Dear Mai,
I'm trying to post one a night, every night until January 1, 2017. Day 2. Let's do this.
You know Mai, as a parent, we just want what's best for our little people. Sometimes knowing what's best is difficult. I know I'm a bit too lenient but hopefully we're on a good path. One of my friends gave me some advice about a year ago when we were out having a few beers. We were talking about the whole "testing boundaries" phase and he said "let them have one thing." His advice was to let you have one thing you own. One thing that is yours. One thing that you control alone. One thing that helps you build your confidence that let's you grow. I decided that one thing was going to be your wardrobe. Okay that might not have been the best decision but yes, I don't have control over wardrobe decisions these days. Okay, in full disclosure that is probably not the "one" thing I let you own either. I'm weak to your cuteness powers.
Most mornings when I get you ready for school, go like this. Mommy leaves clothes out before she leaves for work. We wake up late and have to rush. You come busting into our room, already dressed. "Daddy. I'm wearing this to school."
Fine. Whatever. That pic is from when it was just starting to get cooler this year. I had to coax you into putting on tights. The other day you came bursting in with the same exact outfit. You love fancy dresses and this is one of your favs. But this day it was 40 degrees outside. I tried to get you into pants and a long sleeve shirt. Nope. You were having none of that. Okay I say, tights and a sweater over the top? Nope. Tights make you cold (WTH? Really?) and you don't want to cover your pretty dress. I finally make the impression that it's cold outside and convince you to change. You come back into our room 5 minutes later:
Whatever. You'll be warm.
During the night when we're sleeping you apparently go through several outfit changes. In the morning we find your dresser and closet ransacked and you usually have a skirt on. Sometimes your skirt is over your PJs. We don't ask questions anymore. On weekend mornings 9 times out of 10 you show up in our room in this dress.
This is your favorite by far right now. You call it your Christmas dress. We're trying to get you not to wear it so much so we can wear it to an actual Christmas event. Whatever, do what you need to do man. At least we moved on from the yellow, spaghetti strap summer dress. I can't believe I don't have a picture of that but you wore that all summer long.
Independence doesn't end with clothing either. You're trying to manipulate us to having a Halloween party for you. By manipulating I mean Mommy overheard you talking to your friend Emma, her brother and their mom the other day about your Halloween party. Mommy was like "Um, what Halloween party?" Emma's mom said "oh, she's been talking about it for weeks." Funny. First we heard of it. When asked about this you obviously just assumed we were going to have one because you had already picked out a few recipes from a cookbook that I'm supposed to make for the party.
You just started "threatening" us that you are going to wake up by yourself, get changed, head downstairs, turn on the TV to some recorded versions of Elena of Avalor and cook yourself breakfast. While in reality this sounds like heaven for us, we're a tad bit frightened by this. I guess you've already made your own waffles. (okay toaster kind. sue me)
You've also poured your own cup of milk and cereal before. You're a professional corn husker. You like to use your scissors to cut every hair and leaf. You take awhile for one ear but you're thorough.
More importantly you've also been able to fetch us beers. I think this is one of most parents' proudest moments.
You have a chore that you earn real money by doing. You feed Tito every most nights.
You and Tito like to team up these days. The other day we yelled at Tito for doing some stupid dog thing. You: "Come here poor Tito. It's okay. They shouldn't yell at you." He eats your attention up!
In fact, I think you've influenced his behavior. You have this weird habit of having to bring something upstairs to bed with you every night. It has to be something from downstairs that usually doesn't come up. This has been going on since you were 2 I think. Very strange. Guess who's following your lead?
Yup. Every night I come up to bed, Tito absolutely has to grab one of his toys and bring it up stairs too. So strange.
Well my sweet little girl, let's hope this independence is good and you're growing up strong and not too spoiled.
Love you to pieces,
Daddy