Dear E.J. - 8 Years

My dear E.J.,

Happy birthday, buddy! You're eight years old now! How exciting! You are definitely the coolest eight-year-old I know.

This year has been marked by "getting back into things." Covid-19 is still circulating, but nearly all of our normal pre-pandemic activities have resumed and we're figuring our way through the whole thing. Our whole family has been vaccinated (and boosted), and the virus variants making their way around now are less severe, so although we'd still love to avoid getting sick, the threat has diminished enough that we're getting back to regular life.

You went back to in-person school this year for second grade (with a mask), and thus finally completed your first full school year in a face-to-face elementary classroom (your kindergarten year was abbreviated when things shut down, and first grade was completed virtually). You adjusted well to the change, making friends quickly and easily. You've developed a group of buddies that you love to play sports with at recess, and extracurricularly, too. You liked your teachers (you kept the same teachers from first grade), earned the Leader in Action award for your class in the fall, and got very good grades, including a certificate for your "vivid vocabulary." You are an incredible speller and your reading has improved drastically - you're even reading Harry Potter books at night, all on your own! You are impressively fluent in math; if you're focused, you can break down numbers and solve problems in your head with ease. We're working on honing that focus, as sometimes your test grades this year didn't reflect your true abilities, but we'll get there! Overall I was really impressed with how well you adjusted to being back in the classroom, how hard you worked, how you wore your mask even in the face of peer pressure, how you rolled with the punches, and how effortlessly you made great new friends.

The BIG THING for you right now is baseball. After taking a backseat to Lego last year (presumably thanks to skipping out on team play in favor of at-home activities during the pandemic), baseball has reclaimed it's throne as Your Most Favorite Thing. We rejoined the Hendricks Avenue Baseball League last fall, where you started in the 8u machine-pitch division for the first time. We didn't have the best experience in your first season (in my humble, not-at-all-biased-because-I'm-your-mother-and-number-one-fan-forever-and-ever opinion, your skills were overlooked and undervalued), but your love of the game was back and we dove in full-force in the spring season. In the spring, you hit lead-off for the Rays, hit your first ever homerun (of many to come, I'm sure) and were nominated by your coach to try out for Advanced Baseball. You didn't make it onto the AB team this time around (don't get me and my not-at-all-biased-etc. opinion started), but I think that's ultimately for the best, because it was a huge time commitment that I'm not sure we (read: I) are ready for yet. Either way, you improved so much over the season, and even more so since it ended. Every day after school you would go outside and just throw the ball to yourself, over and over, and now that we're on summer break, you only have more time to dedicate to practice. Papa sent you a new pitch-back (you had been using an old pallet previously!), and you have mastered the path to run around the block and retrieve any balls hit or thrown over our fence. You ask Daddy to come out and throw with you nearly every day, and often ask to go to the field and actually practice. I'm not kidding, E.J. - EVERY. DAY. You're a beast and it's all you want to do. Your catching and throwing has improved by leaps and bounds, and you're going to be a star in the upcoming fall season, I'm sure of it.

But it's not just playing baseball. Baseball is LIFE. You talk about baseball constantly. You wear a full baseball uniform every day: jersey, pants, belt, even high socks. We have baseball on TV regularly. You know so many of the players and still collect baseball cards. Your favorite team is still the Los Angeles Angels, with the Cleveland Guardians (new name!) and Tampa Bay Rays being other favorites in our house. You have things set up on our Amazon Echo so you can just say, "Alexa, give me my sports update!" and she'll tell you all about your favorite teams - scores from the previous day, and upcoming schedule. Every night when the Angels play, you tell Daddy to wake you up if there's a walk-off win. You even got your hair cut to look like Max Stassi (Angels catcher). You play the MLB The Show video game regularly and give us updates on your progress in that every morning. As I write this (belated this year, I'm sorry!!!) you're at baseball camp at Jacksonville University, which you've been looking forward to all summer. You went to Daddy's Springfield baseball practices enough in June that you earned a spot as official bat boy at the throwback baseball game on the Fourth of July, and when the whole stadium sang Happy Birthday to you, you tipped your hat to them like a pro. In addition to spending your birthday in the East Side dugout, you had a double dose of baseball birthday party - an Angels party at home with family after the game on July 4th, and then a sort of Sandlot-style party with your friends at Klutho Park last weekend, where you all played baseball all morning, ate classic baseball snacks (peanuts, Cracker Jacks, popcorn, etc), and broke open a baseball piñata filled with baseball cards, bubble gum and Baby Ruth bars. And, your most favorite birthday gift this year? The Angels City Connect jersey you had been dying for but didn't think you'd be able to get - Daddy found a way to make it happen and you were SO HAPPY. Baseball is life!

Baseball might be the hands-down favorite activity this year, but you did dabble in a few others for the first time! In the spring, you played flag football with a bunch of friends from school, and you were super fast! You scored a bunch of touchdowns, thanks to your speed, and we have it all on video with me screaming like a lunatic in the background. You also tried your hand (foot?) at a casual soccer league in Springfield. It was a great way to test it out, and you had fun - we'll see if you play either of those sports again this year. Also, you've done a handful of one-mile races this year, and man, are you fast! In fact, you won your most recent race! Not just in your age group or gender - full-out WON. You beat EVERYBODY. You even beat the bicyclist who was supposed to be leading the way to show you the path! 

I fear the problem with being so good at all these things you enjoy is that when something doesn't go the way you expect, it's very frustrating. We've been trying to deal a bit with your temper when frustrated this year - if things aren't going your way (in sports or just in life), you tend to have an angry outburst and want to quit. We've been trying to help you learn how to cope with those frustrated feelings, calm yourself down, and find a more productive way to manage the situation. I'm not sure if we're doing a good job yet, but we're working on it. You're eight years old now, which means you're getting big, but sometimes those feelings are just bigger so hopefully we can help you find a way to not be quite so overwhelmed by them.

Speaking of big feelings, just as of late you've been working through some really big thoughts and emotions, and it has been keeping you up at night. You seem to be becoming aware of your own mortality and that of those you love, and you've been worried about something happening to you or us at night. You had a hard time voicing your real worries for a long time, instead blaming your sleepless nights on being scared of the dark or monsters and aliens, but Daddy finally had a breakthrough talk with you the other night and we got more to the bottom of things. I think Daddy was able to help - he said you told him he has "good words" and you have since mentioned how he helped you - which is good, because I know those are very scary thoughts and they're a lot for one boy to come to terms with. I hope you know that we're here to help you deal with things like that, and you can always talk to us when you're feeling scared or anxious. It breaks my heart that you ever have to feel that way at all. 

Now to shift to the other end of the spectrum, I'd like to give an example of how you were able to overcome big feelings (those frustrated ones I talked about earlier) this year - you recently learned how to ride a bike! It's still a work in progress as you figure out how to get going on a narrow Springfield sidewalk, but you persevered through your frustration and you're able to do it. I'm so proud of you! You're already looking forward to the Springfield Halloween Bike-A-Boo and I can't wait to have you along for it this time.

Some more about eight-year-old E.J.: You still love Harry Potter; we finished the books this past year (and watched all the movies), dressed as Harry Potter villains for Halloween, got nearly all Harry Potter Christmas gifts (you're still very proud to be a Slytherin), and went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios as our first big post-pandemic trip! You chose a stuffed niffler as your souvenir on our trip (named Hulkypoo), who was quickly elevated to the ranks of favorite "guys," but none can overtake Bunny, who is still your all-time favorite. You love chewing gum, fast food and macaroni and cheese. You love to play videogames, both on our Nintendo Switch and the iPad. Your best friends are Dexter and Emory. You lost a few teeth this year (including one in December that caused a run-in between the Tooth Fairy and our elf, Twinkle!) and grew three inches in height. You love the Los Angeles Angels and your favorite players are Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. You like to run and practice sliding along the length of our house. You've become more confident in the pool, even in the deep end. You mostly get along well with Ellie, aside from the normal sibling squabbles, and you're still quite enamored with Ruthie (she's been your valentine two years running now!). When you're not playing or watching baseball, you're still likely to be found upstairs at the Lego table, making some great creation (including a full minifig replica of the Angels team!). 

I probably say this every year, but this year more than ever I feel as if you are straddling the line between Little Boy and Big Boy. You're becoming increasingly independent, and I love to see you growing and becoming more and more confident in who you are. I like watching you walk out of school with swagger and high five all the fifth graders, seeing you running around and having so much fun with all your friends, catching you reading a big chapter book and hearing you tell us about what you read, watching you doing more chores around the house and meeting your own needs. Sometimes I feel like you are very grown up, indeed.

But then sometimes, you'll grab a blanket and cuddle up with me on the couch and hold my hand. You still sleep with Bunny in your arms every night. Sometimes your voice still sounds like Little E.J., and sometimes I still see Baby You in your face. Sometimes you still need your Mama. And oh, boy, do I cherish that. I don't know how much longer you'll feel that way, but I love that for now, we're still linked a little bit as Mama and Baby. I hope you won't be in too much of a hurry to grow up and outgrow me, buddy...let's spend a little more time right here, what do you say?

It's funny, motherhood, isn't it? Just two sentences ago I was asking you to stay small, and my heart desperately wishes that you could. But at the same time, watching you grow up is the greatest joy of my life. I'm so proud of you and so excited about the Big Boy you are becoming. What a cool kid he is! And how lucky I am to call him my son. Having a front row seat to your growing up is my favorite thing. I guess the whole thing is just sort of bittersweet....but certainly more sweet than anything.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a mama to such an awesome boy. I love you so much, nugget. Happy birthday.

All my love,

Mama

* * * * * 

Dear E.J.,

 

Happy birthday! It’s so cool that you’re eight, but I’m secretly glad you still have so many years left to grow up! We are starting to share a lot of common interests–playing sports, watching sports, running, snacking, playing the switch, and just generally being outside–and I really enjoy spending time with you. 

 

This year, you were back at school in-person for the entire school year. It was a really tough decision, which is so true of parenting generally. Firstly, it’s so much harder to make decisions for some else, especially when you care about them immeasurably, and are fairly invested in how things end up. You obviously never know how a decision is going to turn out before you make it, nor can you find out what would have happened if you had chosen differently. You weigh the pros and cons of each option and try as best you can to weight them with the likelihood each good or bad outcome will be the one that happens. Then you pick and try not to second guess. It helps to have someone else to brainstorm with, though it does raise the stakes even more because you don’t want to let them down either. 

 

With that said, I’m very happy to report that sending you back to school was a success! You didn’t get COVID and picked right back up getting good grades and making some good friends. The one thing I’d want to say is that to the extent your grades weren’t perfect (don’t worry, I think it was maybe two quarter Bs total), it seems like a question of focus more than one of ability. For example, there were several homework assignments for which you delayed starting, even getting upset or frustrated because you though it would take “too long” or be “too hard.” Once we were able to get you to calm down and try to figure out what you needed to do, you’d knock it out quickly and correctly. The same thing actually happened with learning to ride a bike. For starters, you barely tried until you were almost 8. Sweetly, you were motivated not by peer pressure or the famous Springfield holiday rides, but by the hope you could pick it up in time for Mother’s Day and ride with Mama to a local breakfast place. The week before, while the girls were at an hours-long event, you almost quit one block into our first official practice. Once we finally got to the parking lot, you had to take breaks to talk through the plan and whether and how to keep trying every 15-20 minutes. All told, it took you about two hours total (across two days) to get it, but you sure turned the stress level way up on something I knew you’d be able to do. 

 

I hope we can work through this mental roadblock soon. Along these lines, I sometimes wonder whether we did the right thing starting you in school young, but it is just so obvious that you can handle the content and keep up with older kids athletically. The best I can figure is that you are still young, and I am not so sure your teachers have been looking for you to have so much natural ability because you are a small, active boy. It doesn’t help that each year you have had teachers teaching the grade for the first time. To be clear, my real concern is that you don’t seem to realize how smart and capable you are. It’s a question of confidence more than competence, and I hope you figure it out!

 

Several thoughts ago, I mentioned you made a great group of friends. It sounds like you all played sports, primarily baseball and football, at recess just about every day. I definitely remember doing that as a kid, but I’m not so sure I started in second grade! One of your friends invited you to join the others on an organized flag football team and you were excited to give it a try. Before the season started, you, Ellie and I would go to nearby fields and practice running plays and I tried to teach you about juking and cutting. During on eof the 1-on-1 games, you kept running long routes despite not really being able to catch yet. You got really frustrated that I wasn’t throwing you the ball, so I did. And it hit you right in the face. I know you should never negotiate with, much less give in to, terrorists (or 7-year olds). I should have known better and I’m sorry! Fortunately, you weren’t traumatized and ended up being a real asset to your Ravens team. You were the shortest kid but actually tied for the team lead with 6 touchdowns in 8 games! And compared to the number of touches you had, your conversion rate was way ahead of everyone else! It was surreal to see you make good instinctive decisions with the ball, whether to beat a defender to the outside, juke, or make a single cut before getting up the field. As your coordination develops and your hands get bigger, you might really have a lot of fun playing. 

 

In other sports news, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much you run. Besides sports and some training with me around Springfield, on a local track, and in the Swamp (the football field was open for graduation pics the week after the Spring game when were in Gainesville), you must have done hundreds of laps around the house and thousands of sprints back and forth down our hallway. You want to race me for your birthday this year and we’ve settled on an annual 100m dash. I’m not worried about this year, but I’m really curious to see how many years it will be until you get me. You also had a couple of chances to race the mile. The first time was the Girl Scout Thin Mint Sprint at the Zoo. You went out fast and had built up a decent lead when we saw you about a quarter of a mile in. But between that point and the finish, the staff directed you off course, and the route itself was cut in half. You ended up crossing the finish line behind a lot of people and were so mad about the mix up you didn’t want to enter the Junior River Run the next month. Fortunately, we talked you into giving it another shot at the Jacksonville Great Fire Run. You went out really fast again on an out and back course and when you reappeared near the finish, you had built up a good lead, finishing even stronger than you started in around 6:50! You beat everyone else who entered! Ellie was great, too, so I am hopeful there will be many more races in our future.   

 

With all apologies for burying the lead, it would be impossible to tell the story of you at 8 years old without baseball. After taking a year off from little league due to COVID, you jumped back in with both feet and haven’t looked back! Your first season in the 8u machine pitch league wasn’t what I was hoping for with a very inexperienced coach and several kids who could have aged out but decided to play down another season. You didn’t get any meaningful instruction as a Marlin, the coach batted you 12^th (out of 12) almost every game, and didn’t give you a single rep at 1B, 2B or SS. Even so, you hit almost .650 with twice as many hits as strikeouts. So you can imagine our surprise when you stated the next season hitting lead off and playing SS for the Rays! I was so proud of you for working through your admitted nerves about hitting first after practice the night before when you missed 12 straight pitches off the machine. I think you had 4 first pitch hits and kicked off a really fun season. A season in which you had your first inside the park home run before you really knew how to run the bases! I worry I ruined the video by screaming at you to take each base because you kept stopping even though the ball went all the way to the fence. You were invited to try out for the league’s advanced baseball team, but had some trouble fielding the ball after we practiced the week before with some much older kids who hit the ball much harder than you were used to. Even though it didn’t work out, you’ve taken that experience and spent almost every day this summer throwing and catching with your new pitchback screen and asking me to play catch any chance we can. You have gotten so much better as a result of your own interest, initiative, and work, and I am so excited to be your head coach this year! There is so much more to say about you and baseball, but I am running out of self-imposed space. In short:

• You dress for a baseball game four out of every five days, complete with baseball pants, belt, long socks, a baseball shirt of some kind, and a hat;
• We watch baseball regularly, and you especially love the Angels;
• You know their entire lineup and rotation, and your favorite players are Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani;
• You recently got your hair cut to look like Max Stassi, their catcher, which is the second Angels player to inspire your hair styling;
• Your favorite birthday present was a Mike Trout Angels City Connect jersey and you used your loose birthday money to buy the City Connect hat;
• You set up an Amazon notification to get baseball scores each morning for your favorite teams;
• You are lowkey obsessed with walk-offs and bat flips;
• Of all the books at our local book store, you picked a vintage Joe DiMaggio instructional guide to spend your gift card on; and
• You are getting really good at MLB The Show 22 (You call it the Show-tani because Shohei is on the cover).

 I want to end on a more serious note. You have been thinking some big thoughts lately. I’m not sure whether it was a coincidence or a catalyst, but ever since we watched Men In Black, you have started sleeping with a light on and calling me or your Mama up to talk after we’ve put you to bed. Essentially, you don’t want to die and you don’t want us to, either. You seem comforted by the idea that it is okay for people to die because God has a plan for all of us and Heaven must be a pretty cool place. You also decided you’re probably okay because God wouldn’t have much use for you now in Heaven and that you could just ask when you get there if you need to. I’m not sure what was helpful, but you told me I have pretty good words for things like this. I hope so, and I hope you know I am always here to listen and help you think through anything you’re working through, no matter how big or small or how old you are. 

 

I apologize for writing you the longest letter in the history of letters and totally understand if you never make it through the whole thing. In case you just skipped to the end, we are having a lot of fun together, you’re getting really good at stuff, and don’t realize how good you are at other stuff. Parenting is hard, and also the best. I love you so much, little buddy. Happy birthday! 

 

All my love!

Daddy

Dear Ellie - Ten Years

My dear Ellie,

Happy birthday, baby cakes! Welcome to double digits! Holy cow, are you ever growing up. I mean, have you seen your ten-year photo? How beautiful are you?!

This birthday is an exciting one, not only because you're turning the big TEN, but also because it will be your most "normal" birthday celebration in years. You have a big batch of pink cupcakes ready to take to your classmates at school today; we had an early celebration at a theme park in January; and your official party will be a sleepover with friends at our house. At long last, the sleepover you had planned for 2020 will come to fruition! The celebrations of the last two years have been wonderful - we found perfect new, creative ways to celebrate safely in the midst of a pandemic, and though they felt subpar in the moment, are now treasured memories (at least for me, and I think for you, too!). But, I'm so happy that this year you have much more say over how you celebrate your big day. I'm so excited to give you that experience!

The pandemic that dominated much of my last couple of letters to you is not over, unfortunately, but we're trending in the right direction, and hopefully by my next letter it will have been downgraded to an endemic and things will be even more "normal" than they are now. Since my last letter, we've all been vaccinated against covid-19 (and Daddy and I even had boosters!), most people have ditched masks, you're back to in-person school and extracurriculars, we see family more regularly and are even planning a road trip for this summer. However, to get here we've also weathered the two worst outbreaks of the pandemic, thanks to new variants (delta, right at the end of the summer, when you were preparing to start school; and omicron, over the holidays/January). We're still learning about how our vaccines will stand the test of time, concerns for new variants to come still loom, and even as we celebrate your birthday, Papa is hospitalized with covid in Ireland, a very unwelcome souvenir from his St. Patrick's Day travels. We're so thankful for vaccines for keeping him from a more dire situation - thank you, science! You still love science, so there's another good reason for it!

You're doing very well back at school, but that's no surprise. You are a very responsible student, and have taken charge of your own homework/assignments this year with little to no help from me (and you've done a great job!). You like your teachers, and still love math and science the most. You're currently rocking fractions in class, and continue to look for any opportunity to create/solve your own math problems for fun. You also like writing essays, and tell me every day after school what you wrote about and your arguments for your position (they're good!). You still love to read, and we've basically stopped buying you chapter books (relying on the library instead) because you just finish them IMMEDIATELY. Of course, you're not opposed to re-reading, so that's a plus! You're still mostly reading the Harry Potter books, over and over. I think you just pick your favorite parts to reread rather than reading them cover to cover, which is kind of a fun way to do it. You're enjoying your Gifted class this year, including a research project on a winter Olympian (Karen Chen) during the Beijing Olympics. You're also very excited to be learning to play the recorder in Music class. Your homeroom class job is to lead the Monday Morning Meetings with the class, asking a discussion question and leading your peers as they share answers. At the beginning of the year you were devastated over this assignment, just a bundle of nerves and anxiety about it. But you've really settled in and found your groove, and now are looking for ways to ask deeper, more thought-provoking questions and make the whole thing more your own. I'm proud of you, kiddo!

You're back into the full swing of extracurricular activities, too. We resumed ballet at the end of the fall, and you're busy practicing for your first Upper School recital this May. You're still a proud Girl Scout (now a Junior!), though our old troop disbanded this year and we opted to be Juliettes rather than joining a new troop, so we have done a lot of online activities and badges at home together. You rocked cookie season again this year, beating your previous sales record by nearly 200 boxes (for a total of 701 this year!), and that even with a massive cookie supply chain shortage! You worked so hard to reach your goal! To get a little in-person Girl Scout action, you did join a Girl Scouts Lego Robotics team called the Codettes, which you really loved but unfortunately that came to a close this month, so we're looking for something to take its place. You've also continued to golf with Daddy, and I hear you're really improving! You even played your first nine holes with him about a month ago. You've also started playing in a little local soccer league in our neighborhood - it's very casual, so we'll see if it turns into anything, but you're having fun so far!

Speaking of our neighborhood, that's a big change to discuss! Just days after your birthday last year, we went to an open house in the Historic Springfield neighborhood - Grammy was in town, and we just wanted to show her what Springfield houses looked like. To our surprise, we fell in love with the house and about a month later, it became ours! We bought our first house! You guys were so excited to have a house that is ours, and it must have really been meant to be because you and E.J. each selected your rooms without any argument! Your new room is decorated in purple, white and teal, with purple jeweled knobs on your dresser and a lovely purple jeweled lamp on your bedside table, plus a rainbow curtain with star cutouts to let the light shine through. Both kids' bedrooms open up to what was once an upstairs porch, that is now closed in and makes a perfect playroom. You guys will disappear up there for hours, and we don't hear a peep from you! We have a wonderful front porch, where we sit on pleasant evenings, watch outdoor movies with our projector, and it is your favorite spot to do your homework. Aside from the wonderful house, we also have loved getting involved in our new neighborhood - we were prepared to host a band on our porch for a neighborhood music festival called Porchfest (but it was rained out!), you and I had a girls' night out for a Halloween bike ride to look at neighborhood decorations, we've made some friends, joined the soccer team, etc., etc. There's a lot to do and we're enjoying all of it!

You guys were both really great during the move - helpful and excited. There was some adjustment when we first moved in, though. You would call me up to your room nearly every night for a while with a fear to discuss, usually a fear of a fire in the house. I expect it was really just apprehension about being in a new, unfamiliar place, which is completely understandable. In time, you settled in and as we approach the year anniversary of being in this house, I think we're all starting to feel more at home! Your birthday and Easter are the last remaining holidays we have yet to experience here - I think once you've done all the holidays in the new house, it really does feel more homey. We just needed to build up some memories!

And we sure have made some fun memories this year! We kicked it off by (cabin) camping for your birthday, on the last cold night of the spring. We cooked hot dogs over an open fire and breakfast on the grill. We participated in "Bairdlympics" during Bairdcation this summer, and you took the gold in the Sponge Relay Race and tied for gold in the Smallest Splash competition. You attended another virtual Girl Scouts camp, learning all about cybersecurity and earning three badges (and are currently signed up for your first sleep away camp this summer!). We started going to Jumbo Shrimp games again, and EJ's baseball and football games. We finished reading the Harry Potter series and watched all the movies, dressed as Harry Potter "bad guys" for Halloween (you were Professor Umbridge!), and spent a couple of SUPER fun days at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios in honor of your nine-and-three-quarters birthday! You ran your first 5k, and several one-mile races. We visited Santa at Disney Springs and spent a couple days at a Disney resort (while Daddy attended a work conference). We had a handful of visitors: all of your grandparents, Aunt Heather, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Mark, and the Illinois cousins. We had friends over for trick-or-treating and Christmas movies on the porch. 

At ten years old, your best friends are Leela, Sophie and Sicily. Your favorite book is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and your favorite movie is Apollo 11. You still cuddle with your unicorn Cupcake at night. You like to sleep on your right side, near the edge of your bed (with pillows and stuffed animals and books all piled up behind you). You did a Girl Scouts journey about water and now are very concerned about wasting water and constantly remind us to turn off the faucet while we scrub our hands with soap! You love dogs and every time you see one out in the world, you tell its owner you love it. You're becoming very helpful around the house, always willing to do what I ask and regularly following a chore schedule (you clean the bathroom, change your sheets, dust your own room). You have shown some real bravery this year, including riding The Hulk rollercoaster at Universal (the first upside-down ride you've ever tried) with nary a hint of panic beforehand, and making small talk with the nurse who administered your covid vaccine as it happened (you asked her what she wanted for Christmas). You are kindhearted, often thinking of what others need and how you can help (for example, you asked if we can use some of your Girl Scout cookie earnings to buy books and toys for children in the hospital). You love Ruthie like crazy and still use your trademark voice and extended-bottom-jaw face when you talk to her. You play Legos with EJ, ask Alexa to play music so you can dance in your room, and love to draw. You stay up reading after we put you to bed at night and carry big books to school with you every day to read in your down time. You write great thank-you notes, complete with personal drawings for the recipient (you wrote notes to every cookie customer who ordered online this year). Your favorite color is still dark pink, and you love to accessorize (you have earrings for nearly every occasion, and you've started styling your hair in fun ways). 

You're just really, really growing up, my Ellie. I was really struck by that as I prepared for this birthday. I made a video for you, compiling clips from your past ten years into one four-minute video. The first couple of minutes of the video are mostly baby/toddler Ellie, and sometimes, it seems like that little girl was a whole other person entirely. There's no way the beautiful young woman who lives with me now is that same baby that I used to spend my days with, that same baby that I spent all my time cuddling and bouncing and rocking, taking to story times and for walks to find the turtles, tying blankets to her head so she could be Rapunzel, reading book after book to her as we sat on the floor for hours. Is that really you? I miss that little girl sometimes, that girl who would grab my hand as we set out to find the kitties, who would crawl into my lap for a cuddle after nap time, who would check my heartbeat with one of her many stethoscopes. She was so dear to me and those were some of the best days of my life.

But the video doesn't end with baby Ellie. It continues on, and we watch her grow. And the video then morphs from flashes of a cute little baby to frame after frame depicting a growing girl, gradually doing all the things little Ellie couldn't do. One by one, she faces her fears and her challenges and overcomes them. She slides on the slide. She dances at her ballet recital. She masters the monkey bars. She learns to ride her bike. She changes her earrings. She reads in church. She runs races and swings a golf club and plays baseball and dives in the waves and even fights Kylo Ren. She sells cookies and swims underwater and dances every chance she gets. The last two minutes of that video are just one clip after another that takes me right back to moments when I felt so proud of you, so proud that I could just burst. I can't watch it without getting tears in my eyes because holy cow, Ellie, I am SO PROUD OF YOU. Every moment of every day, I could explode with joy just because you're you and I get to be here to witness you becoming more and more you every single day. And who you are is really remarkable. There's nobody like you and frankly, that's a shame. The world would be a much better place if there were lots more Ellies.

But we only get one, and I'm so thankful that I get to be here with her, day in and day out, as she becomes the woman she will eventually be. If the first ten years brought all that accomplishment and growth for you, I can hardly wait to see what is coming your way in the next ten. I do, however, have a feeling the coming years may be more tumultuous for us - that's the way of it with teens and their mothers, isn't it? I hope it doesn't have to be, but I'm mentally preparing myself as best as I can, just in case. And, I know that at the end of the next ten years, you'll be leaving me to start your own adult life. Oooof, that will be rough, but also, a beautiful sight to see. I hope you will always be true to yourself, be your complete self in every way, and know that no matter who that turns out to be, I will love you fiercely. I will always be proud of you. And I will always be right behind you...or next to you, or holding your hand, or coming up to your room at night for comfort, or on the other end of the phone, or wherever you need me to be. I'm in your corner, Ellie, always. I will be here for you until the end of my days.

Thank you for making me a mother ten years ago today. Thank you for challenging me and bearing with me as I try to figure out how to be just the mother you need. I hope I won't let you down.

I love you, Ellie-girl. Happy birthday.

Love always, 

Mama

* * * * * 

Dear Ellie,

Happy 10^th birthday!!!! How crazy is it that your single-digit days are over?! I’m not sure whether it’s actually crazy or if it’s just on my mind because you have been very aware of it for weeks. Just today, there has been an extensive running commentary of single digit lasts. Last outfit, last Daddy/Ellie chat on the drive home from ballet, last dinner, shower, Ruthie belly scratch and good night kiss. Looking ahead, you have also made some comments about almost being a “tween.” I’m not sure either of us knows what that means, but it’s only possible because we’ve now known each other for a whole decade. (I hope you read that last word in your best Kennedy/Scrimgeour voice). I am pretty confident it has been the best decade of your whole life and I can’t tell you how much happiness it brings me to think about so many of the times we’ve had. I’m so glad your Mama keeps such good records.

Fortunately, this isn’t going to be that kind of letter where we dig in on all of them (just think of the ink and trees saved!) At the same time, I think this letter could be a good chance to take stock of where you are 10 years in. The memories that come to mind from this year seem to line up neatly with what I want to say about you as a person, so we’ll see how it goes. Long story short: you’re just so, so special. I’m not allowed to say you’re perfect, because, technically, no body is, and the last thing I want to do is put pressure on you to keep up such a crazy pace of awesomeness. But the truth is that you’re going to be amazing no matter what you’re doing, so long as it’s what makes you happy. All that said, at 10-years old, you are curious, well-rounded, and kind.  

Curious. Notice I didn’t say smart. Sure, you know a lot for your age (All A’s so far and really high standardized test scores even during a Pandemic!), and at the rate you read (I’d bet you read close to a hundred books this past year, including most of the Harry Potter books three times each) you are going to know a lot more in a year, and so on. But you are so much more than what you know. Real wisdom is knowing you don’t know everything and that you never will, but that you don’t stop trying to learn more. You wonder, you dream, you ask questions. You are curious! This year, you took on the Rubix cube–you’ve totally mastered one face and are working your way through the rest of it–worked your way up to 19 digits of pi for fun, and when your gifted teacher talked about a “genius hour” project where you’d investigate something, such as ‘how do you draw dogs?’ or ‘why is smoking bad for you?’, your first thought was to wonder about the building blocks of all things – atoms and chemical compounds and such. I think this came from your fascination with the search for the “grand unifying theory” of Physics. I wish I could remember how it came up any of the times we’ve talked about it, but suffice it to say that, knowing you, I’m not surprised it did. 

You also always say your favorite teacher is the one who teaches math and science, even though we’re pretty sure you’ve had some really great ELA teachers. Speaking of reading, I would be remiss to not say a bit more about finishing the Harry Potter franchise. I can’t tell you how meaningful it was to read every word together as a family, and to keep up with our characters right up to the very end. I love that you say you hear our family voices in your head when you re-read the books, and I love that we were able to make it to the Wizarding World at Universal Studios to put an exclamation point on the magic. 

Well rounded. As we work our way back to a new normal, you are back in a ballet class and rocking girl scouts, including your Lego robotics club before it ended prematurely. You sold 700 boxes of cookies this season, even with historic supply shortages. You’re still teaching yourself songs on the piano when they interest you and have started playing the recorder at school. You ran your first 5k and recently completed the Junior River Run mile in 7:25! I was so proud of you for doing that on your own because distance running has been a bit of a journey. Most times we have tried to run more than a mile together, including the 5k we ran with EJ last Spring, you started to get nervous and needed to stop and walk for longer stretches than your legs or lungs actually needed. It has seemed like you were dealing with a mini-anxiety attack and I haven’t known what to do other than to keep taking it easy. You, EJ, and I tried to run a mile race around Christmas, and it happened to you ¼ of the way in and you couldn’t make yourself recover or push through. So, when you said you wanted to run the Junior River Run, I let you go by yourself and tried to let you talk yourself up and make your own plan. And you nailed it! I’m excited to see where running takes you because you’re good at it and you really seem to like doing it, in spite of the hiccups. 

But, Ellie, what I really want to highlight in this section is that you’ve gotten really into . . . dramatic pause . . . wait for it. . . golf!!! How cool is that?!?! I wish I could say it was spending time together or the lessons I’ve tried to give you, but I think the real driver of your consistent interest in practicing was the Summer Olympics. This is the first year golf was part of the games and you just love the idea of winning a medal someday. Which I get, it’s a really cool idea I only recently had to give up on (not that I ever tried close to as hard as would be needed to make it happen). We bought matching official Team USA golf shirts and have been to range at least a few times each month. You can hit your “iron 7” in the air, but you really love hitting “bomberoos” with your driver. We even have a secret handshake for big hits. We always include putting sessions in our practice and end it with a contest or series of contests. Whenever EJ comes along (about half the time), you always ask to go last because you “love the pressure.” I usually handicap the contests, and you win as often as you lose. You have gotten so much better in a year. It’s probably the repetition, but it could also be because you keep a copy of Ben Hogan’s Five Lessons in your bed and you do things like hold your Harry Potter wand like a golf club. It might also be because you have such a great attitude after mishits and on bad days. Of course you get frustrated, but you just keep swinging, which is a skill that will suit you well in anything you do. See, e.g., Thomas Edison and the 999 ways not to make a light bulb. 

Notably, in the Fall, you rode along at a 9-hole par 35 course and played two of the par 3 holes. Grandpa Gary even let you drive the golf cart for a bit! While you did get the ball in the hole, there was a lot of swinging and missing. You may have made a 15 on a 75-yard hole after hitting your tee shot 65 yards over a water hazard! So, we kept practicing and you got a fuller set of clubs for Christmas (driver, hybrid, 5, 7, 9, your first wedge, and a mallet putter) in addition to a golf bag being your ornament. Then, on President’s Day, you played all 9 holes on that same course! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here or in other letters, but I love spending time with you and golf gives us the perfect excuse to do just that. And, for now, we both like playing. It’s just so great, Ellie. I hope this keeps up, and I promise to try not to make you keep doing if it stops being fun for you. 

Kind. This one is a bit tricker to detail, but anyone who knows you would say it’s true. You compliment strangers and always tell them you like their dogs. You are always patient and loving with Ruthie. At EJ’s games, you almost always play with the younger siblings and are so sweet with them. As a Juliet Girl Scout, you get to access what would be the troop proceeds from your cookie sales, which is over $500, to pay dues and event registration fees, etc. You asked if you could use it to donate toys to Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital, which we’re working on helping you do. You are also very aware of who is listening to you answer questions, and never fall for ones like “Who is your favorite parent?” And, Ellie, you are still a great hugger. You never just go through the motions, almost always giving a sincere two-handed squeeze with your eyes closed. You’ve also started holding my hands at the end of our before bed hugs for an extra squeeze and eye contact, which is just the sweetest.

Ellie, I said it earlier, but it’s the absolute truth: Even if you weren’t any of the things I said in this letter, I couldn’t love you any more or any less. I simply can’t explain how happy I am to have a daughter, and for that daughter to be you. I knew it the day you were born and we had our first of countless moments in the hospital room. As excited as I am about your young successes, the way you’ve handled struggles, and the ‘tween’ you are becoming, nothing you do or fail to do could ever change the way I felt about you on your birthday, and feel about you now. I am so happy to be kicking off another decade with you and am so looking forward to helping you make sense of the world and figure out what you love to do (even if it doesn’t end up involving math, science, or golf). 

Happy birthday! 

I love you always,

Daddy