Dear Ginger and Lucy...
Dear Ginger and Lucy,
Captain's Log…stardate November 21, 2010.
It occurred to me the other day that the primary purpose of this blog has been to document the strange and wonderful journey of my life as a father and husband. And that, some day, my kids will look on these entries as an informal first draft of their personal history.
To that end…I thought it would be useful and entertaining to take a few moments to write to my daughters and tell them who they are (right now) in a voice they'll understand (much later). They have grown so much, so fast that I feel the need to document what I see before I forget and caught up in who they'll be only a few months from now (as it will no doubt be a world away from who they are today).
They are so different and yet they feed off each other in the most magical ways that only parents can truly bore each other with in their retelling of how it all went down. I hope to do that task justice here…we'll have to wait and see.
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Dear Ginger,
You are very, very smart. And not just in the "my little girl is the smartest" kind of way all parents espouse by genetic default. People seem to not believe how old you are when we tell them and your mother and I often turn to each other and say, "Did she just say that?" after hearing you come forth with some phrase or concept that is light-years ahead of where a 3 year-old should be.
Despite your nerdy ways you are punk rock at the core.
You learned to (mostly) walk and (kind of) play the piano at 8 months.
You are cautious and observant in a way that speaks to your intelligence but it's something more than that. You have a need to understand a thing from top to bottom before you can truly enjoy or ignore it.
You prefer to do it yourself.
You are like your mother. You appreciate and seek out hugs, you are at ease in the spotlight, you are naturally predisposed to singing and dancing…and when you smile I can see your mother's face staring right back at me.
At some point you went from passively trying to destroy your little sister to actively trying to help her.
You've had somewhere to go since the day you were born.
You like to get dressed up like a princess and/or a fairy…a lot…and you think BandAids are fashion accessories.
You like playing with my computer (and I hope you'll learn Objective-C, HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP and MySQL sooner rather than later).
You are rarely sad and you are almost never angry.
If I had to guess, I would say you'll be the star of the show.
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Dear Lucy,
You are all heart kiddo.
When you laugh I can feel my heart glow. And you laugh often.
You seem to subscribe to the notion that you can get further with a kind word and a clenched fist than you can with a kind word alone. This worries your mother…but I tell her it will serve you well enough and you're not quite Al Capone.
You don't seem to have much in the way of fear or apprehension. And when you do, you often ignore it.
You also prefer to do it yourself.
Punishing you is difficult because you seem mostly unaffected by the penalty.
You ask a lot of questions and read a lot of books.
You like to follow your sister's lead and you like it when she makes you laugh.
You have a very sensitive ear. You REALLY don't like noises that come from places you can't see and you HATE Salt n' Pepa's "Push it."
You're pretty laid back when the mood calls for it.
You enjoy a good nap.
You have an uncanny affinity for your Pa and people say we look alike.
You like trucks & basketballs and dolls & dresses with equal measure. You love the water.
If I had to guess, I would say you'll be very good at sports (and you'll lead the league in both goals and penalty minutes).
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Together, you are quite a team. Where Ginger takes pause, Lucy vaults. Where Ginger contemplates, Lucy takes action. On the flipside…where Lucy gets lost, Ginger navigates. Where Lucy learns the hard way, Ginger generally arrives safely.
Every day you seem to teach other something new and I hope that never changes. As your grandma is fond of saying, "You can pick your friends, you can't pick your relatives." So the very different people you are now will only serve you mightily as you continue to grow.
As far as my hopes for you both, above all else my hope is that you grow to be strong, confident and happy women (and with any luck you are well on your way). I hope you will have the conviction to do what your heart says is right…to be honest always and to have faith in each other and the ones you choose to love. Beyond that…it's your game to play and your rules to make. As your Pa once told me when I was a younger man (and on the verge of entering an unsupervised stage of life), "Don't get hurt and don't get arrested…everything else can be replaced or repaired."
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