Not So Routine

To my son Tommy,

One of the ways to deal with the routine in life is to integrate the not-so-routine.  You have been making new adjustments and adding to your daily routine.  We have been focusing on bed time and wake time and brushing teeth twice a day and taking your daily vitamin and many many more routines that will help you as you grow and, more immediately, help us adjust to the new school year.  So when I had you this morning, and I had gotten through the normal stuff like breakfast and vitamin and teeth brushing, and we were about to head over to your Bwama's house, I let you dress up in your wizard outfit.  I figure the normal everyday habits occasionally need to take a back seat to the normal eccentricities that accompany the Downey name.  As a Downey, you can learn to follow daily routines and daily habits, but somewhere deep inside we always have our own way of things.  Somewhere deep inside we march to the beat of our own drums.  If this means wearing a wizard outfit out in public, or wearing a colander on your head like your Granddad, or wearing flips flops and Hawaiian shirts into the dead of winter like a younger version of your old man used to, then so be it.  Just learn to embrace your unique quirks in conjunction with the world not against the world.  Don't become the rebel without a clue that your father was for so many years in his younger days.  Don't be different for the sake of non-conformity.  Be different because it truly is how you think and who you are.  Only then will the true magic of a four year old wizard show through.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo