Dear Olivia,

You've tried to prove to us that you are big enough and can do various tasks, even if you're not quite capable yet. You'll want to bring your plate full of food into another room to eat, but your coordination isn't quite there and it all slides off as you're walking. You can reach the kitchen sink to empty your cup, but you'll get distracted in the process and empty half of it across your arm or shirt sleeve. You'll tell us you've finally perfected that showstopper for your Vegas magic show where you remove a tablecloth without breaking a single item, and we smile and watch as the last of our dishes are flung to their demise. I know with time and practice, you'll get this stuff down with ease. But for now, even at the ripe old age of 5 years old, maybe hold off on trying the sawing a person in half trick.

Over the course of the last year, you've learned and developed certain skills you'll use for the rest of your life. Sometimes you used those skills for good; sometimes, not so good. You started riding a bike, a scooter and a jet-ski motorcycle. You began developing your powers of persuasion to try and delay doing things:

• like eating food when you really wanted to play ("I'd really like to eat this dinner, but first I have to remind you about the colors of all the food, plates and cups we're using."),
• going to the bathroom when you really wanted to play ("I'd really like to go potty, but first I have to tell Mommy about the fact that my hair is longer than hers."), and
• going to bed when you really wanted to play ("I actually really don't want to go to bed, so I'm going to pummel you with facts about how much the human head weighs, what animals smell fear and the kind of pets our neighbor keeps."

Listen here. Or don't.

You've put a lot of time and effort into listening to your mother and me, as well as a lot of time and effort into completely NOT listening to your mother and me. There are moments when asking you to do something is the easiest thing ever. And then there are times when you fight tooth-and-nail over seemingly simple requests from us for things like: going to the bathroom, cleaning up your toys before bedtime and tying a sheepshank knot so we know you're a capable crew member when we need to hop on a boat and hunt giant killer sharks. Your mother complains that you have city hands and you're not up for the task, but I'll vouch for you.

Because of your stubborn 5 years old nature, we've had to teach you about making choices and some of the consequences that can come with them. If you choose not to listen when we ask you to do something, then maybe you don't get to do anything fun for a while. If you don't like what we're eating for dinner, you can choose to not eat and go to bed hungry. You can make the choice for taste, which is obviously Taster's Choice, or you can pick some bullshit brand of coffee that no one else will drink and you'll be ridiculed by your peers. Even if they are are also only 5 years old.

Speaking of choices, out of all the ones you've made this year I have an absolute favorite: you've chosen to start liking me for a change. I don't know what it was that started it all, perhaps when you made that right turn at Albuquerque instead of a left, but you actually want me around now and I can't get over it. It used to be that you'd spit on the floor and curse my name when I came home from work, but now you smile, say my name and sometimes even run over to give me a hug. That is unless you've been misbehaving or not listening to your mom, because I still have to be the bad cop in our household. When this happens I tend to get tears and hear you beg for a plea bargain involving state's evidence and a spot in the witness protection program where you get to live the rest of your life like a schnook.

Father-daughter bonding

I've been doing my best to strengthen this newly formed bond by doing and sharing as many things with you as I can. I love taking you to the comic book shop, the movies or the toy section of a store, because I enjoy sharing my affinity for geeky things with you. You've gotten more and more into music lately, especially The Beatles, and I love hearing you belt out their tunes. I also really, really enjoy just being silly with you. We make silly faces, use different voices and just try to have as much fun as we can. Sometimes, it's one of the few things that will break one of your sour moods or help wake you up in the morning when you don't want to get ready for school. So yes, I may look like a fool pretending to shave my face using your big toe nail, but if it makes you laugh and gets you smiling I'll do it.

I cannot express just how proud your mother and I are about how far you've come in the past year, especially in school. You've learned how to write, your vocabulary has expanded and, last but not least, you're starting to read! I generally read you two bedtime stories at night, but now you're reading them to me. It's the most incredible thing to see these changes and I can't get over it. Before having you I seriously never thought a 4 (now 5) year-old would be able to do so much. I figured at your age it would be a lot of walking, talking and maybe some basic Microsoft Excel skills. Instead, you're a sensitive, energetic, strong-willed, clever, comical little girl who I look forward to spending time with every single day.

In just five short years you've managed to surprise, overwhelm and amaze me with all that you do. For all the worries and fear I've had about whether or not I'm a good dad, you seem to be turning out pretty good so far and I hope that I've had some positive effect on that. I must be doing something right though, because I've never heard you say, "I love you, Daddy," more than I have in this past year. Coincidentally, I've also never been moved more to the brink of tears because of hearing those words coming out of your mouth. You mean so much to me and I hope I show you how much I love you every single day. And like I always tell you: I love you when you're happy, when you're sad, when you're angry and, yes, even when you poop.

Happy birthday, kiddo, from the bottom of my heart.

Love, Daddy

A version of this post about being 5 years old first appeared on Our Little Mixtape.

“Being your father has been an amazing experience. I am better in every way because of your influence on my life.”

Dear Daughter,

I write this on the eve of your 6th birthday …

The love I have for you has changed my life. It has made me more patient. More thoughtful. More emotional. Seriously, kid, commercials about parenting make me cry now. And, finally, I am now more willing to comfortably express my opinions. I am a better human being because of you. For that, I am forever grateful.

When you turned 5, I knew that it would be a year of milestones, primarily because of your entering kindergarten. But, I could not imagine just how much age 5 would impact your maturation. In honor of this development, here are six things I love about you on your 6th birthday.

I love your concern.

Protesting. Challenging adults who are smoking around you. Telling someone about why eenie meenie minie moe can be problematic. Finding an act of kindness to perform each school day. You are a good citizen who truly works to make a difference each day, while learning from mistakes made.

I love your work ethic.

Your persistence while learning how to tie your shoe. Your time spent working on projects. Your willingness to create your own math problems without prodding. Staying 40-plus minutes after your basketball class to work on your shot. You are determined to improve, and you prove this each and every day!

I love how you express love.

Jumping on our bed in the morning for a hug, snuggling while reading a book, or just your saying how much you love me, I know I am loved as much as I love you.

I love your passions.

Reading. Basketball. Superheroes. Feminism. You love what you love with all your heart and work to become as knowledgeable as possible about those passions.

I love your poise.

From performing 10 songs for a cabaret camp performance to asking Zoe Saldana and Chris Evans questions in live broadcasts of Good Morning America with millions of people watching, you handle pressure and all our NYC adventures with such surprising ease. Seriously, people 10 times your age can’t handle these types of situations.

I love your creativity.

Simply put, you made a song entitled, Rainbow Disco Party.

Being your father has been an amazing experience. I am better in every way because of your influence on my life. You have evolved into an even more impressive young woman than I could have ever imagined. And you’re only 6.

I am so proud of you. I love you. Happy birthday!

–A version of this first appeared on The Brown Gothamite.

Dear Jade,

One year ago, you surprised our family by arriving six weeks early.

I wasn’t prepared.

Your bedroom wasn’t built yet, the car seat was still sealed in it’s carton, and we hadn’t cleaned out our apartment to make room for an influx of stuff.

I wasn’t prepared.

Sleep deprivation, irrational crying, piles of laundry, and navigating sibling jealousy.

I wasn’t prepared.

Frilly dresses, hair bows, wiping a vagina for diaper changes, and calling you my “Sweet, Sweet” publicly.

I wasn’t prepared.

Upon your arrival, our family consisted of mom, me, and your 7-year-old brother, and I loved them to infinity and beyond. I wasn’t sure how I could love another person as much as I loved them. Did my heart have any more room?

I wasn’t prepared for the compassion, tenderness and love I had for you since the first moment you were nestled in my arms. Friends mentioned a special bond for dads with daughters, but never in my wildest dreams would I be able to comprehend it until you were napping peacefully in my arms; staring intently and studying every nook and crease on your lovely face.

That jubilant look on your face along with those precious dimples melts my heart every day.  The hugs, cuddles, and steady stream of kisses.

I wasn’t prepared for this.

This past year has been an absolute blur and a thrilling joy ride. I can’t imagine my life or our family being complete without you in it. Additionally, I credit you with opening up a caring side of me that I never knew existed.

Happy First Birthday, Jade. Even though I didn’t think it was possible, your presence has made my life so much richer and that is one of the greatest things a father (and parent) could ever receive. I can’t wait to relish in more of our daily adventures in the years to come.

Love,

Dad

Dear Olivia,

It’s amazing to think that it’s been four whole years since you came into our lives. A lot can happen in that amount of time. Presidents come and go (or get re-elected); students complete an entire high school or college career; and a temperamental, helpless baby can turn into a little girl who walks, talks, and does a ton of other things with little or no help at all (and can still be quite temperamental). It boggles my mind to think about how much you’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time. It also boggles my mind when I consider that the only things I’ve managed to accomplish in the last four years are acquiring a “dad bod.” Maybe it’s time to start setting better life goals for myself … but I digress.

You’ve had a lot of ups downs this past year, my 4-year-old. Many were mainly due to you’re transitioning from a toddler to a preschooler (a.k.a., “big girl”). You’re testing boundaries and pushing for independence, all while making sure we’re within arms reach in case you need help, guidance, or someone to blame when things like your socks “don’t work.” And let’s be honest here, it was less that your socks weren’t working and more that you didn’t want to do the work to learn how to put them on yourself. It’s the same situation with pants, potty training and mastering the Triple Lindy. Yet with time, patience, and a resounding armpit fart any time you needed to ease stress, you’ve gotten them all down for the most part. Now we just need to teach you a better, and more socially acceptable, stress management technique. Otherwise you’ll never get a job once it’s time for a face-to-face interview. But don’t worry, we’ve got time to work on that.

Pre-K has drastically changed our morning routine, hasn’t it? It used to be that we could just roll into daycare whenever you had decided that enough of your energy had been spent fighting us to get up, ready, and out the door so that your mom and I could make it in to work relatively on time. We tried everything to get you motivated: taking away toys, revoking privileges, playing Van Halen’s “Panama” on repeat like they did to Noriega back in 1989. Nothing seemed to work back then, but with pre-K that has changed dramatically thanks to eight little words: “We’re going to be late for the bus.” Being late for our ride means you’ll be late for school, and we’ve learned that your new school doesn’t play around. If we’re late they’ll do things like lock the doors or make us to call to schedule a drop-off. And if we’re really, really late, they’ll make your parents pay the ultimate price by parading us through the neighborhood naked while a nun follows closely behind yelling, “Shame!!!” No, wait, that last one was from an episode of Game of Thrones. My mistake.

“I sometimes worry that I’m not best person to be your dad; I’m so very, very flawed, and I’m scared of how many of those flaws you will point out in me or will eventually incorporate into your own personality and then spend countless therapy sessions blaming me for.”

The transition from daycare to pre-K has exposed you to a tremendous amount of new things, both exciting (for a 4-year-old) and scary (mostly for me). Gone are the days where your world was contained to our apartment, the two-minute walk to the daycare on our block, and the nearby park. Your 4-year-old world has expanded to include public transportation commuters who either greet you with a smile or fight you for a seat, the bus drivers who can be really nice or complete assholes who barely let us off at our stop and, last but not least, the people driving in cars who break the speed limit, run traffic lights, and genuinely scare the shit out of me every time you get near an intersection. I really hope they invent teleportation technology soon, because people out there are cray, yo, and I don’t trust them around you. Well, most of them anyway.

I was worried at first about how you’d deal with leaving your daycare and the people you were comfortable being around five days a week, but I’m so glad to see that you’re fitting in just fine. You’ve made fast friends with other students who commute the same time as us, speak fondly of the other kids in your class, and absolutely adore your teachers. You like your teachers so much, in fact, that you tend to come home and pretend to be them. You’ll round up a bunch of toys, dolls and stuffed animals, sit them down and conduct class throughout our apartment. Sometimes you’ll even let your mom and me be in the class or be teachers ourselves. It makes me happy when you want us to play with you, but it can also be completely frustrating because you tend to complain that we’re not playing the right way. We’ll start doing what you ask and then suddenly you get upset and we hear, “WRONG!!!,” like we’re in an episode of The McLaughlin Group.

The truth is, we’re all caught up in a world of frustration and emotions lately. You’re learning how to verbally express the way you’re feeling, while we’re learning how to speak to you so that we can help you convey those feelings, understand your 4-year-old needs, and help to manage your sensitivity effectively. Your mom found a good book full of really helpful tactics to help us through all of this, but it’s a work in progress and is going to take time to be successful. We’re used to talking to other adults who, generally speaking, will tell you what’s wrong if you ask them with at least some semblance of empathy or put enough alcohol in their system.

But you, on the other hand, are a game changer. You shut down when we ask you what’s wrong, thinking that maybe you’re in trouble or that we’ll punish you for feeling like you do. It’s up to us to make you comfortable enough to express how you feel, but to do that we have to learn how to approach you differently. We have to let you know we’re listening, prompt you with the right words, and, hopefully, make you feel safe enough to want to say them to us. There is irony here, because the day will come when you will use those words in an effort to try and push us away from you. In fact, to a degree, you’re already doing that a bit with me.

I wish I had my shit together so I could be a better parent for you, but my guess is that most parents feel the same way about their relationships with their kids. Having you in my life has been the most demanding thing I have ever encountered. You’re testing me constantly, which I know is your job and, oh, how I wish that was something the government would pay you a decent wage for; it would be great to have more money in your 529 account. I sometimes worry that I’m not best person to be dad to a 4-year-old or a child of any age. I’m so very, very flawed, and I’m scared of how many of those flaws you will point out in me or will eventually incorporate into your own personality and then spend countless therapy sessions blaming me for.

But then I think about how there’s no way I could ever NOT have you in my life. I will always think about you, whether it be five minutes after I need a break from one of your tantrums after I’ve dropped you off at school, or after we’ve left you in the care of someone else so your mom and I can enjoy a well-deserved date night together. The words, “I wonder what Olivia is doing now?” will always be on my lips, although I have to admit that there may be times when they follow three other words: “Another round, please.” I am truly amazed at the person you are becoming and that I helped create you. I just have to remember that bringing you into the world was the easy part and that all the work lies in preparing you to live in it. There is no greater feeling than creating something, and there’s nothing scarier than having to put it out into the world. I take that back, knowing that you’ve screwed your child over by passing on your own hang-ups about life is pretty fucking scary too. See that? It looks like I just came up with at least one life goal to start working on.

You are forever in my consciousness like your mother was before you got here, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. So please do your best to share that space with her, keep her comfortable, and try not to hog the covers. Happy birthday, my 4-year-old baby girl.

Love always,

Daddy

A version of Birthday Letter to a 4-Year-Old first appeared on Our Little Mixtape.

My son recently celebrated his second birthday. These past two years have flown by. It feels like he was just learning to crawl the other day. Now he is running around, getting into the refrigerator and keeping me up late on some nights.

There are days I just stare at him. Even when he is destroying the playroom. And I wonder to myself, “What kind of father am I to him? Am I really getting him prepared for the future?” I guess I will get the answer to these questions as the years progress, but I decided I will write him a letter, just in case he needs direction.

Hey, big guy,

Let me start off this letter for your second birthday by telling you I am very proud of you. As you are growing I can see your personality starting to take shape. It scares me at times because you are a little hard-headed, like your mother. However, I’m happy about that because it means you will not easily back down from what you believe in. That is a great trait to have. Don’t ever lose that.

You are adventurous, cheerful, fearless, loud and full of life. Those are also traits I do not want you to lose. I love just sitting down and watching you explore what is around you, be it jumping from couch to couch or constructing objects with your blocks. You amaze me with your imagination. There are times when you sit by the window and just examine everything in your sight. I can tell you are questioning why things are the way they are. You want to ask me about them, but your words are still being developed.

I cannot wait until the day when we can just sit on the stairs and talk about all that surrounds us. I do this with your sister. Soon, I want to hear your questions and try to answer them to the best of my abilities. I am not an expert on everything, but together we can expand our minds with new topics and learn. Learning is a great thing. I hope you and your sister appreciate all the world has to offer you.

I remember how we decided to go to our local park one day and I forgot that it was under construction. When we got there it was all fenced up and we could not play in there, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. We ran around and looked at the new park and I started picturing us playing in there as soon as it opened up.

We made a good situation out of a bad one. That is something that you should always try to do. Instead of complaining about the bad things going on, do something to turn it around and make it a better situation.

I know there are times I am not with you 100 percent. By that I mean we are in the same room playing together, but my mind is wandering somewhere. At those times, I am thinking about things that I should not be thinking about. Things like: bills, my career, our home and what the future holds for us. Instead of thinking about this stuff, I should be focused on the now. I should just be enjoying the moment and not worrying about what is ahead.

Once I read a book about focusing on the present rather than the past or future. I have lost that ability and I need to do that now with you and your sister. You two are constantly changing and I do not want to miss a moment of that.

Remember as you get older there are things that are going to happen to you that you can not control. What makes you the person you are is how you react to those situations.  I feel that your mother and I are raising you with so much love that when you come to those moments, you will rise above them.

Now some of my favorite quotes that will help you out in life:

“Do, or do not, there is no try.”

“If you put your mind to it, anything is possible.”

“Never give up, never surrender!”

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

“You got a friend in me.”

OK, big guy. That’s all for now. I didn’t mean to take up too much of your time, but I hope you come back to this post every now and then because I think you will get something different from each reading.

Love you,

Your Daddy

Who knows? Maybe he’ll read this, maybe he won’t, but I think he will … when I’m not looking.

A version of this first appeared on FanDads.