Thank You Notes to Me

So yes, we are having a baby. (Thank you Craig for getting this onesie for me. It is epic.) This blog is not going to turn into a baby blog showcasing every angle of my genetic inheritor.  So get ready to keep hearing about me, Valerie, and sometimes Baby.  Oh, she'll show up.  Like a guest star.  But is she writing the blog?  No.  Because she has no idea what QWERTY is.  And because most of her thoughts will be: "Hungry." and "Not Hungry."

I'm sure she'll be great.  I'm excited.  But I spend a lot of time in my head. But eventually when she can talk and reason and type I'm sure she'll have a few things to say about how I shaped her into the cool person she will become.  So here are some thank you notes to me.  From her.

ABOUT MUSIC

Dear D(that stands for Dad, abbreviations are huge in the future),

Thank you for introducing me to depressing rock music. Nirvana and Elliott Smith has given my otherwise happy life that bleak underlining it needed. While you and M showered me with love and affection, in the background was a soundtrack teaching me that despair and loneliness howled at the windows.  Thank you for leveling me out with some real bummers.  Sure I look super smiley in all those baby pictures.  But if you look in my eyes, you can see I know that life is not all mashed up fruit and snuggles.  It's deep pain and full of Courtney Loves.

ABOUT SUPERHEROES

Dear D,

Even though M totally rolled her eyes whenever you tried to explain the deep intricacies of comic book superheroes, I was listening.  Superman is an exploration of a god like being on Planet Earth dealing with issues of agency, death, and tragedy when he has the power to stop them.  It is a fascinating idea.  And you're not a huge nerd.  You're a supercool guy who just likes lots of things.  And you told me that enough times that I actually believe it.  Now when are we going to the 5th reboot of Spiderman?

ABOUT SCIENCE

Dear D,

I'm so glad you took over all my science projects and helped me build scale models of particle accelerators and binary star systems.  I am a little sad that you suck so much at building things that all my models looked nothing like what we intended.  I wish we lived closer to Uncle Andy and Uncle Sam because they don't handle tools like they're pythons.  But I think it's cool we live on the International Space Station and you're the Ambassador to Space.

ABOUT POETRY

Dear D,

I know that only a small percentage of the earth enjoys poetry.  Thank you for making me part of that percentage.  Because now I know I'm better than most people.  And that's the kind of self worth every kid needs.  Thank you both for making me part of the literary intelligentsia.  And thank you M for teaching me an eye roll that can make my teachers quiver in anger.  I'm going to ride this poetry rocket right to Stanford or Harvard or Yale or the International Space Station University if you really want me to stay close to home.