Good Morning

To my son Tommy,

"I'm coming down!" you yelled seemingly to everyone in the house as if your decision was made and there was no changing. You probably have been up for the past half hour, deciding if it was an appropriate time to be awake. It has been raining in Baltimore the past day or two, so there was no sunshine through the window to convince you that the morning had fully arrived.

"You downstairs or up?" you asked, again seemingly to everyone in the house though I knew it was directed at your mom. I sleep in one place, the bed, but your mom, depending on how she is doing physically with her medical and Crohn's stuff, can be found in the bed or on the couch. Plus who wants to spend morning snuggle time with an old fat man when a mommy is available.

"Good morning!" you said as you went down the stairs and caught first glimpse of your mom. The words came out in a way that you can hear the smile and joy in your heart. It is the same way you say it ninety nine times out of one hundred. Thus you begin the new day anew, ready to tackle the world, right after a quick hug and snuggle session with your mom because you have priorities.

I hope you never lose that joy for waking up. Hold on to it as best you can and recapture it as often as you can. For soon, you will be tempted to despise and dread the morning as this world takes hold of you and turns you cynical and cold. If you even decide to utilize the adjective "good" for your morning, it usually will be filled with sarcasm and irony. Instead any A.M. greeting will be shortened to "mornin" at best, but more likely "ugh" or "hrmph" or something much less congenial. Bah, don't listen to me...I am just a jaded cynical old fat guy who didn't get any snuggles this morning.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Powerless? Not Hardly!

To my son Tommy,

When the world gets you down, and your case of Mondays goes well into Tuesday, and you think the world is out to get you, remember one thing...it is. The world is probably out to get you. 

Luckily, you were born with special powers, abilities going well beyond the realm of magical. You were born with the ability to smile, and to laugh, and to cry, and to persevere, and to be compassionate, and to dream, and to forgive, and most importantly to love. Now go choose which of these superpowers you will utilize to dig yourself out of whatever hole or darkness you think is insurmountable. 

If all fails, go find Grandpa Leo. He has those same powers and will find you some good protective wear to shield you from life.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Scary Dancer

To my son Tommy,

I am going out on a limb with a prediction here. I predict you will not seduce your significant other with your suave dance moves. But you may just win over your significant other with your dancing if they aren't easily embarrassed and have a good sense of humor.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Honestly Autism Day

To my son Tommy,

The whole family volunteered at Honestly Autism Day. It is a great day sponsored by the Autism Society (I think they are technically the Chesapeake chapter but I usually just say Baltimore) filled with information and presentations and all types of stuff. Your Aunt Debbie coordinates the majority of the event and really puts together a grand show. Last year I watched you all kids, so everyone else could volunteer, but this year I offered my tech expertise making sure some of the "breakout" rooms were all set with projectors and speakers and dealing with your basic computer geek type of problems.

That meant we all got rooms at the hotel where it was being held and the family tagged teamed the child care. You loved it because it meant some time at the hotel pool. Unfortunately the water was still pretty cold, even for a supposedly heated pool, and you were shivering and your lip was quivering and turning blue. Despite protests from you, I decided for your health that the swimming would be cut short. Perhaps if you were a swimmer, perhaps if you could go under water and get your whole body used to the water, it would have been a different story. I think this summer full swim lessons are a must.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

pop-pop volunteering as the photographer. Sure he got pictures of the whole family but I snapped a few quick ones when I had to pull out my iPad to help a presenter get some files for their presentation. Here they are.

Bwama working the parking validation while Aunt Na and Josh take a break from their other volunteer duties.

Emma hides as. Uncle Raymond is surprised to be working registration and Uncle Hyun working diligently on a sign.

Uncle Hyun putting his neatness and his hand eye coordination to good use.

Aunt Karen showing off a big smile in what was a rare lull in all the activity (as you can tell by Emma being the typical bored teenager)

Tears Again

To my son Tommy,

Another morning full of tears and fighting. Your mother had to run to the grocery in the morning and you wanted to go with her. Well that wasn't happening, there was no time. When she finally left out the door, your whining changed to an all out meltdown with screaming. You got sent to your room to calm down and think about things until you were ready to eat breakfast calmly.

Man I remember those days. I remember being sent to my room and obliging in a huff. I remember thinking how unfair it was. I remember being upset with the obvious abuse of power by my parents. It was probably only today that I realized that parenting tactic is hard on all involved.

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo

Dental Tears

To my son Tommy,

Many kids cry and whine and fight over going to the dentist. Not many kids shed tears because they can't go to the dentist RIGHT NOW! Funny enough that is exactly what happened this morning.

We try (or should I say your Mom mostly) to warn and prepare you for any new event. When we bring you to the doctors, we alert you if you are due some booster shots and we prepare you for what the doctor will do. When we recently brought you to the eye doctor, again we prepped you and you were all set. But a major side effect of preparing you is it creates an excitement, a buzz if you will, around the event. You get yourself all psyched up and somewhere in my mind I picture you as Linguini from the movie Ratatouille saying "You with me? So, LETS DO THIS THING!!" The problem is your concept of time, and your eagerness, and the dental office insisting on appointments, well none of this mix. Which is why we had the flood of tears this morning.

There are so many things in this world worth shedding a tear over, some of them beautiful, many of them tragic... but not getting to go to the dentist first thing in the morning, well that just ain't one of them.

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

Other Parent Bloggers

To my son Tommy,

One of my great pleasures of starting this blog to you is finding many fascinating dads and moms who have just as much dedication and love for their children. Perhaps they express it in different ways, but they are there. They are trying to do the best they can. They are engaged, and in the end that is what parenting is about.

How do they express themselves? Well one of the most interesting expressions of love has to come from the Lunch Box Dad. He might be the sole reason I long for you to eat a greater variety of foods. Nearly everyday he takes the time to transform a normal lunch in to something magical for his kids. Not that I would even come close to Beau in creativity (as you can see by the picture above he is pretty darn good at fun lunches), but with the detailed instructions from his site, I could probably fake it.

I think we need a return to trying new foods with focused effort. You and I have been butting heads lately, so adding some new food pressure is probably just the thing to do. (Can you hear my sarcasm?) Oh just please start eating new foods so your old man can try (and doubtfully be completely successful at) doing fun lunches like Olaf!

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo

P.S. Beau Coffron the www.lunchboxdad.com allowed me to borrow his Olaf picture for this post. Check him out sometime for some more amazing ideas.