While your sister has been using the new folding cushion beds to make a house downstairs in the living room, you and your friend Levi are using them to construct a military fort; as you shoot at each other with Nerf guns. (Your sister likes to hang out right in the middle of the action!)
It’s a good activity in the dead of winter, during Covid Culture:
Invite a friend over to the house on Saturday morning and play live action Fortnight, in between rounds of Battleship eating pizza.
One of the many new additions to our home, in the midst of our home recent makeover, has been the new folding cushion beds.
While you do enjoy setting them up downstairs in the living room to “make a house”, their main purpose is to be used as beds/couches for our bonus room upstairs.
We now have a new tradition everyday Friday and Saturday night of letting you and your brother pick out a movie and fall asleep up there afterwards.
It’s more fun to sleep there because it’s somewhere other than your own bedroom.
And Mommy and I like it because it makes the bedtime routine much easier for us! The two of you basically just put yourselves to bed on those nights.
You and your sister are truly making the most of spending Christmas week with your cousins of the same age.
It is impossible to be bored or needy at their house; which contains an epic play room, equipped with plenty of dolls for the young girls; and two live baby kittens for you and your older cousin.
This picture summarizes it all.
No need for adult intervention. The four of you easily take care of yourselves in an environment like this.
All day long.
And to think, you all still haven’t even received your Christmas gifts yet!
Sometimes, we keep you home from preschool and let you hang out with Mommy and me as we work.
It’s amazing how truly independent you work; really not needy at all.
Instead, you specifically like to pretend to be a teacher, as you teach your baby dolls.
You also like pretending to type on your “computer”, which is actually whatever magazine happens to be lying around.
I suppose that being part of the “Covid Kid’ generation means that you are accustomed to entertaining yourself while your parents continue to do their jobs in the same room as you!
This year, I’ve become fully aware of this paradox: When you were young, part of me longed to see you as a grown boy; and now that you are a grown boy, part of me longs to relive those days with you as a young boy and toddler.
It has deeply, emotionally affected me this year.
With me being on a furlough for a couple of months due to Covid, I not only had more quality time at home with you than I normally would, but I also had more focused time to write new songs.
Through the nearly 2 week process of writing and eventually recording my song about you, “That Boy’s Been Growing Up on Me”, I broke down crying nearly every time I sang it.
In fact, the finished recording was one of the few exceptions where I didn’t break down crying.
As I myself am now only 5 months away from turning 40, I rarely lend myself to emotional responses. I have evolved into a person who rarely utilizes access to my “emotional control box”. Largely, my quality of life has undeniably improved since practicing this habit over the past couple of years.
But the one exception is my family; especially in regards to us all getting older.
I couldn’t be prouder of the 10 year-old version of you. I got exactly what I wanted.
I’m nostalgic for the present, like it’s the past.
Happy 10th Birthday, Jack! To say “I love you” is a laughable understatement.
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