Dear Asher,

Wow, this past month has been insane. Do I say that every month? Well, this month for real! Your mom and I found out that in about 7 months, you’ll be a big brother!! That’s right, you’ll have your very own little one to boss around. We are so excited and can’t wait to find out if you’ll have a little brother or a little sister… We told our friends and family, but I’ll save those stories for next month’s letter.

You are becoming quite the little hockey player. Your wrist shot is already better then your old man’s! All you want to do is play hockey. Last week I made you your very own “real” stick from am old broken shaft of mine cut down to size with a junior blade stuck in the end. We spend hours and hours out in the garage passing and shooting the puck. One of your favorite things to do is to ‘Faceoff’. You either want to pretend you’re the ref and drop the puck for me, or you want to be the center and take the faceoff. You are already working on perfecting your goal-scoring celebrations. You are a master at the fist pump, but you have yet to master the ‘ride the stick-pony’ move.

I’ve had a ton of 7pm Sunday hockey games lately, so mom and you have been coming out to watch a lot. I don’t think you actually watch very much of the game, you just like being there with your little stick and puck. After one recent game, I took you out on the ice and you took a couple shots on goal. It was awesome the way your eyes glimmered as I skated around with you in my arms. After the game, we usually go out for pizza or wings with the team. Last time we went, you apparently weren’t feeling all that great… I thought you were just tired until you erupted like Mt. Vesuvius while sitting in my lap. It was gross… I had puke ALL over me. We got you cleaned up and bailed as soon as we could, but you let loose again about half way home in the car – projectile style. I swear there was puke on the windshield… I spent about 3 hours that night cleaning up yarf in the car, yarf on you, yarf on your mom… Poor little guy… Our house was vomit city, and you were the mayor for about 4 straight nights. I finally figured out that I needed to carry an emergency yarf bowl with me at all times. You are a total trooper though, you’d yarf, then just keep on truckin’ like nothing happened. I admire that.

The last couple of months you’ve started this weird ‘boycotting’ of daddy thing. I try not to take it personally, but it is soooo hard. At least once a day, something happens and you want nothing to do with me. “no daddy” you say. “Go Away”. I guess all working parents go through this at some point, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think a little piece of me dies each time you scream “I don’t want Daddy”. You usually make up for it later with lots of hugs and kisses though, so it’s all good…

I had such an “I’m turning into my father” moment the other day. You were standing up on a kitchen chair and I kept telling you to sit down on your bottom. I tell you this for your own good because I know, in all my vast wisdom, that standing on kitchen chairs is a very bad idea. Sure enough, it took about 12 seconds for you to tumble head fist off the chair and land with a loud thud on the tile floor. You immediately began to cry, and as I picked you up off the tile, I heard myself say “and that’s why we don’t stand on kitchen chairs!”. Oh God, did I just say that? Here you are, crying in my arms, with a potentially serious injury, and I just told you “that’s what you get for not listening to me”… I am so much like my father in a lot of ways, for better and for worse. And for the record, you cried for about 12 seconds, then you went back to standing on that chair!

Work has been really crazy-busy lately. I’ve been working late quite a bit and when I get home, the first thing I do is to check my email and set up my laptop so I can do more work. A couple weekends ago, we had a power outage in my office building, so I got to work an entire Saturday, shutting down our datacenter and bringing it all back up. You asked me several times after that day, “is the power on daddy?” ”Check email daddy?” “Go to work daddy?” Each day when I get home now you ask me if I was at work in this strange accusatory tone… it’s like you’re checking up on me, making sure I wasn’t out doing something fun without you.

I guess I’ll have to start including info about how your little sibling is coming along, and how your mom is handling it all. We should know a lot more next month!

Love,
Papa

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