Dear Olivia,

I promised myself I wasn’t going to start this post talking about how quickly the past year has gone, let alone the warp speed of the past 10 years with you in our lives. When you become an adult the years just seem to pass by fairly quickly on their own, mostly because you’re caught up with things like your job, planning trips, spending time with friends & family and doing anything you can to keep the stress of life at bay. Then one day you realize how much time has really passed: whether you’re having to remember how long ago you moved into your apartment, when you started your current job or when you had your last dentist appointment. You, my child, have a crazy way of shining a light on that feeling because somehow, some way, you’re now 10 years old. HOLY CRAP YOU’RE 10 YEARS OLD!!!

A year ago we were still in quarantine, doing our best to not drive each other crazy and continuing the arduous adventure that was virtual learning. You continued to be the kid who loved being a student, loved her teachers and also loved going on Youtube or Google to search for things when you were supposed to be paying attention during the lessons. One day you asked me if you could use our printer during school, as you needed a copy of something for homework. This was a normal request, so I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed that you were printing a LOT of material. I wondered if maybe you had a reading assignment or materials to study for a quiz, or maybe it was the paper trail you followed to discover that there is no Pepe Sylvia. But no, it turned out that you had spent time during class making a Google image document of pictures of your favorite Youtube personality (Aphmau) and you were going to plaster those all over your bedroom walls. I silently (or maybe not so-silently) prayed that COVID restrictions would lessen and we could finally send you back to in-person learning so that these distractions wouldn’t be so prevalent. Little did we know that just a few months later, in March, we would get just that!

Our meetups with Alice and her Dad in the park were a welcome change from staying indoors all the time.

Your return to school was a welcome change for all of us. Your mom and I got some well deserved quiet time in the apartment and you got the chance to be around your friends for the first time in over a year and a half. It was a little rocky at first, since you had to learn the protocols to keep yourself (and your classmates) safe while in the classroom, but eventually it became second nature and you were thrilled to be back. The connections you made with your teachers during your remote learning only deepened during in-person, and you were so sad to come to the realization that 4th grade would be over in June. As much as it hurt to have to leave them, we were so grateful that you got to spend time with them in the classroom and feel connected to the school again. That, and we really needed to cut back on our printer paper consumption at home.

As the school year came to a close we had two goodbyes to say: one to 4th grade and another to the pallet expander you had been wearing to help with the overcrowding of your teeth. You were thrilled to be able to eat some of your favorite foods again without the fear of anything getting stuck somewhere in the device and having to dig it out (gross). With both your mom and I being fully vaccinated, we made the decision to take a much needed summer vacation to Indiana for a month to visit family and work remotely, so we could enjoy the best of both worlds. Not only was it great seeing everyone again, it was also wonderful to see you spending time with both sides of our family and having lots of fun outside the confines of our 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. We went on boat rides, got to swim in a lake and a pool, went to a county fair (which was a tad too relaxed with its COVID protocols, if I do say so myself) and did our best to forget about the stress that life had been throwing at us. Let me tell you, there is no better feeling than looking out your makeshift “office” window to the lake that you know you will be running towards the second you can log off of work. I felt like Fred Flintstone sliding down the tail of his work brontosaurus as soon as his foreman pulls the tail of that bird to signal the end of the day. Yabba Dabba Doo, indeed.

Sadly, the summer came to an end and we had to make our way back to Brooklyn to get ready for 5th grade. This is the big one folks. The last year of your time at P.S. 185, which means you are technically a senior! With this big grade came a newfound sense of self-confidence and the desire for more autonomy in your life. You’ve been wanting to do more things by yourself, like walk to school or go to the local Walgreen’s to run an errand for us. While we did like the idea of these things, we also needed to help you understand that there was plenty you weren’t ready for just yet. Sure, I’d love to not have to take you to school everyday, but I also need to know that you’ll look both ways before crossing a street or pay attention to driveways for cars backing out while you’re passing by. One day you blatantly forgot to do both of these things because you saw a friend you wanted to walk to school with and began running towards her without paying attention to cars, which was/is a big no-no. I don’t care if Billie Eilish (your current favorite singer) is calling out to you from across the street holding your favorite cupcakes and an iPad queued up with Aphmau videos for you to watch: you will look both ways before crossing the street and pay attention to driveways!

Speaking of music, your world has expanded tremendously over the past year because you’ve been able to listen to so much of it in your room using a Google Home. It brings a big smile to my face to hear you call out the name of the song and musician you want to hear and sing along. Music is such an important part of life and has the power to move you in so many ways, and I’m excited by how much you’ve gotten into it. You have tons of post-its on your desk with the names of songs you’ve discovered written down, and you effortlessly call out the things you want to hear at your whim. The service we use wants to keep you listening, so it’s always playing something after the song you’ve requested, which most of the time turns into another one to add to your list. While this is great in theory, it has backfired on us in one way: explicit content. The account you use to listen to music is your mom’s, and unfortunately she never remembered to turn off the explicit content when you were using it. So one day I’m at my desk working and I overhear the lyrics to Bea Miller’s ‘THAT BITCH’ coming from your room, with you singing along. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that words are just words and as long as you don’t use them at school or hurl them spitefully at us, I’m ok with it. I am allllll about female empowerment and taking down the patriarchy alongside you and your mother. However, I don’t know that you should be listening to stuff like that just yet. I know it’s going to happen, and that you’ve probably already heard more than that before we turned that filter on, but let’s slow it down just a bit, please.

This past year has been a stressful one, especially for me because my job has been non-stop since the pandemic hit. However, I’ve still been able to work remotely and be able to spend more time with you and your mom, which is invaluable to me. Even though we’re facing another variant (Omicron) and the infection rates are going up, somehow my company wants us to gradually start coming back into the office a few days a week (your mom has been going back into her office for 2 days a week for while now). It makes me sad to think that I’ll miss out on those little moments we have in-between when you come home from school and when I’m done working. To think that eventually I’ll have to go back to commuting and only seeing you for a few short hours on the days I have to go into the office does not sit well with me. As crazy as it sounds, in many ways our quality of life has improved during the pandemic, and I’m not sure that I want to go back to the life that once was.

This is the part of my blog post where I tie all the previous sentiments up neatly, throw in another link to a reference I found funny or that fit the joke I was trying to get across, but I’m not going to do that this time. The main reason I write these isn’t to be a funny dad blogger, it’s to help you remember some of the things you did in your younger years and remind you how much I’m trying to be a good dad for you (whether or not you think that I am). I love you so very much and would do anything in the world to have an endless supply of years to spend with you, but that’s not the case. So, I’ll keep loving you no matter what and spend the days that I have with you doing my best to make you feel that way. Happy birthday baby girl.

Love,

Daddy