Dear Zan,

This is the first “monthly” letter I have written to you since the one about your third birthday, and, while there are a number of reasons for my lengthy hiatus, chief among them is this: had I written to you during the first few months of your life as a 3-year-old, my correspondence would have read something like “AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

[Memo to the person who coined the term "Terrible Twos": You were off by a full year. Nice going, fucko. You had me thinking three would be easier. I spit in your general direction.]

Upon turning three, you developed the unsettling ability to channel through your little body all of the demons from the ninth circle of Hell, which you now do whenever confronted with any bit of parental instruction that isn’t to your liking—and, sweet jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, there have been, and continue to be, few parental instructions that are to your liking these days.

Example:

“Zan, it’s time to come inside.”

“I don’t want to come inside!”

“I know you don’t, but it’s dinner time, so we need to go inside.”

“No! I don’t want to!”

“C’mon, zan, let’s not make this difficult. Please come inside with me.”

“No! I’m NEVER going inside!!”

“Zan, I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t come into the house on your own, I am going to pick you up and carry you inside. One. Two. Three. OK, I’m picking you up and carrying you inside.”

As I pick you up and carry you inside, your body turns itself inside out, and the frightful, gory, inside-out you then sprouts horns, gigantic bat wings and a long, poisonous-dart-tipped tail. This metamorphosis is accompanied by your emission of a sound that causes the earth to crack open and spew flame 150 feet into the air. The neighbors, presumably, are thrilled.

Once inside, I set you down and try to avoid being rendered unconscious by the concussive force of your continued screams. You are bright red, the veins in your neck are bulging and tears are streaming down your face. I encourage you to calm down.

“Calm down, Zan. Zan, calm down. Zan. Calm. Down.”

Sometimes I throw in “STOP IT!!!” This usually has an adverse affect.

Frequently, you respond to all of this by shouting at us the following non sequitur:

“WELL, YOU CAN’T COME TO MY FRIEND’S HOUSE, AND YOU’RE NOT INVITED TO MY PARTY!”

You’ve invoked this sentence numerous times in recent months, and I have no idea to which friend’s house or which party it is that you are referring, but I’m guessing that this is your toddler-ized version of, “Oh yeah? Well, fuck you!”

More recently, you’ve added this gem to your outbursts:

“I DON’T LIKE YOU, DADDY! I DON’T LIKE YOU!”

I know on an intellectual level that I shouldn’t take that too personally, but, well, it feels kinda shitty. I had hoped vitriolic parental hatred, however fleeting, wouldn’t become part of your repertoire until much later in life.

The most unsettling thing about all of this is the degree to which you harness the Dark Side of The Force during these incidents. You seethe with anger. You glare at us. You scrunch and twist your face up into an expression of anger so ridiculously exaggerated that it would be comical if not for the fact that you aren’t trying to be the least bit funny. You sometimes strike whatever objects and/or people are within reach.

I can’t for the life of me figure out where you could possibly have picked up the gene that predisposes you to have such anger. I mean, it’s not like your father was once The Angriest Young Man on the Face of the Earth, or something. Must be from your former-hippie mother.

It makes me terribly sad and frustrated that you seem to have so much difficulty coping with whatever it is that causes one of these meltdowns, and it also makes me feel terribly inadequate as a parent, both because of how seemingly ineffective I am at managing your outbursts, and because of my guilt-driven presumption that, in order for you to behave in such a fashion, I must have done something terribly wrong during the course of raising you.

In addition to my concern about the berserker, rage-filled, out-of-control tantrums you throw, and the general disobedience and defiance that usually precipitates them, I am also rattled by how emotionally fragile you often seem. Just about anything can send you into a sudden, seemingly uncontrollable fit of crying … and when I say anything, I mean traumatic occurrences such as:

• Dinner time.
• Bath time (to include get-in-the-tub time and, paradoxically, get-out-of-the-tub time).
• Mommy trying to do anything without you (to include taking a three-minute shower or using the toilet).
• The application to one’s toothbrush a dollop of a brand of toothpaste that one suddenly and inexplicably no longer likes.
• The application to one’s toothbrush a dollop of a brand of toothpaste that one does like, but that one wanted to apply to one’s toothbrush oneself instead of watching Mommy or Daddy do so.
• Bed time.
• “You’re not getting up yet, it’s the middle of the night” time.

Those last couple of items are, in my opinion, the root of all evil. No single issue has caused more discord in the Scratches household over the past few years than your lifelong battle with the act of sleeping. Around the time you turned three, this manifested itself in the form of you erupting into maniacal screaming and crying fits whenever your mother or I would leave the room after putting you down for the night, and again each and every time you woke throughout the night, which was often. These tantrums were particularly unsettling because:
a.) it was clear that you had somehow become genuinely afraid of being alone in your room at night. (You cited monsters, and no amount of reassurance or magic anti-monster spray would convince you that you had nothing to fear);
b.) you were almost completely incapable of calming yourself down once you got into this state;
c.) you often realized that you couldn’t calm yourself down, which would only cause you to become more frightened and upset; and
d.) they often caused me to spring awake so suddenly that I would leap into the air and cling to the ceiling with my finger and toenails like one of those cartoon cats while simultaneously trying to keep my rapidly pounding heart from leaping out of my mouth.

After logging about nine non-consecutive hours of sleep over a four-night period, Mommy and I decided to shun the Ferber method in favor of the Fuck This Shit We Need to Get Some Sleep method—which resulted in you spending each night for about a month sleeping on a miniature futon placed at the foot of our bed.

We have since done everything we could think of to monster-proof your room, to include providing you with what we refer to as a nightlight, but in actuality more closely resembles a pole-mounted, 1,000-candle-power chandelier. Thankfully, you have become more accustomed to sleeping in your bed again, which has been a relief for your mother and I.

Speaking of Mommy: she started her new job several weeks ago. She is now working part-time at a private practice, and twice a week sees clients. This means you and your sister are stuck with Daddy during these times. I will admit, part of me was dreading this arrangement—and, based on the fits you threw the first few times Mommy left for work, you shared that same sense of dread. I am happy to report, however, that things have been going pretty smoothly, and I am grateful for the time that I get to spend with you and your sister while Mommy’s at work (except for those times when I wish you guys ran on batteries that I could remove, thereby giving me a moment to gather the far-flung shreds of my sanity).

You, meanwhile, started pre-school last month, and I am barely capable of wrapping my head around the fact that the pre-pre-school part of your life is already over. I do not want you to grow up this fast.

Also last month, you and I took in our first father-and-son Red Sox game; your mother and I took you once last season, but this was the first time it was “just the boys,” as we say.

There was an older couple sitting in front of us at the game, and the woman turned to you at one point and asked, “Who’s your favorite player?”

“Big Papi,” you said without hesitation. You then turned to me and said, “You know why I like Big Papi, Daddy? Because he’s a really good hitter!”

I didn’t become a true Red Sox fan until the 2002 season, and I’m sure this is because my father wasn’t a fan when I was a child, nor was his father a fan when he was a child. I, however, have been a die-hard Sox fan for all of your brief little life, and this has definitely spilled over onto you. Maybe you’ll later decide you don’t care the least bit about following the Sox, and, if so, that’s fine … but I will readily admit that I do have this romantic vision of you and I always sharing this bond.

Sitting with you in the stands at Fenway Park on a Sunday afternoon, listening to you explain to me why Big Papi is your favorite player … maybe I’m just being sappy, but that is a special memory I’ll always keep, and I’m hopeful that it is only one of many yet to come.

And, lest you think I’m not making sure your exposure to the game is age-appropriate, I should mention that the highlight of the day came when we hunted down Wally the Green Monster, who autographed the Red Sox hat you were wearing. Nice.

So, pal, we’ve hit some unprecedented turbulence these past few months, but we’re working it out. In fact, things seem to have simmered down a fair amount in recent weeks (over the course of which I’ve been trying to finish writing this letter; you’ve already changed quite a bit from who you were when I started writing it several weeks ago), and we’ve had some great times to balance out the turmoil.

Last night, I was cutting out for you a little facemask that was printed on the back of your “Incredibles” ice-cream-cone box when you suddenly said, “Um, Daddy, do you know who my best Daddy is?”

“No, pal, who?”

“You!”

I’ll keep trying to be the best Daddy I can be and hope that you won’t end up too damaged while I’m figuring it all out. Bear with me, OK?

I love you, Buddy Boy.

Love,
Daddy

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