JUST LIKE THAT

Dear Spike:

I was working a late shift in the office, last night, when I got a call from your mother.

"I'm about to put the baby to bed," she said. "Would you like to say goodnight?"

And thus began our very first phone conversation...

"Hi Daddy!"

"Hey baby, how are you doing?"

"Good. What you doing Daddy?"

"I'm working, honey. Are you getting ready for bed?"

"Yes."

"OK, well, have a happy night-night."

"Happy night-night."

"I love you."

"Love you Daddy."

It's a strange thing talking to someone on the phone who, such a short time ago couldn't say a word. It made me realize just how much you've changed in the past year.

These days you speak in (nearly) complete sentences, you tell jokes, you make rhymes, you translate food names and numbers and colors into Mandarin, you sing on key and you spell words like "cat" and "mom" and "pig" and "fun." 

You choose your own clothes, you take yourself to the potty, you say "please" and "thank you" and you're even showing signs of being able to control those terrible twos, before two ever starts. 

Today your babysitter's daughter was sick, so I brought you along to a meeting at a coffee shop near our home. You sat patiently, watching Sesame Street and drawing on my notebooks for a good hour, but after a while you started to get a bit bored, and decided that you were going to start throwing donut crumbs all over. When I stopped you, you cried. But that didn't last long.

"What are you doing right now?"

"Throwing tantrum."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Bad."

"What do you say?"

"Sorry Daddy."

Just like that, it was over. And that's been par for the course, lately.

That's not to say you don't ever test our patience. You've picked most your mother's favorite flowers from the garden before they ever had a chance to fully bloom. You seem to enjoy throwing food on the floor when you're done eating. And sometimes, when you decide that you just don't want to go to sleep, you turn into quite a cranky little gnome.

That's all part of growing up, too. And you're growing up so fast.

Love,

dad