Dear Allie,

The changes that life brings when you have a second child are subtle.  The main difference is you get a lot busier and time seems to fly.  It’s hard to believe that you are 2 already.  The baby in you is a shadow, and you are well on your way to a little boy.

For whatever reason, I think I believe that in many ways you’d be a lot like your brother, because nurture would be more powerful than nature, despite other parents telling me what surprises await.  They were not wrong.  Although you share your brother’s happy disposition, you are so very different.  While your personality is still emerging from you at this age, I can feel myself falling love with a boy who has so many special and unique qualities. The first thing I love about you is how much you already love me!  I’m not going to pretend you don’t love mommy more but compared to Dhyan who pretty much went into hysterics if mommy wasn’t near by the fact that you run up to me yelling “Daddy!” and give me hugs is amazing.  The fact that you let me put you to bed is amazing.  You are just so happy when both of us around.  Sometimes you run back and forth between he both of us going “Daddy!”, “Mama!”, “Daddy!”, “Mama!”  You are a sweet and loving child.

You’ve spent a lot of time on my lap this past year.  I know it’s not the most productive thing, but at the end of day at work, you would sit on my lap and watch music videos or nursery rhyme song cartoons.  It started off with music videos this kept you entertained for about 9 months, but suddenly you transitioned to more animated stuff.  In the last month or month and half I noticed that you started to become scared of some of the cartoons where someone is falling or perhaps in danger of falling.  There is a Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme video that sends you into hysterics whenever it comes on. You cry, “Bam! Bam!” which is your word for falling down and start crying and I have to fast forward over it. You are none too fond of monkeys jumping and falling off the bed either and cover your eyes with your hands.

You have two very funny things that you do that just warms my heart.  Even though you’ve gone long past the object permanence stage, you seem to think that you disappear when you cover your eyes.  Frequently you will play a sort of peekaboo with us.  We could be chasing you and then you’ll cover your eyes as if it somehow makes you disappear.  It’s so funny.  We then proceed to pretend we can see you and then suddenly you’ll remove your hands and laugh delightedly. The other bit of silliness is how you’ll pretend everything is a hat.  From fruit, to books, to balloons.  Your word for hate is wowwy. I have no idea where you got the idea that this was the word for hat, but that’s what you’ve been calling it for months now!

In general, your language skills are a bit bizarre.  While you speak several recognizable words in English and Polish, and started speaking well before Dhyan, many of your words, while consistently used, do not resemble the actual word in Polish or English.  You also seem to have entire conversations at times in gibberish and we can’t tell what you’re saying at all.  All I can say is that I’m sorry and that I’m sure it was all very interesting and important. The sounds of your voice, whether I understand you or not is like music to my ears.

You are also much more of a naughty boy than your brother was.  You have the best of mischievous grins.  One that I secretly appreciate, even though I must outwardly scold.  Speaking of which I’ve never seen a human more unphased by a scolding.  There are times when I’ve yelled and given you the scariest of faces that would have sent fear into the little eyes of your brother and made him stop whatever he was doing.  Your reaction is to look at us deadpan at best, amused at worst until we are finished and then wait until we look away to continue what it is that you were doing! Honestly I was a bit worried for a moment? Is this the reaction of one with a criminal mind? Someone who is remorseless of their wrong doing?  Alas you are far to sweet to be such a person. You give hugs when someone is crying, and you give love to us and the kitties. You get worried about Humpty Dumpty falling. You’re just a little anti-authoritarian, I can’t really be upset about that.  And I also think your reaction goes along with the fact that you are just a more laid back kind of personality.  While happy like your brother, you have a laugh that is much more about just having fun and have no need to control the situation. You are content to just watch things happen and keep on laughing. In this way you are very much like me.

There is a quiet intelligence about you that I love to see. You figure things out quickly, and you love looking up at the sky just like I do.  In this way I also feel close to you. Though it may to early to really gauge what passions will drive you, your mother is a geologist and looks down like your brother, you and I, I think we’ll be looking at the sky together. I guess we’ll see, but I can’t wait to see more of fills you with wonder.

As always, these letters are not only meant to be about my views of you are me as a parent, but also to let you know how I am at this stage of my life.  Personal reflections are difficult right now, because this letter comes are a time where we are experiencing a unique moment in human history.  Right now a virus called COVID-19 or the Corona virus is moving throughout the world population.  It is a new virus and humans do not have an immunity to it. The country of your birth is being hit rather hard right now and the leader of this country could not be worse for this moment in time, although it is easily arguable that we should never have such a leader at any moment in time.  Beyond that, on average the world is not prepared. These things are part of nature, but modern medicine has kept up with such viruses until now.  We are practicing something called social distancing, quarantining ourselves, and many businesses are close to limit how close we come in contact with other people. This is causing a lot of economic hardship for many as well.  There will be a great deal of death, especially to those who are old, and it will take time to recover as the global economy has slowed down significantly.  We do this so that hospitals will not be overwhelmed with patients and we can save more people. We do this because we value human life above all other things.  Still there is a great deal of fear, anxiety and men who crave power, and so there is discord in the better angels of our nature.  I hope the discord is not so great that we can come out of this better than we might and that we learn the right lessons.  Your 82 year old grandfather is with us right now and cannot go back to Poland as many countries have closed their borders to slow the spread of the virus and thus are not allowing many flights in and out.  I believe he is safe with us, but if something were to happen, I want you to know that he came to help us take care of you while we were working and that he takes great care of you and loves you very much.  I hope you will see him next year.

But for a 2 year old boy all you see is mommy and daddy get to be home with you more often and there is a great deal of joy. While at times you might sense our anxiety, this is a happy time for you and we are glad also to have more moments with you and watch you grow. Before I go, a couple of things.  First, your brother really wants to love you and you very often push him away out of jealousy.  This is normal, but I just wanted to know that he loves you so much and desperately wants to be close to you. Second, I want to ask one small favor of you. Could you please sleep through the night?  That would be wonderful.

Happy Birthday Allie!

All my love,
Daddy