Letters

Dear Sophia,

I found a friend's blog today where he formatted his entries as letters to his kids.  I think that's a great idea.  I don't write in my journal nearly as much as your mother does, and we're both afraid that will mean when we're gone you and your kids will only know her, and not me.  So I'm going to write to you as regularly as I can and try to express my feelings, so that you will have tangible evidence of my love for you. 

It's almost the end of the year.  If you were to ask me, I think the biggest impact on our year was moving to a new home.  Jonah may keep some memories of our other home, but you never knew it as home.  I'm not sad we moved.  I'm not sad you won't remember the other home.  It let us try some things out, find out how much we could do, and now we get a chance to do more things right than we did there.  We've worked like crazy this year, getting the house ready for your grand entrance into the world.  It wasn't quite done when you arrived, but it was close.  Now we're winding down and starting to turn our thoughts outside to the yard.  But the impact of a new home is still affecting us every day.  Jonah loves to look out the window and watch Grandma and Papa come and go.  We love knowing when they're home too.  Jonah has learned to hold our hand when he crosses the street, which I hope he'll teach you too.

The other large impact our new house has on our lives is in my wallet.  You won't understand this for a long time, but we're out of money.  Completely.  We're really having to think about our situation now.  Your mother has long been better suited for that than I have, but I'm learning.  I'm learning how to be serious and committed to things.  Your mother has been trying to get that through my head for a long time.  I think as I improve in my handling of financial matters, many other things will improve as side-effects. 

So that's the setting of life that you've come into.  And you've had a big impact too!  We all love you tons.  I'm especially thrilled that you've learned to smile, and you almost laugh outright.  I was warned before you were born that pretty soon you'd have me wrapped around your little finger.  So true!  I love your smile.  I love your chubby snuggly-ness.  I love how you light up when you see people.  And I LOVE holding you and watching you fall asleep.  I feel like you're here to put lasting light into people's lives, and you're certainly getting off to a good start.  I love Jonah too, and before you were born I wondered if I would have room to love someone else so deeply.  But there was room for your mother first, then there was more room for Jonah, and now there's lots and lots of room for you too.  Some of my favorite moments are when Jonah comes over to you and you smile at each other.  He loves you too. 

I'm excited to watch you learn things.  Soon you'll be reaching out and grabbing things, growing teeth, and really laughing.  What fun!

Well, here's my first letter.  I'll write again, I promise

Love,

Your Daddy

Dear Jonah,

I am freshly amazed every day by how much you've grown, and how fast you're learning.  Yesterday you spent the evening with Grandma and Grandpa Moon, while Mom and Dad went to the temple for their anniversary.  Thank you for being so good when you're away from us.  You are always so well behaved.  I love you. 

You spent the whole evening bouncing from one toy to the next, but when I was there, you were playing only with the marble track set.  Grandma said you thought the marbles were candy.  That's a little scary.  But when you were told they were just little balls, you were OK with that.  That's a good thing.  I don't want you choking, especially when Mom and I are gone. 

You've discovered candy!  I'm sure you'll think we're super mean when we don't give you candy all the time, but you have many many years ahead of you to enjoy sugar, and it's not good for you to have too much when you're young.  There is too much sugar in the world today, and it does bad things to your body.  There are lots of other things that do bad things to your body as well, and the United States seems to overindulge in all of them.  So, we're going to look like mean parents when we tell you 'no' to things that other parents don't.  Just get used to it.  You'll be better off in the long run.

In my office at work I have a picture frame you gave me for Father's Day in 2006 (we think).  Mom gives me new pictures every so often to put in it.  I love having pictures of you at work.  You're so cute.