FRESH WHOLESOME MILK

Dear Spike: 

 It's been a tough couple of nights, but you've been very brave and I'm very proud of you. It's not easy coming down off an addiction, after all. And you've been hooked on this stuff for a long time. 

 I'm speaking, of course, of 4-O-beta-D-Galactopyranosyl-D-glucose. Lactose, baby. The magical elixir that turns an ordinary glass of H20 into an delicious serving of fresh, wholesome, milk. 

 We're actually not weaning you off milk, per se. You're still welcome to it. But your mother and I have decided it's time — long past time, actually — that you stop drinking your cow juice from the bottle. And so, for the past two nights, it's been off-to-bed-without-the-white-stuff. No more bottles for baby. It's time to be a big girl. 

 I won't pretend that it's been as hard on us as it has been on you. It hasn't. But it has been tough to watch you graduate away from one of the last vestiges of babyhood. 

Alas, with your long, messy locks and your bilingual vocabulary and your determination to do everything by yourself, it's clear that you are most certainly not a baby any longer. And heck, sometimes you act more like an adult than I do. 

Sometimes it's sad to see how fast you've grown. But it can also be a lot of fun. And since change is inevitable, there's no use dwelling on what was. You're a big girl now. 

 Milk it for everything it's worth. 

Love,
dad

PICTURES DON'T LIE

Dear Spike:

From one day to the next, you look and seem the same to me. I know that you're growing bigger and bigger, smarter and smarter, but I cannot see it.

But, as they say, pictures don't lie. And the ones your mother shared with me recently told a thousand words about how you've grown over the past year.

In the first, taken just after your first birthday, you walk through a narrow waterpark stream aided by your grandmother's hand. You're cautious, feet fixed in the water and weight low to the ground. Your hair is soft, short and swept to the side.


In the second, taken just after your second birthday, you navigate the same stream all alone. You're confident, tip-toeing through the water with carefree abandon. Your hair is set up in pig tails.


My how you've grown. My how you have changed. I can only imagine what next year's photos might reveal.

But I'm happy to wait to find out.

I love this moment in your life, just as I did the last. And I am savoring every moment.

And taking lots of photos.

Love,
dad

TELL A STORY

Dear Spike:

Your imagination is blossoming like a summer rose, full of color and life and fragrance — an absolutely beautiful thing to watch unfold.

This evening, as I was working on my computer in the shade of our porch, you came outside wearing a set of butterfly wings and one of your mother's silk scarfs. "Would you like to come to a birthday party, Daddy?" you asked.

Well, who could say no?

"You have to wear this hat," you said, handing me one of your mother's straw hats with a purple bow.

No problem at all. I dutifully put on the hat and followed you into our home to find a table with a Play-dough birthday cake and a gang of costumed animal sitting on pillows all around.

"We've been playing birthday for the past half-hour," your mother explained, herself wearing a funny hat and scarf.

"You set this all up?" I asked her.

"No, she did," your mother replied, gesturing in your direction.

Later in the evening, you were bouncing on our bed like a caffeinated monkey on a trampoline when you suddenly decided you wanted a change of pace.

"A cave!" you cried, diving under the blankets. "Mommy and daddy come, too."

We all ducked under the blanket together and you began to tell a story.

"Once upon a time, a long, long time ago..." you began.

The story was about Goldilocks, the Three Bears — and you.

"... and then they all cleaned up the house together," you explained.

You can make a telephone out of anything. Once when we were out to dinner with your Uncle Papa, you spoke to Barack Obama on a pickle.

This afternoon, your mother tells me, you were on the line with someone of even higher stature.

"She was talking to God," she told me.

I wonder what She told you. Maybe tomorrow you'll tell me all about it.

Love,
dad

ALWAYS WILL BE

Dear Spike:

I still call you my baby. No doubt I always will. But with each passing day, it's getting harder and harder to see you as anything but a little girl.



Some of the benchmarks are obvious:
• Your obsession with the swings at the park. "Not the baby swing, daddy," you tell me. "The big girl swing!"
• The way you contemplate questions and give meaningful answers. "Who is my girl?" I ask. "Mamma is a girl and me is a girl," you say.



But the benchmarks that are most profound are usually the ones that are most unexpected.
• The way you've taken to saying "yeah," and "nope" and "OooooKay!"
• How you sometimes sing yourself to sleep: "Imalida tea pot short and stout, heresmahanda heresma.... zzzzzzzzzzzzz!"



You're getting bigger, and taller, and heavier. Yet when I hold you in my arms, and especially when your head is resting on my shoulder, you're still my baby.



No doubt you always will be.

Love,
dad

PLAY AND GROW

Dear Spike:

First I read the book to you.

And then you read it to me.

And now you're wandering around your bedroom, reading it to all of your stuffed animals.

I love watching you learn, play and grow.

Love,
dad

CHASING YOU NOW

Dear Spike:

I don't know how it happened or when it happened.

But I know why it happened: The sun rises and sets and rises again. The moon comes and goes, waxes and wanes. The Big Dipper — that simple, stalwart sign under which I fell in love with your mother — spins round and round and round again.

Time passes. Children grow.

You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.

The pigtails may have had something to do with it — not with your transformation from infant to toddler but with my late-in-coming recognition of that change. Your mother fretted over the haircut we gave you until she found that she could gather up your remaining locks into splendid tufts on either side of your perfect little skull. The effect is rather devilish. Naughty. And I dare say it suits you, kiddo. But, alas, it's the hairdo of a little girl.

You talk like a paid-by-the-case public defender who has borrowed just a taste of her client's meth. A thousand words a minute. Ten thousand. A whole dictionary of animals, colors, shapes, names.

Nouns. Lots and lots and lots of nouns.

Our last stroll around the park sounded something like this:

"Tree. Car. People. Running. Doggy. Doggy! Doggy!! Please doggy! Ah, Doggy. Pet? Pet. Doggy. Bye bye. Tree. Sky. Cold. Cold. Daddy! Cold! Daddy! Thank you. Tree. Running. Bike. People. People. People! Doggy. Doggy? Doggy! Doggy!!!!!!!!!"

And you understand. You really understand. Enough to follow directions. And enough to be maddeningly obstinate. You know "no." Oh no, how you know "no."

You play games. You sing songs. You know our daily routine. Even still, you cry when you mother leaves for work in the morning — not, as I once believed, because you fear she'll disappear forever, but rather because you know very well that she'll be back and you know how much you'll miss her while she's gone.

You ask questions. You make statements. You tell jokes. All in one- and two-word bursts.

You run. Ready. Set. Go. You run. Sometimes you hold my fingers and let me run along.

I'm chasing you now, little one. When did it happen that I started chasing you? When did any of this happen? It's all such a beautiful blur.

Sometimes I wonder how on God's Green Earth it all came to this, but mostly I just laugh and smile and marvel at how damn fun it all is.

I do not lament the days behind us. You and I and your mother are making the best of what we've been given. And when every minute is better than the last, why would I stop to fret over the passing of time?

Time passes. Children grow.

You're no longer a baby. You're a genuine little girl.

And I couldn't be a happier father.

Love,
dad

A BIG KID

Dear Spike:

You took a big step toward being a big kid today.

Two steps, actually — first the right one and then the left one...

... into a pair of skivvies.

Sure, someday you're going to score the championship-winning goal in the World Cup, win the Nobel Prize for peace and science (in the same year,) and solve the Rubik's cube in under 7.08 seconds.

But today, I can't imagine ever being prouder.

Love,

dad 

   

STROLL BETWEEN US

Dear Spike:

There was a time when I was convinced you'd be walking before you'd even learned to crawl. That happens sometimes, I've heard. Kids just figure out how to put one foot in front of another and off they go.

You'd been toddling about a bit, using walls and furniture to help yourself balance. At the park, you'd take one of my fingers in your left hand and one of your mother's fingers in your right, and stroll between us as though there were absolutely nothing magical going on.

"There's nothing grand to see here," I could hear your eyes saying. "I'm just on a lazy Sunday stroll with my parents."

Then, one day, you figured out how to crawl. And for quite some time, you forgot about walking altogether. After all, who needs two legs when you can have four? The dogs at the park don't seem to mind not walking upright.

In the past month, you've started to show some interest in walking the way most folks do. A step here. A step there. Sometimes you'd put two steps together. Rarely three.

Finally, just this evening, you mastered the skill that evolutionary biologists say makes humans human.

Well, maybe mastered is a relative term, although clearly it is no longer a matter of liberal interpretation to say that you have joined the ranks of we humans who stand upright and walk to get from one place to another.

You were standing between your mother and me in your room and decided, quite suddenly, that you'd like to be closer to her. You took a step. And then another. And then another. And then you lunged into her arms.

We gasped and cheered and applauded. You must have liked the attention, for when you mother turned your little body around you left her arms and walked, step after step after step, back to me.

Then back to her. Then back to me.

Then we broke, for a few minutes, so that your could scream and cry — for no particular reason, it seemed.

When you stopped, you walked back to your mother. And back to me. And back to her. More gasps. More cheers. More applause.

You wore a smile as big as your strides.

Just this morning, your mother and I were saying that we knew this day was coming. And there was a touch of sadness in our conversation.

You're growing up. Talking. Playing. Imagining.

"Our baby's not our baby anymore," your mother said.

I sighed and knew she was right.

"I know," I said, "but I still want her to walk. She'll be so proud of herself. So happy. I want that for her."

Now it's true. You are walking. You are proud of yourself.

I am proud of you and I am happy for you. And I am sad, too. Our baby's not our baby anymore.

She's figured out how to put one foot in front of another.

And off she goes.

Love,
dad

IN MANY YEARS

Dear Spike:

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. We celebrated with a hike up Emmigration Canyon, to a place your mother and I call "Little Korea" for its striking resemblance to the outdoor set from the M*A*S*H movie and television series. You hadn't taken a nap before we left, and got a bit crabby just about a half-mile into the hike. And so, as we walked, your mother and I sang to you one of your favorite lullabies, "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon," and soon you were asleep.

I've been dreading this birthday. Back in my parents' day, they used to say you couldn't trust people over the age of 30. These days, they say 30 is the new 20 — but it still felt 30 to me.

But now the day has come and gone and it really wasn't so bad. I spent a wonderful day with you and your mother. And later we saw our friends Rob and Sue, and Gus and Emily. Emily gave you your first-ever Girl Scout cookie, and like the rest of America, you now appear to be hopelessly addicted. There's heroin in those Thin Mints, of this I am quite confident.

In many ways, being a dad has made me feel my age. I think much more these days about things like health insurance, making smart car purchases and buying healthy food. I drive slower. I drink less. And yes, I groan more.

Yet at the same time I feel much younger than I have in many years. I'm less cynical. I strive to be more kind. And I sing and whistle and dance and play more than I have in a long, long time.

There was a time when you would never have found me walking hand-in-hand with your mother in the mountains, singing as though I was a member of the VonTrapp family, completely unconcerned about whether or not anyone else could hear. But things are different now.

They're better.

And as for 30, I think I'll be OK.

Love,
dad

SHE IS GROWING

Dear Spike:

I took you to the doctor’s this morning. Just a quick stop, in and out, to see how much you weigh.

Twelve pounds, nine ounces. Still so very, very small.

Dr. Schriewer plugged the new numbers into her computer and sighed. “She’s still on the same curve. She is growing.”

Just slowly, she said.

“She didn’t like the butter,” I admitted abashedly.

“How could she not like butter?” our gentle Southern doctor gasped. “Everyone loves butter!”

Her words hung in the air — funny, but a little sad, too.

“She seems to like everything else,” I said. “She is starting to eat lots of different foods – quite a bit, really.”

Dr. Schriewer nodded and smiled. She seemed concerned, but not alarmed.

“She is growing,” she repeated confidently. “And look at is this way: You get to have a little baby for longer than most people do. That’s special.”

Yes, it is.

Love,
dad

FEW MORE POUNDS

Dear Spike:

We visited Dr. Schriewer on Friday for your six-month checkup. You’re up to 12 pounds — which is almost three times what you weighed when you were born, but that’s still very small for a baby your age.

Dr. Schriewer said we shouldn’t be concerned, but she did recommend that we start feeding you some more fatty foods.

Like what? We asked.

Like butter, she said.

Butter? Like slather-it-all-over-your-french-toast, mash-it-into-your-potatoes, drizzle-it-all-over-your-lobster butter?

Yeah, she said. Butter.

She also said it would be good if we started giving you some fruits and vegetables. And so your mother promptly went out and bought every flavor of baby food at the store. This week we’re introducing you to sweet potatoes (the jury’s out) and next week we’ll try carrots. Meanwhile, Dr. Schriewer said we can also give you some zwieback toast (you love it already) and some formula in your rice cereal (you’re not such a fan.)

Over time, we’ll find out what you like best and, hopefully, put a few more pounds on you before your nine-month appointment.

Love,
dad

GREW AND GREW

Dear Spike:

It’s been four months since the day you arrived in our lives — and just over a year since the day that I came home from work and your mother told me that there would be “three for dinner.”

My how our lives have changed.

Your mother grew and grew and grew. She gave birth to you. And then she shrunk and shrunk and shrunk. She’s around here somewhere, right now, I’m just not sure where.

I’ve grown too. Maybe a bit around the belly (I was eating for two, too) but mostly around the heart. I never knew it could feel so big, beating inside my chest, until I met you.

And my, my how you have grown. At the time we learned you were coming, you were just about the size of an apple seed. A few weeks later, we got a picture of you from the doctor — you looked like a speckled jelly bean (and when you finally arrived, at 7:28 a.m. on May 27, 2007, you really weren’t much bigger than that — just four-and-a-half pounds.)

Tomorrow we’ll go to see Dr. Schriewer to see how much you weigh. I say 10 pounds. Your mom says 11. Either way, you’re still a tiny kid. Tonight we went to dinner and I ran into a coworker who has a little girl who is a few weeks younger than you. Baby Alice was eating when you two were introduced, thank God, otherwise I’m afraid she might have had you for a snack.

Still, you’re strong and — we think — pretty darn smart. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t comment, rather astonishedly it often seems, on how “alert” you are. (I’ve gone ahead and volunteered you for the 2 a.m. shift of the neighborhood watch.)

Your mother and I often comment on how difficult it is to remember what our lives felt like before you came. And maybe that’s simply because we don’t really want to.

You’re the best thing that ever happened to us. You’ve grown with us and made us grow with you. And my, my, my how it’s better.

Love,
dad

TASTE THE COMPLEXITIES

Dear Spike:

I knew our vines had been productive, but I didn’t realize just how much until I began to harvest the grapes, this afternoon.

I’ve never had much of a green thumb, but our garden has done particularly well this year, with lots of zucchini, a few other squashes, peppers, mint, basil, oregano and an amazing crop of tomatoes — so many that we’ve always had several to eat with dinner and then had plenty extra with which to make salsa and pasta sauce.

There’s something deeply satisfying about picking a fruit or vegetable that you’ve grown yourself. Most exciting, for me, are the grapes. I love finding the thick, tightly-packed clusters of berries hidden beyond the broad leaves of the vines that grow on the south wall of our garage.

Wine grapes don’t look or taste like the grapes you find in the store. They’re usually much smaller, rounder and darker, and if you press one against the roof of your mouth, letting the juice trickle over your tongue, you can taste the complexities which give different wines their individual characters.

When the vines had been picked clean of their fruit, there were enough Zinfandel and Cabernet grapes to fill two five-gallon buckets. After the grapes were pressed (you helped — and seemed to enjoy it quite a bit) we had about three and a half gallons of juice. From that, we’ll get perhaps 15 bottles of wine.

Wine isn’t hard to make — just add grape juice, yeast and a few clarifying and stabilizing elements over time — but it’s hard to get right. In that, it’s not unlike many of the other pursuits I find most enjoyable in this life: Those things that take a few minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

Some dads play “go fish” with their kids. We’ll probably play a lot of poker. It takes five, maybe ten minutes to learn the rules of Texas Hold’em. If you can play ‘go fish” you can play poker. I figure I’ll teach you when you’re three. If you’re going to take my money anyway, I might as well make you earn it.

I heard a Harvard business professor today talk about how he encourages his students to learn to play poker. Understanding risk management, risk tolerance, odds, mathematics, aggression and emotional control are keys to success at the table — and in the business world, he argued. “The students who get good at poker, I never worry about how they’ll do in the real world,” the professor said.

I don’t know about that. But I know that within a deceptively simple game — each player is dealt two cards, five more are ultimately dealt face-up on the table, the player who can make the best hand or force everyone else to fold their hand wins — is an intricate, frustrating and beautiful contest.

Same too for the game of soccer. Two teams of 11 players. Two goals at opposite ends of the pitch. No hands. And yet this simple game has the power to halt wars, effect worldwide economies, and bring entire nations of people to their feet.

I wondered today, as I was spreading the yeast over the surface of our grape juice, whether the reason I enjoy being your dad so much is because fatherhood, like winemaking, poker and soccer, is at once so simple and so complex. It's easy to become a father. But being a good dad takes work.

There are, of course, a few notable differences.

If the wine spoils, there’s always another crop of grapes to harvest next summer. When you’re dealt a bad poker hand, there’s always another hand to play. And when your football team fails, there’s always another game, another season, another World Cup.

There will, of course, never be another you.

Given the deep satisfaction I get when picking a fruit or vegetable from our garden, I can only imagine how satisfying it will be to see you develop into an interesting, intelligent and decent adult — one who can enjoy this life in all of its simplicities, all of its complexities and all of its opportunities to grow.

Love,
dad

MEET THIS WORLD

Dear Spike:

Three months have passed since the day you arrived. It’s amazing to me how life can seem to move so fast and so slow at once. It’s hard to remember what life was like without you. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in your short lifetime. And at the same time, I feel like it’s gone by so quickly.

You’re still so very small — people mistake you for a newborn — but to me you seem so big. You are, after all, twice the size you were when you were born, with beautiful chubby cheeks and ever-fattening legs. You’ve long since grown out of your premie clothes. And with every passing day, it seems, we find another outfit no longer fits you.

Your first act, every morning, is a smile. And lately, you’ve been finishing the day with an hour-long screamfest that your mother and I have come to call the “9 o’clock freak out.” It’s OK, though, we love you still.

You no longer need us to support your head. And I can’t help but think you’re practicing to meet this world with your head held high. You look so confident, I feel like I could send you off to college tomorrow.

And, at the same time, I worry that I’ll be sending you off to college tomorrow. Everyone tells us: “It goes so fast — enjoy it while you can.”

So this month, at least, you and I are going to slow things down. Today was my first day of paternity leave, and we celebrated with a morning stroll through the aviary. As usual, you perked up when you heard the peacocks, the cuckaburra and the cranes call out. And I think I saw you following one particular scarlet ibis as it dashed back and forth about its cage.

Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll go too the zoo. Or perhaps we’ll just sit in the backyard, in the hammock, and swing and swing and swing.

I’ll read you a book. Maybe we’ll take a nap together. Maybe I’ll bring out my guitar and play you a song or two or three. And maybe I’ll write you a new one.

And we’ll live another lifetime together.

Love,
dad