parenting

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Dear Jack: You’re Now in the 7th Grade!

12 years, 9 months.

Dear Jack,

Welp, what can I say?…

You’re officially one cool dude this days.

Seventh grade has now begun- and you were definitely ready for the first day.

You’ve got the cool clothes, the cool shoes, and of course, the cool haircut from a real barber…

Not to mention, you’re just two months away from being a teenager!

I remember how much I loved the 7th grade. It was one of my favorite school years.

So I have to believe that you’ve got an amazing year ahead.

I’m specifically curious to see how your love of working on cars plays into your extra curricular activities.

Fun stuff!

 

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: You’re Now in the 2nd Grade!

7 years, 3 months.

Dear Holly,

I keep forgetting you’re not in 1st grade anymore!

This is now your 3rd year in Elementary School.

For this first week, they are still figuring out the bus schedules, so I have been walking you to and from school each day in order to keep you from being late.

Since we take the shortcut alongside the cornfield behind our house, I have to pick up you and carry you for a ways across the grass; so you don’t get all soggy like my boots do instead.

Once we get to the field, you always say, “Yay! The Daddy Chair!

Because I pick you up, then hold you just like a chair you would sit in, as we traverse the dewey grass.

It’s quite fancy.

You must be special or something!

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: You’re Ready to Go Back to School Now

7 years, 3 months.

Dear Holly,

I asked you just now, “Are you excited to start 2nd grade tomorrow?”

You confirmed: “Yes, because this summer… has been kind of boring.”

Forget about the trip to California we took last month, I guess.

I’ll take that as you implying you had a nice, relaxing summer; so now you are ready to be challenged again.

We met your teacher yesterday and she was so excited to welcome you to her class.

She let you pick any desk you wanted in her classrooom. You chose the one closest to the teacher’s.

I made it official as I confirmed to your teacher: “Looks like Holly is going to be your teacher’s pet this year!”

 

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: I Can’t Slow Down Time, Any More Than I Already Am

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

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Dear Jack: What “Homeschool Summer School” Looks Like

12 and a half years.

Dear Jack,

Mommy joked with you this week, “What if we started homeschooling you?”

You immediately replied, “No! Then I couldn’t be around any people.”

However, during the summer, I suppose things do resemble the concept of homeschool a little bit.

We are paying you and your sister a “reading allowance” this summer, to help encourage you both to use your brains on books… and it’s totally working.

You always self-elect some “P.E.” time right before lunch, as you go on a bike ride through surrounding neighborhoods.

And then usually after lunch, you join me at the kitchen table; which also serves as my “office” and your “shop” for rebuilding cars.

That’s pretty much what the next two months are going to look like.

Love,

Daddy