August 6, 2013 at 9:08 pm , by Nick Shell

2 years, 8 months.

Dear Jack,

The brown UPS truck drives past our house every day at 6:03 PM. You always like to assume, “He brings a gift… for me?”

Well, last Thursday just happened to be your lucky day. He brought you your new backpack for the new school season.

You chose a panda bear, as part of the “Wildpack” series of Okiedog; the same brand where we found my “daddy diaper bag” four months ago. As the picture above makes clear, you were definitely excited about your new backpack.

Not to mention, you were very eager to try it out. So eager, in fact, that we decided to go on a family walk, immediately.

Before we could leave, you decided you needed to pack it with something first. Without hesitation, you turned to the hutch where we keep our shoes:

“I pack my camel shoes… just in case.”

It was so funny, and totally caught me off guard at the time, that I couldn’t process your statement quickly enough to laugh:

By “camel shoes,” you were referring to yourcamouflage shoes.

As to why you might suddenly need camouflage shoes during a 10 minute walk in our neighborhood, I’m still unsure.

Either way, you wanted to be prepared.

So we made our journey down the sidewalk, with your “camel shoes” in your new backpack.

You were so proud to display your new “gift from the brown truck” that you didn’t realize your pants had fallen down, and yet, you continued walking.

After Mommy pulled your pants up, you decided to start collecting rocks for your existing collection, which we keep at our front door.

Even though you could have easily stored your rocks in your backpack with your camel shoes, you chose to hold them in your left hand, since you were already clenching your elephant with your right.

Granted, that made it difficult to keep collecting new rocks.

It goes without saying, you made sure you wore your backpack to school the next day, simply if nothing else, for the reason of showing it off to your friends…

And actually, they asked me where you got it; the style of it is very unique in the midst to most other kids’ backpacks.

It reminds me of the kind of thing I saw back 10 years ago when I taught English in Bangkok, Thailand.

I’m happy the brown truck brought a gift for you… even if you still haven’t come across an emergency were you suddenly needed your camel shoes!

 

Love,

Daddy