Letters

Your imagination has really taken off lately. You like to put our green leather chairs up on the couch and pretend you're in a boat or on a train. You'll pretend you're a dog sometimes, or a cat sometimes. You like being a train gate, and making us all wait to go through the gate until the train has gone by. Sometimes Sophie gets pretty mad at that. She doesn't appreciate the spontaneity of the idea.

The other item of note is that you can read quite a bit now. It's surprising sometimes to hear what you can read. You like finding the Exit signs in whatever store we might be in. Aunt Holly gave us a binder with Family Home Evening lessons in it for Christmas, and Mama asked you what it said on the front. You read the whole thing. "Family Home Evening Lessons for a Year." We were all pretty surprised at that. You love having us read books to you, and your attention span is getting better and better. Grandma Joan says you're ready for something like "Charlotte's Web" soon. It will be fun to start reading chapter books with you. I am so excited to see you fall into books. I'm excited for you to go to kindergarten later this year, and bring things home to read. I wish I had more time to read now. I remember one day in Junior High my teacher gave us Ender's Game as reading for the next several weeks, and I took it home and couldn't put it down until I'd finished it that evening. I think I read it 3 or 4 times in those several weeks. I also remember the compilation books we had for reading in Elementary school. I loved those stories, and I was always several stories ahead of the class. Your Mama loves books just as much if not more than I do. I think you're doomed, really, but if we've doomed you to a life of loving books, I think there are worse things we could do as parents.

You are still coming up with funny little sayings. Just tonight when you brushed your teeth, I let you rinse three times. You wanted four times, and got mad at me when I stopped at three. You said, "Well, if I don't get four times then I'll be grumpy when I come back from Jesus!" We have no idea what you meant there. But you had such the look of consternation.

I'm glad you're learning about spiritual things. I hope we can feed you enough information and spiritual experiences to guide you as we should. I also hope we're not too overbearing. I think we'll lean more toward the overbearing side, and that will be our challenge. Remember that we love you, always. I've said that before, and I'm sure I'll say it many more times. I love you lots and lots, kiddo.

I'm still excited about all the fun things we get to do this year. I hope you remember the good experiences for a long time.

Love,

Daddy

Well, you've had quite the vocabulary explosion this past month. You say a lot of words now, although you tend to leave off the consonants, so it's very hard to understand. But you know what we're saying, and you make an effort to say things and get us to understand. Jonah talks to you all the time, and it's starting to be a two-way conversation. I'm excited for that too. Life gets so much easier for you and for us when you can talk. You and Jonah have been really healthy kids, but I always worry about you feeling sick and not being able to tell us what's wrong. And you will be able to exert a lot more control over your relationship with Jonah when you can tell him what you like and don't like. And it's so cute when I come home from work and you come running around the corner saying, "Daddy home!"

We went to Bear Lake last weekend. We swam once, and then just stayed in the condo the whole time. We watched movies, read a lot of books, and you and Jonah colored a lot. That was almost the only thing you were interested in. It was fun to do things with you, and just spend the whole day with you. It was the first trip where we weren't worried about Jonah's pants so much, and we didn't take the Pea Pod for you. You and Jonah slept in a bed. It was a little difficult getting you to sleep the first night, but you both did really well after that. I'm getting more and more excited to go places with the two of you. It's so much easier without all the extra equipment. Hopefully you'll potty train this summer, and then we'll be in good shape. We have some fun trips planned.

The past two days you've gotten up very early, before I left for work. You are so cute in your jammies with your bed head hairdo, trying to block out the light. You're also very snuggly when you're tired. I think it's amusing how independent you are. I bet if I wasn't there, you'd come down the hall, open the fridge, get out a bran muffin, and have your own breakfast all by yourself. I love when I sit down next to you at the table and you lean over to snuggle against me while you're eating.

You are a super-cute little girl. I love to tickle you and hear you laugh. I love to snuggle you, and hold hands while we're walking somewhere. I love to watch you learn all the things Jonah does by himself, because you want to be independent too. It's hard for me as a parent, because I love to see you grow up, but I want you to stay my little girl forever. I love you.

Love,

Daddy