Dear Zan,
What a difference a year makes.
My previous letter marked your fourth birthday, and in it I dedicated several gallons of cyber ink to detailing how overwhelmed by, underprepared for and genuinely concerned about your disposition I was. At the time, that disposition was characterized by a moodiness and an intensity that made me fear you were in for a rough, possibly less-than-happy childhood. Greater still was my fear that I was somehow failing at guiding you through some very choppy waters.
In the days and weeks leading up to your fifth birthday, you have mostly wiped those concerns from my mind, and I have begun to realize that the time, energy and effort Mommy and I have invested in you is suddenly paying much larger dividends. The feelings of relief and satisfaction that this realization brings with it are, quite simply, awesome.
Silly as it may sound, the one thing more than any other to which I attribute this New and Improved You is, believe it or not, your participation in a spring T-Ball league, the latest in a series of group activities for which Mommy and I have signed you up over the past couple of years, and the first of those to have completely held your interest, excitement and attention from start to finish. Working in our (and your) favor was the convergence of several factors that, when combined, were the perfect recipe for Happy Zan Souffle.
First: for much of your life, you have been watching the Red Sox play baseball, and have regularly grilled me on every facet of the game in order to learn just what it is those guys are doing on the field. Thus, while some of your teammates would hit the ball off the tee and then stand there wondering what to do next while the coach and any number of parents yelled “Good hit! Now run! Run! No, no, drop the bat, then run! Drop the bat! Good! Now run to first base! Run to first! No, first! FIRST! The other way!” (with the latter portion of those instructions dedicated to the occasional hitter who would careen toward the pitcher’s mound or third base or—my personal favorite—chase after the ball that they had just hit), you knew just what to do right from the start. OK, so maybe wearing batting gloves and sliding into every base are unnecessary behaviors at this stage of the game, but you were emulating some of your favorite Sox players, and it was a lot of fun to see you getting such a thrill out of doing so. (Also, based on the less-than-rapid growth of your 529a account, I’m kind of hoping you land a baseball scholarship, so it’s nice to see that we’re heading in the right direction.)
Second: Tommy and Will, two of your closest friends from preschool, were on your team, and the three of you had quite a blast together—though your grouping did force your coach to spend a fair amount of time trying to squelch “Zan, Tommy and Will’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Ultimate Fighting Full Contact T-Ball Championship” and bring things back to just plain ol’ T-Ball.
Third: The aforementioned coach who had to defuse the aforementioned Zan-Tommy-and-Will bombs was often me, which came as something of a surprise. No, the explosive nature of combining you three wasn’t the surprise; the coaching part was. Why? Well, Will’s daddy was actually your team’s official coach, but he had to go out of town for the first three games, so Mommy thought it would be a swell idea to tell Will’s daddy that I would fill in for him—the most interesting part of which was that she told Will’s daddy this first, and then told me about it second.
This is a candid shot of me during my first-ever coaching experience:
That pretty much sums it up right there. As I’ve stated in a number of previous entries, handling you and your sister is quite enough for me, thank you. Handling a dozen five-year-olds running amok on a baseball field while all of their parents are watching what The Coach does or does not do with, or say to, their respective children? That’s a whole new level of parenthood I wasn’t prepared for.
At the end of that first game, I felt like I had been through a war. As I was lugging the equipment bag back to the car, Will’s mother asked me how I was doing, and my honest answer to her was, “I don’t know.” I was rather shellshocked, and I remember telling Mommy how relieved I was that I didn’t have to coach all 13 of your games—a number that, in the immediate wake of game #1, sounded roughly the same as a bazillion.
In retrospect, T-Ball turned out to be a growing experience for both you and I, because, despite my initial reaction, I ended up filling in for Will’s dad a couple more times, and was the co-coach during the other games that he attended—so I ended up coaching every one of your games after all. Coaching you in the field, helping you with your hitting, cheering you on, and high-fiving you as you made your way across home plate were pretty priceless moments, and getting to be such a big part of an activity that had such a positive effect on you was a really special experience for me.
Ironically, after becoming a coach by way of Mommy throwing me under the bus, I now think it would be difficult for me to go back to being just another one of the parents on the sidelines, and you seem to think I’ll be your coach in the future, so chances are we’ll both be wearing the same hats again before too long.
In the midst of your T-Ball-inspired blossoming process, you finished your second and final year of preschool (and just writing that feels frighteningly bizarre, because it seems not very long ago I was writing a letter in which I said that you had just started preschool and mentioned how hard it was for me to come to grips with the fact that your pre-preschool time was already over), and the progress you’ve made over the course of those two short years is quite astounding.
During your first year of preschool, your class gave a holiday recital and a spring recital, at which the students sang some songs and demonstrated some of the skills they had learned in school. There also was a Halloween costume parade on the sidewalk next to the schoolhouse. At all three of these events, you had a bit of an anxiety attack the minute things got underway (twice to the point of tears) and spent your time with us on the sidelines watching the proceedings. This concerned me, particularly because you usually were the only one in your class who completely ducked out of the whole shebang.
This past school year, a slightly apprehensive, pre-T-Ball you hung in there for the whole Halloween parade (decked out in your Spider-Man costume), and also stayed on board for the entire holiday recital. The spring recital that just took place recently, however—which your teachers turned into a little graduation ceremony—could just as well have been a coming-out party for the post-T-Ball Zan, who marched into the room smiling, happy and confident, sang loudly, spoke clearly during a solo recitation (each student gave a description of a dinosaur), participated wholeheartedly in a little dancing-meets-”Simon Says”-type thing, proudly accepted the little diploma that your teachers had made for you, and generally had a really, really fun time. On more than one occasion, your mother and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes as we were overcome by your amazing transformation. (Some of the tears might also have been a reaction to the fear that our son had been abducted by aliens and replaced with a Zan-like being whose appearance was spot-on, but whose behavior didn’t quite jibe.)
If there’s anything more mind-blowing than the fact that your preschool days are over, it’s that you will be starting kindergarten this fall. Kindergarten. Already. At the elementary school. Where kids go. Not toddlers. Not preschool; real school. Would the entity pressing the fast-forward button on my life please back off? Thanks.
Mommy, in her infinite wisdom, contacted your kindergarten teacher and asked if she (Mommy) and you could drop by the school for a visit so that you could see your classroom and meet your teacher. In a further display of her infinite wisdom, Mommy, during said visit, took a nice picture of you and your teacher together so that you would have it to look at it over summer, a move that she thought might foster some additional familiarity and comfort for you as the clock ticks down to The First Day of School.
As you know by now, Mommy doesn’t take birthday parties lightly, and your fifth one was no exception. You requested a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle”-themed shindig, which Mommy facilitated not only by buying the various “TMNT”-emblazoned plates, napkins, tablecloth, piñata and, of course, birthday cake, but also by turning the backyard into a mock sewer, a la the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ secret lair. What that woman can do with some cardboard, spray paint and duct tape—but enough about our wedding night. (Yuk yuk.)
As usual, there was no shortage of presents, which included a batting helmet; a junior-sized basketball hoop, stand and basketball; and a really cool Darth Vader costume …
… which, coincidentally, you received just days after this encounter:
Mr. Vader was hanging at the local comic-book shop, where I took you to buy a comic book. I love comic books, but I weaned myself off of them years ago due to their time-and-money-consuming nature, two commodities in which I am sorely lacking. Having a legitimate reason to return to the comic-book store, and seeing you become enamored with another of my own interests—a move that allows me to simultaneously bond with you and vicariously enjoy an old hobby of my own—is what we call a “win/win situation.”
Dude: five. Five! You’re, like, a full-blown kid now, with friends, and school, and a little life that continues to expand beyond the confines of our family unit. As bittersweet as it is to see just how fast your childhood is flying by (and I’m getting choked up just thinking about it), it is equally as amazing to see what a great little boy you’ve become. I love being your Daddy, Buddy Boy.
Love,
Me
