To Claire,
On the occasion of your first birthday.

So. Here it is. You’re one year old today, a Monday, and you and I are lucky enough to have spent the day together. Just us. Without mom. We visited the toy store and the library, and you were quite angry with me when I tried to make you have a nap. I will avoid the usual exaggerations of parenthood and not express how surprised we were at the speed of your growth and change from a small baby into the babbling, smiling toddler we know today. I’m not really surprised. You’ve been a strong-willed little girl since the day you were born, stubborn and intense, and it doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’ve pushed every measure to become the active person you have. And you’re only one.

What a long way we have to go ahead of us. You won’t recall, but when you were very small, those first six months of your life, you were mom’s girl. Sure, you’d tolerate dad for brief periods, but mom was always the favorite. We never once considered it a competition, of course. We never once vied for your affections between each other. But maybe that is because mom would have always won out. Or maybe, we knew that some day you’d come around and love us both.

There are a lot of great memories of your first year that stick out in my mind. There was the time when you were just a few months old and we all went to mom’s work holiday party. You were the only kid there, a babe in arms, and until we arrived you were smiling and happy. When we got home you were smiling and happy, too. But in between, well, let’s just say dad spent the evening wandering the hallways trying calm you from your tears and wails.

Or, I remember the first time you came to meet me at the door after work. It must have been a particularly tough day at the office, because it was the best sight I’d seen in a long time; Claire and Sparkle were standing square at the back entry both anxiously waiting for dad to open the door from the garage and walk inside.

The problem with you being one, I realize, is that you are just at that in between phase between being a baby and being a kid. As a baby you were fun to cart around and show off. As a kid, I expect and anticipate, there is so much we get to do together, so many things I get to show you and teach you, so many places we get to visit together, and lots of great conversations to be had. But you’re ‘in between’ now, and while you love the park, aptly watch dad barbecue dinner, are learning a few names of objects around the house, and running about as fast as you can go, we’re just starting to get to know each other.

Now, today is your birthday, and as circumstances would have it your old dad has been lucky enough to secure some flexibility in his job that allows him to spend one day a week at home. I’m not working those days. I get to stay at home and be a dad. And, let me tell you, it is not a usual thing for dad’s to do here and now in 2008. I’m not the first, but still new rules needed to be written, records kept, and everything carefully managed to make sure that it happened properly. Every bit of it was worth it, of course. Every bit of it turned out better than I could have hoped. And now, today, we get to spend you birthday together. How great is that.

Hopefully, when you are old enough to read and understand this letter you will also be a little interested in your dad and his meager little life. I write this letter to you because I want to make something really very clear: Everything I write here is for you. Yes, I’ve been writing this blog for nearly a decade now and you are but a single year old. But from the first days when I started putting fingers to keyboard and tapping out the silly events of our lives, my goal has been to create some sort of story for my (future) kids. Of those kids, you are definitely the first — maybe the last and maybe not — so it will be your job to do with these words what you will. That’s your birthday gift today. And while I’ll keep adding to these stories for as long as I can turn my thoughts into text, these writings are yours now, merely kept in trust by me until you are ready to have them. They’re not worth much, but hopefully they will have value for you.

Love,
Your dad.