To My Anna, You at Five
Dear Anna,
If you are reading this at any age from 12 to 18 then you probably won’t believe this. Your favorite things to say this year to me were, “I want to always be with you” and “You will always be my favorite guy”. The latter statement will especially be cruel when I am replaced by the Beiber of the moment. As Inigo Montoya told Vizzini, “You keep using that word(always). I do not think it means what you think it means.” Your intentions, sweet beyond words. They capture who you were this past year other than the select moments that your brother drew your ire for one reason of another.
Anna you grew by leaps and bounds this year, reading full books at the “4″ level. Your Spanish came along nicely thanks to your teachers Mr. Case and Mrs. Thomson. You loved them both very much and were by their accounts a model student, someone they used as an example. Your mother and I often wondered why that didn’t translate to home. In truth it did more often than not, but we were spoiled by you.
You played soccer this past spring and enjoyed it. But your evolving passion was running. You also showed an interest in the high jump, which was really the long jump…but your explanation of calling it the former made too much sense to argue.
Team Umizoomi struck a chord with you and with the increased viewing your math spiked a bit. Score one for educationally back television.
You never failed to make me smile, feel important and most of all loved. When I transitioned to full time this year you took it to heart. I was unable to read to you every night, and often you would wake up when I arrived at 2:30 am just to snuggle. There were even some nights we hung out reading into the wee small hours, you arm looped through mine, until we both fell asleep on the couch.
Six years down, twelve to go…one third of the way through my full time gig as your dad. While I will be there for you after that I look forward to watching you grow into a confident young woman and transitioning from parent to friend…a luxury that has to wait until then.
I love you more and more each day little girl. I imagine at this point you know there is truth behind my constant nagging that you can tell me anything. You can, and I promise I will always listen, try not to judge, and love you all the same.
Love,
Dad
Love it!