and me pretending to eat giant M&M’s at the Louisville Zoo are the new “crazy” pictures, I’d say I’ve defintely matured since the days of the long-haired guy posing in Mr. Potato Head pajama pants.

Now, my general rule for posting a picture of myself on Facebook is that you have to be in it too. “Selfie” shots now include you and/or Mommy.

I’m growing up, Son.

 

Love,

Daddy

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Spirituality

I’m Not Sure St. Peter’s Pickup Truck Was In The Bible…

October 14, 2013 at 7:58 pm , by 

2 years, 10 months.

Dear Jack,

This evening while Mommy was buying groceries, you and I played with the Dollar General version of Play-Doh, called Craft Dough.

With your 5 pack of Craft Dough came a very rare color… black.

You decided to make a camper for your Dodge Ram pickup truck, so you began stuffing the bed with black dough.

In the process, you picked up your St. Peter action figure and his boat, and stuck them in the back of the truck, then stood Jesus on top of a couple containers of Craft Dough nearby.

You ended up nixing the whole camper idea altogether and I got to hear the dialogue of the new plot line:

“Jesus, I gotta drive my truck and take my boat. Do you want to go?” Peter asked.

“No, I’ll just stay here today,” Jesus replied, in your falsetto voice.

I immediately began imagining a new kids’ show which featured favorite Bible characters in a modern day setting.

Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well at all…

But just the thought of Jesus and Peter as buddies who drive pickup trucks and take the boat for a spin out on the lake, instead of the familiar “walk on the water” story everyone knows, it’s pretty much hilarious to me!

In the process of trying to find Biblical action figures last Christmas, which you asked for by the way, I noticed there weren’t a lot of toy companies that made them.

Not only is there probably not an abundance of toy companies who are willing to make religious action figures, but there’s also the fact that those toys may very well end up in random activities which are more likely to show up in the lyrics of a Country song than they are in a sermon.

To be honest, I’m suprised it’s actually taken you this long to crack me up with your inevitable and accidentally humorous (and somehow seemingly inappropriate?) use of Jesus and St. Peter action figures during playtime.

What would Jesus do? I’m not sure sometimes…

 

Love,

Daddy