Best and Worst

Hi Sidra,

There are many reasons why I love you but I just wanted to tell you about couple things that really made me glad I was your dad. And one that will not be such a fond memory.

A couple of days ago I was making beds upstairs and your mom suggested to you that you could go upstairs and 'help' me. Quotations are there because help from a not yet three year old is elusive at best. So you did well when I asked you to bring me things from the laundry basket into the bedroom. Later, when I was trying to flap the top sheet so it would fall straight on the bed you decided it would be fun to climb on the bed and get under the flapping sheet. Which made it impossible to get the sheet on straight. I asked you to get out of the way but you were having too good a time to come out from under there. So, I chose to leave the room and go work on your bed instead. You wanted to participate in that event, too. But you weren't really a distraction there and I got that job done. I then tried again to finish our bed but you had the same idea of fun under the sheet. I thought of some way that I could continue with my chores and not waste any more time waiting for you to let me finish the bed, so I left the room again. I was in my room a few minutes later and you came in and said "I'm sorry."
That made a big impression on me for a couple of reasons. First, it showed that you were empathetic to others needs or interests. I loved that. Second, it showed you understood unspoken messages. That was really cool!
On the other hand, you are sleeping off an unpleasant meltdown from earlier in the afternoon. We were out in the neighborhood as it is an unseasonably nice day. I was carrying your sister in the 'baby bjorn.' You were riding your bike. You wanted to go down to where we've picked blackberries before. I warned you that it was a long way and that there wasn't going to be any edible berries there now like there were in the summer. After we turned around to come home you wanted me to carry the bike home while you walked. Nothing doing, I said. We'd had discussions about this in the summer and I always said if you ride your bike somewhere, you had to ride it home, too. Anyway, we disagreed but you walked away from your bike leaving me to carry it home and your sister, too. I held your hand and you wailed all the way home. I guess part of it is that you need to realize that you're becoming a big girl and may need to forgo some 'mommying' or 'daddying' and stand on your own two feet at times.

So that I don't finish on a negative note here's something else you did that 'blew me away' to use your uncle Ben's phrase. We had the TV on and were watching womens figure skating. We were urging you to watch how good the skaters were. You said 'when I'm her age I want to do that.' I liked that on two fronts. One that you were inspired to try to do these amazing things on skates and secondly that you were able to articulate your wish.

Love, aba