The Fifth Year
| Well here we go again. This is going to be fun summer for us. Daddy and mommy are putting in a brand new swimming pool. I suspect that you and I will be in water pretty a whole bunch for the next few months. Daddy will be wondering where you are at all moments than ever before. Mommy and Daddy are excited that you your new sibling is growing and growing inside Mommy. Whever we discuss the issue with you, it is such a foreign concept, that all you can say is an emphatic "Nooooo!" We still won't know whether you have a brother or a sister until the end of June, but Daddy thinks it is a boy. Your Mom really wants a girl. If it is a boy, Daddy has a name picked out, but mommy wants no conversation about names. If it is a girl, mommy will select the name. Either way it has forced your parents to redo the entrie house to make room. Daddy has had his office in one of the small bedrooms for 8 years. So I had to move to another room near the kitchen that really had been a room that was never used for anything anyway. Once that was completed we moved you from your room to Daddy's old office. We got you little boy bedroom furniture and will be painting. Into your old room goes your sibling to be and guess what mommy needs to redo the decorating there also and then we make a third bedroom into a playroom. Daddy feels like he is on an episode of some show on HGTV! Anyway Daddy is in the gym everyday now trying to get into top physical shape. I will need all my strength to runh a business and be in charge of two children. The biggest challenge will be to make sure that none of the intensity of attention and love I have given you these first 4 years is diminished in anyway by the arrival of the new one. Now the test will be where do I find the energy to do the same for the new baby and the old Mom. I love you. Off we go on new adventures! (Entry of June 5, 2006) |
| As you will learn when you get older, life does not work out as we so carefully plan it, quite often. Mommy and Daddy's joy has turned to sadness. We are blessed with another boy in our lives. However, the doctors have found medical complications with the baby and are concerned with it's health. Many more tests and diagnosis. All we know is that it will have problems. I have named him Cody Allen and no matter what happens, I know whatever his life may be, it will be as great a joy as your life has been. It is the daily joy and excitement you exude each day that has given us the strength to accept God's plan and move forward. When we recover emotionally, I will write again. I Love you. (Entry of June 12, 2006) |
| As we await the arrival of your brother, I am treasuring our next 4 months together. We have been told that there is an excellent chance that Cody will be a Down Syndrome baby or have some form of medical problems. For now Mommy and Dady just pray and wait. Cody has a strong heartbeat and is active in the womb. No matter what his shape at birth, we love and treasure him just as we have you. I am spending every possible moment I can with you. I have definitely made you a daddy's boy. But hey that is the payoff for constant attention and devotion. You are so cute! Yesterday you went to Grandma's house to play with your cousin, Chris so I could get some work done. When you got home, you didn't want to come and give me hug. As I looked at you sweet face, I could tell that you wanted to know that despite the fact I sent you away for a day, that I still loved and missed you. So I had to go running after you until I grabbed you in my arms and covered you with kisses. The next half hour was just you and I cuddling together. Daddy is so proud of you. I made the decision that we were not going to force potty training on you. So the past 6 months we just talked about it. This summer I made the move to step it up and in two weeks were completely trained! Now however, my life surrounds taking you to the potty. The next step will be doing it by yourself. You are the best! I love you! (Entry of June 22, 2006) |
| We have had a fun summer so far. Just you and I hanging out. Our new swimming pool has made it more fun. I have learned that once I take you to the pool, I had better be prepared to spend at least an hour there with you or hear the whining. However, you have not bugged me about going swimming and as in all things have been the perfect kid and compromising with me always about pool usage. It is just another way we have bonded together. It has been interesting watch you slowly develop confidence with water and swimming. I have not forced you to do anything and I have no doubt that by next year you will be a full swimming fool! You, mommy and I spent a week in North Carolina as you spent some time with your cousin Brianna and Aunt Joyce. The beauty of it all is we really had nothing to do all week except to just sit and play with one another. Life is good and even better with you in it. My love, Daddy (Entry of July 16, 2006) |
| You are a fish now! It is a wonderful thing to see how you have taken to swimming and I enjoy watching your developing skills. You have been reasonable about swimming demands. Whenever you have demanded to go swimming, rather than looking at you and say I am busy, we scurry off to the pool. Swimming with your son sould always be placed above work or any schedule. Your brother Cody is struggling inside your mommy's tummy. He is not growing as fast as he should and we now know that he will require an operation on his heart when he is four to six months old. Your mother is determined that Cody will get here and will get here ready to face the world. I know no matter what form he takes, I will always try to love and cherish him as much as I do you. Daddy is ready for a double dose of love. We will try not to make you help raise Cody. That will be our job, but we will ask that you shower him with as much love as we will. You will be a better person for it. However, you have already made big mention that we have changed the green paint in your old baby room and replaced it with yellow. When you ask where the green has gone, we reply "Your brother Cody will need the power of the color yellow to stimulate him. This will be Cody's room." Although you know Cody is in mommy's tummy, I am pretty sure you have equated that concept with reality. You will be my only boy for just a few months more. You will always be my best boy. With Love Daddy (Entry of August 5, 2006) |
| The summer went by way too fast! Swimming, playing, swimming, playing. It is the way to live! Mommy and Daddy are distracted by the problems your baby brother is experiencing in mommy's stomach. According to the doctors there is not much hope for him to even live. He has problems with his little heart and he is not growing very well. But he puzzles the doctors, because no matter the problem, it seems his heart works very hard. We feel he is determined to be with us. Right now he only weighs one pound when he should be at three. When he his born he will need immediate medical intervention and will have to undergo heart surgery by the time he his four months. You wonder sometimes why Dady and Mommy are crying and are talking a lot about Cody. We constantly remind ourselves that we must now work extra hard to make sure you are not forgotten as we face a difficult road ahead with you and your brother. You started pre-school today. You didn't really want to go and would have rather gone swimming, but you did well and are making new friends. I love you, my Ro-Ro (Entry of September 1, 2006) |
| It is in September, 2006, and you are very confused. You are not certain why mommy and daddy are sad and crying a lot. You say over and over does mommy feel better. Don't be sad mommy. On September 13, 2006 your brother, Cody passed away and mommy delivered him on September 16. Although we knew his life was going to be filled with trauma and pain, we very much wanted him in our lives. But Cody knew what was best for him. At age 4, you really had no grasp of what was going on. You just sensed that our home life was not quite the same. Sleeping alone with your daddy while mommy was in the hospital comforted us both. You are just a happy little boy who is still the center of my universe. It was your love and attention that eased the pain of this sad occaision. As you get older and I am further removed from the moment, it is something you and I will talk about. I love you very much. My son. (Entry of September 18,2006) |
| It is early morning and time before you go to school. As is your habit you have crawled in my lap and you cuddle with me as I write. I hold you tight and know these moments are fleeting, It is the first cold morning of the fall and your cold feet try to warm against my skin. We don't really say much. We just enjoy another quiet, peaceful moment together, You are getting excited about Halloween as we deck the house with pumpkins, ghosts, and monsters. We have a huge Frankenstein that sings when you walk in front of it. You call it, "MeMo". You now go in and watch little bear on TV.You version of mean man. You are alternatively afraid and fascinated by it. Thnak goodness the past month is gone. It was a sad time for your parents. I think it has made us appreciate the miracle of your birth even larger. The feelings and thoughts of those times cannot even be expressed by Daddy. When tragedy stikes, there are no words. There is no comfort. One must experience the pain and sadness and know that no matter what, life is for the living and one must live as best they can each day. I think you will be into the full joy of Christmas this year and daddy can hardly wait to drag all the Christmas stuff out of the attic. I get excited too, because I forget what all I have up there and it is much like opening presents to me. You just ran in the room and kissed my cheek and rushed back to watch TV. Life is perfect. I love you. (entry of October 13, 2006 -just noticed it is Friday the 13th) |
| Daddy's work season is over and you and I can now settle into celebrating the holidays. Next week we will pull all our Chrsitams stuff down from the attic and it will take days to get everything up. I suspect this will finally be the year where you finally show excitement about Christmas. You are now learning to read and write. Getting you to hold the pencil correctly so that you can write letters has been a difficult one, but you do enjoy the process. Daddy thinks about writing down daily stuff about you nearly every day, but I worry it will be just endless talk about how proud I am of you and what a joy you are to be with. There is just so much to be said about all that. Each day you and I take at least 1 hour to just play and tease with one another. There is usually no toy or palything involved. It is just you and I, laughing and wrestling with one another. I do worry that you seem to find everything to be funny. There are times and things that you do that you think are hilarious and they really are not. But a life lived with humour is always a better life than one without. It is never life that we have control of. Only our response to life events. I hope you understand that no man on this earth loves you more than me. The only time that will surpassed is if you have a child of your own. Then you will understand my words. Let us ring in the holidays! Once again you have run to my lap and the writing must end. I love you. (entry of November 14, 2006) |
| Well, it is Daddy and Ro all day long now for the next month or so. From the moment you wake up until we go to sleep we are doing something together. These really are the times that can never be replaced. If you have children of your own, pass this gift on. It is not what you do with your children, but mostly you spend one on one time together. You will find that what we do doesn't really matter as long as we are together. You love the lights and decorations. Every evening at dusk, you help me plug in all the pretty lights inside and out and we wonder at their beauty and magic. In your earlier years dady always put out tons of lights and decorations in our huge front yard. The past few years vandals have not been in the spirit of Christmas and have been destroying everything. Problem solved this year. All our lights and decorations are in our back yard and we can look at their beauty all the time. Each day you pull jingle bells off our front door and you shake them while we sing Jingle Bells together. It is a song I have sung to you hundreds of times since you were born and outside of The birthday song and Pop Goes The Weasle it is by far your favorite song. I like the fact that you sing alot. Your Aunt Linda and Cousin Bella came last weekend to spend a Christmas day together. You really enjoyed having another child to play with at home. We have already placed your presents by the tree so that each day you can come to us and say. "Daddy, Open presents?" And we try to explain to you the concept of time and space and just how far 20 days is to you. It will be a blessed Christmas because we are together and we want it to be special. I Love You! (Entry of December 5, 2006) |
| You are becoming Daddy's little helper. No matter what I am working on you must be a part of it. It is at this stage of life that I must instill in you that wrking can be a fun thing and doesn't have to be a drag. What ever you do for work, will not matter if you don't learn to have some fun and enjoyment while doing it. It is so cute to see you jump out of the car to run to our storage unit to undo the lock and pull up the door. And God forbid that I don't let you close it. I try to never intervene when you try to help, because at age 4 it is not how much you help, but the fact you want to. My Father owned his own business and no one ever met his standards. If you didn't do it right the first time, he would just rather do it himself. Because I own my business, having you help me at work is just another occaision for us to be together and have fun. Just two weeks to Christmas and we can hardly wait. This week while in the car you heard Michael Jackson when he was a boy singing "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus". You sat very still and listened to every word. When the song was over you turned to me with a furoowed brow and said, "Mommy and Santa Claus?" One of the many things in life I will never be able to explain to you. So I died laughing and and told you how much I loved you. May not have been that funny to others, but I loved it as much I love you. (Entry of December 13, 2006) |
| A new year is here. Being an only child has made your life fairly boring during the holidays as you only have Mom and Dad to play with. We have tried taking you anywhere other kids may be, but it never seems enough. It was fun to see you finally get into the joy of Christmas. I liked the fact that the pretty lights and Christmas music really meant more to you than all your presents. Out of all you got, you really liked your sleeping bag and your painting easel. You must know I am writing about you, because everytime I write these short missives you magically appear at my desk with some kind of request. You now climb on my chair with me making it difficult to type. Add in the big Tonka truck that must now be up on my desk and played with creates more difficulty. But it is all worth it and I don't know what my life would be without you.And actually there is never any part of my job that is more interesting than you. Happy 2007 my son! I love you. (Entry of January 4, 2007) |
| It's been over a month since I have written to you. It's not for lack of activity on your part. Daddy just had to go back to work. School has been bringing new things into our home and our relationship. For some reason you think Mommy and Daddy sholud be playing tag with you 8 hours a day. There is nothing like sitting at my computeer and you walk up, hit me on the arm and say "Tag, you're it!" and then take off running expecting me to give instant and rapid change. I actually wouldn't mind doing that except once I do, there is no end to the activity. It is called the endless game of tag. Good exercise, but not what Daddy wants to do all day long. The other is knock knock jokes. "Knock, Knock. Who's there? Boo. Boo Hoo. Daddy why are you crying" As we laugh our heads off. For some reason it is still funny to you after the 500th aatempt. The other endearing activity is now in full bloom. You have selected some movies that you require Daddy and Mommy to view together with you about 600 times! And let's not even get started on Sponge Bob Sqaurepants. Actually I don't mind that one. It kind of enetertains Dady. I just wish they had about 100 more episodes. I have now seen most episodes at least 5 times now. Ah but life is good and we have great times together and I can think of no one I would rather be doing these things with than you. My special boy. I love you! (Entry of February 15, 2007) |
| This week was your annual school music program at your pre-school. This fascinates me because it is one of the few times I get to see you interact with kids your age. Most of the time it is just you and I. It was fun to see that you are always about laughing and having a good time. As you sat with a fellow classmate waiting to go up on stage, you were talking non-stop and often smiling or laughing. The most interesting thing is I got to see you actually have learned things in school. I get no indication at home because you never talk about school or do anything new that might indicate that you do. However as the groups got up to sing, you knew all the hand and body movements and the words. When it was your turn, you were front and center signing and moving to every song. You had no fear and no shyness. You had the time of your life! I guess me putting you onstage of many of my events is paying off. As always I am so proud of you. This is the time of year that daddy works the hardest as I have about 5 events in two months. I always feel so guilty because I cannot always give you the time and attention you seek. Yesterday you came up to me in my office asking Daddy if he would do something with you. I was in the middle of a big writing project and did not want to lose my train of thought. I said to you, "Ro I am so sorry, but daddy has so much work today. Can you wait for daddy to finish." Your reply was "That's OK Daddy, I understand" and you walked away. You are the best! I love you. (Entry of March 1, 2007) |
| My journal for another year of your life will soon end as you near your 5th birhday next month. Everyone that sees you always talks about how much you are growing. I still see you as the little baby that sat in my lap while I worked. Thank God you still like sitting in my lap from time to time while I work. This week we are going to paint your bedroom for the first time. You picked out the paint while declaring blue was your favorite color. Knowing you though that will last for a nano second. You are now in the Sponge Bob Squarepants phase of your life. Fortunately you have little use for TV unless Sponge Bob is on. Daddy has become hooked on it also and at least it is something I can watch with you that isn't mind numbingly boring. I can now get your attention by shouting out phrases from the open of the show. " I can't hear you! - Aye Aye Captain!" Ah yes this has to be a guy thing. Utter nonsense that pleases us both. This will be our last summer before you become a full-time student so i will treasure the time. I have cleared my calendar. Of course school is out so much I am not certain what the term full time student will really mean. But just sitting in the back yard and doing nothing together is probably the most important thing I have ever done. and oh yes, your father turned 60 yesterday. You probably will always have the oldest father, but I hope the best. You are my bestest buddy! Love Daddy (Entry of April 12, 2007) |
| Well, another chapter closes in your life. You have just turned five. At this age the exact date means little to you, so we have made this your birthday week. You like being called the birthday boy. It is not your birthdate that is significant, but the celebration of our joy in having you in our lives. You completed pre-school this week and they had a graduation ceremony for you with a grad cap and all. As the head teacher called the kids up to get their diplomas, she said that several weeks ago that she had asked all the students what they wanted to be when they grew up. She cautioned that at this age that answer might change from day to day. You were about in the middle of those called up. So the first group were announced. They wanted to be teachers, firemen, parents, scientists, astronauts, and so on. Just before you were called up, I turned to your grandmother and said, "I have a feeling that Ro is going to be something off the wall." As you were called up, the announcement was made. "Ro wants to be Superman when he grows up" The hall resounded with laughter. You got your diploma and as you returned to your seat, you held your arms in the air with your diploma in hand and declared, "I am a winner!" Another round of laughtere. That's my boy. We now have a summer together to swim and play and sleep in late before you head off to kindergarten. Next week I have to start the chapter of Ro - Year Six. I love You! Your Dad. (Entry of May 18, 2007) |