Dear Evan:

Looking back, I’ve been remiss in writing about your third birthday. How did I miss that? I’ll admit I write less frequently than I want to, but I was sure I’d covered you turning three.

Evan and Daddy

I hope memory can do the day justice. It was overcast and chilly, but not too chilly, which is good. Wait, I’m starting in the wrong place. Let’s start with your love of animals.

Right now, you are absolutely in love with two categories of animals: ocean creatures (and octopi most of all) and butterflies. I wonder whether that will carry through your life. Will you be a marine biologist? An entomologist? Will you somehow combine your love for construction vehicles? Or will this all fade? (I hope not.)

So, butterflies. One of your favorite places is the Butterfly House in Dallas’ Fair Park. (Bonus, you can go there and the Fair Park aquarium in the same day.) The house is a two-story glass structure that’s warm and humid and filled with exotic plants and flowers. And, of course, butterflies. Lots and lots of butterflies. Somehow, the Blue Morpho is your favorite, though it’s much more likely you’ll see Monarchs fluttering around our yard.

For your birthday, your mom invited some of your favorite people — all adults; you don’t have many friends your age yet — to the Butterfly House. The day was overcast and chilly, but not too chilly, which is good, because we set up at a picnic table outside. Your mom made a chocolate cake decorated with a skeleton (after all, your birthday is almost Halloween). My parents — your Lovey and Grumpy — were there, and your mom’s parents, Mimi and Papa. Miss Charly and her then-boyfriend, now-fiance Corey showed up, as did your mom’s friend Miss Jessica. We sang songs, opened presents, went inside and watched the butterflies.

I’m not a butterfly guy, but it was absolutely beautiful. Peaceful, even. Well, as peaceful as a place can be when a toddler is chasing butterflies. It was a good third birthday.

And so: octopi.

Ev and Mommy

Your love of sea creatures has been longer in the making, long enough that I’ll write more about it later. What’s less clear is how the octopus became your favorite. I think it’s because they use tentacles much the way you use your hands, so you can pretend to be one. And they don’t have sharp teeth, something I’ve written about before.

I can tell you why your octopus toys are mostly named Frank: You have a habit of adding -y to the end of your favorite toys when you name them. So: Bulldozery, Excavatory, Dump Trucky. Duck Duck was an anomaly, but not Dolphiny. Do you see where this is going with Octopus? If not, set aside this letter and read it again when you’re older.

Your mom warned me, the first time you brought home an octopus toy, and so when you held him up and asked his name, “Frank” was the first thing to leave my mouth. And now, every octopus you see, real or toy, is named Frank.

And that, as Paul Harvey used to say, is the rest of the story.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

I love words. I like to say I can taste words, and I sort of can, if that makes any sense. So I love that your quick little brain arranges words exactly as you think they should work.

Right now, you’re full of questions. I’ll set aside our immense frustration with “Whyyyyy?” for another letter. More endearing is how you ask “Have you ever seen…?”:

“Ever you sawn a…?”

We love it. We’ve started saying it, correct grammar be damned. I think you know by now that it’s not entirely correct, but you play along. Maybe by the time you read this, you’ll wonder why we still say such a weird phrase.

Almost as cute is “What is this a?” complete with the article at the end of the question. When you think about it through the lens of a toddler still learning the language, it makes sense. After all, we always reply with, “This is a (whatever).” So why wouldn’t you ask what it is a?

You talk so much, and know so many words, it’s sometimes difficult to remember you’re only just three years old. I hope, when you’re reading this, we haven’t treated you as such an adult that you missed out on childhood. It happens sometimes; on weekends, you tend to be my conversation companion for the many hours you’re awake before noon. So we slip like that, and I apologize in advance. Please know we always catch ourselves, and remind ourselves you’re still a child who needs to play and explore and make up your own words and not be told a phrase is wrong just because adults think it is.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

For Halloween, you were supposed to be an octopus. Your mama spent days, weeks, hand-making an octopus costume out of a hoodie, complete with tentacles and googly eyes. And when it came down to it, you trick-or-treated as a bee.

You’re three years old now, of course, and fully engaged in the Terrible Twos (which last until, if I’m doing the math correctly, you turn 25). So the day of Halloween, you took a late nap and, half-awake as daylight faded, threw a temper tantrum when we tried to make you into an octopus. Luckily, we had a bee outfit (antennae, wings, a wand that you deemed a stinger) on hand, and soon after buzzed out the door.

Your first trick-or-treating trip, in 2012, you didn’t quite understand. You mostly wanted to explore strangers’ houses. This time around, you soon realized it was better to get candy. And so we toddled down the street over (dogs in tow, one dressed as a bee and the other as a ladybug), stopping at lighted porches and reminding you to say “trick or treat!” and “thank you!” You got lots of compliments from our neighbors and other trick-or-treaters. Enough to offset your mama’s disappointment at the the lack of costume? I don’t think so.

The best stop was at a house where the young man handing out candy had on a Texas A&M T-shirt. Your mama is an Aggie, of course, and early on taught you to say “Gig ‘em, Aggies!” So at this particular house, she was pushing you to say *anything*, but especially that. You didn’t.

Until you were walking down the driveway, candy in hand: “Trick or treat gig ‘em Aggies thank you!” *pause* “I said *all* my words!”

A postscript: A few days later, you and I were walking down the street to the mailbox. You asked whether we could stop at each house for candy.

“Halloween’s over, sweetpea,” I laughed. You considered that in silence… until we got to the next house, where the porch light was on.

“Their light is on!” You danced on the sidewalk in excitement. “We will say trick or treat and they will give us CANDY!”

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan –

Please, be an engineer.

Right now, you’re all about tools. You so badly wanted to help your mommy and me around the house that I bought you some toy tools, which you promptly left at your Mimi and Papa’s place. What to do? Oh, use real tools.

Probably that’s not the safest choice, but you’re intact so far.

With the real tools, you’re learning how things are put together. You haven’t destroyed anything (yet), but definitely know about nails and screws, wrenches and drills. You can tell a Philips from a flat head.

This is all build-up to last night’s events. Late last week, you realized you could crawl out of bed, open your bedroom door and escape into the world. (Well, the house.) Monday night, I was surprisingly sick for me: fever, nausea, the works. Your mommy had to teach, so I was left to wrangle you while shivering uncontrollably. I think I did a good job.

Except…

Except you kept leaving your room. Eventually, I just huddled in bed and let you play, until putting you down for good around 9.

Last night, I put one of those doorknob protectors on the inside of your bedroom door, the kind that you need to squeeze at just the right angle for the knob to turn. That done, I read some books, snuggled and put you to bed. When I left your room, you protested, but I fairly skipped away at the thought of the doorknob protector keeping you in until sleep hit.

I sat on the couch, ready to veg and continue recuperating. And five minutes later, you toddled out.

That’s right: Without tools, you’d managed to take apart the safety device and get out of your room.

Hmmmm. Maybe add “Vegas magician” alongside “engineer” on your career options.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

Last night, you took a tumble.

A few months ago, we converted your crib to a bed. We were worried, because when you sleep you twist in every possible direction. As when you’re awake, you simply can’t stay still. That was fine when you had the barred crib front to hold you in, but how would you do without? So, a compromise: We taped a cut-down pool noodle to the edge of your mattress, under your sheets.

For the most part, it worked. We think you may have fallen out once or twice early on, but weren’t sure. It was just as possible you climbed out, and certainly there was no damage.

Last night was different.

I was half-awake because Lil’ Bit was unusually annoying, stretching and poking and scrunching as close to me as possible on an already warm night. At 11:30, I heard you squeak “Mama!” interrupted by a sharp smack and then wailing. I ran to your room, sure you’d fallen, and you had. You held out one hand but wouldn’t let me “hhhmooch” it, so I held you instead. Your crying grew more passionate, louder, punctuated by coughing from a lingering cold. Your mama came to check on us, and you asked her to hold you, and so she did.

When I looked down at my shirt, I noticed a spreading bloodstain. Sure enough, your mama’s shirt was stained too, and blood was dripping from your mouth. I stripped off my shirt, wet it in a sink and went to wipe your face, but that just made you angry. And so I gave up, and you went into full-blown tantrum mode, and the blood… well, it must’ve all been wiped on your mama’s T-shirt.

Soon, we got you calm enough to put back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I crept back in half an hour later and arranged pillows from the guest room around your crib. Just in case, you know. You woke, and I hummed deep in my chest while holding you, until your eyes closed again.

Today you seem none the worse for wear, but I am. I’m tired, but more, I’m worried about more falls. You’ll be sleeping above a landscape of pillows for the near future, I suspect.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

Happy Father’s Day to me! It’s my second ever. Can you believe I had to think about that? It seems like so many more. This year we’ll be visiting your Lovey and Grumpy. Last night, you and your mom gave me a vintage-looking popcorn machine. I don’t have many vices any more, but one of them is microwave popcorn. Now we can get back to the real stuff. Soon, you’ll even be able to share.

You’re in two phases right now: asking questions about everything, and the Terrible Twos. Oh, and nature movies. On that last one, you’ve come up with a clear way to determine which scenes disturb you. If an animal has sharp teeth, it’s deemed scary and worth scampering behind my legs. We have long discussions about what counts as scary, mostly in the form of you asking, “Has sharp teeth? Has normal teeth?”

For the most part, the system works, with some exceptions: Your dogs clearly have sharp teeth but are friendly. So now animals have qualifiers: something can be FWENDLY, especially if it’s a TEENY-TINY BABY.

All of which leads us to your imagination. Every day, you tell us you’re a different animal. (Yesterday you were a sea turtle.) But inevitably, you qualify it with assuring us no matter what, you’re a FWENDLY BABY sea turtle or chameleon or camel.

I can’t wait to see what you are today.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

Before you were born, before I met your mother, before so many things, I spent insomnia time playing computer games. One of those games featured a little wizard who, when danger approached, sometimes querulously asked, “What’s that NOISE?”

I write this because I think I subconsciously picked up his whispered, almost scared delivery. (I know I did for another character, an elf who chirped “Re-FRESH-ing!” when healed.) As you grew and became more aware of the world around you, we played games where I would try to get you to recognize the environment. Sometimes, I would do it by asking, “What’s that noise?”

At maybe the year and a half mark, you took up the practice for your own, peering around after an unfamiliar sound and asking, “Dat NOIZE? Dat NOIZE, Dada?”

And now, just in the past month, you’ve been answering your own question: “Dat NOIZE? Dat noize da WASHink machine.” “Dat noize is Mimi coffink.”

My favorite is when my laptop heats up, triggering the fan: “Dat noize is jus’… jus’ da COMPYOODER.”

(I can’t decide whether you sound more like Arnold Schwarzenegger or an old Jewish man.)
I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

Sometime in the last six months, you learned to be afraid.

I think it coincided with the blossoming of your imagination. You’ve definitely gone from playing alongside me to actual imaginative play. Just the other day, your tiny plastic brachiosaur Fluffy was a firefighter, climing up and down the ladder of a red plastic fire truck.

The downside is that you now back away from the opening scene of “Finding Nemo” (with the menacing barracuda) and won’t watch “Monsters Inc.” at all any more. Worse is that toys and statues have become threatening. I noticed it at the library first, when you would no longer approach the life-size tiger pillow. And then over Thanksgiving, you wouldn’t go into your cousin’s room with its box of large stuffed dinosaurs. You learned the word “scary,” but I noticed you would call some of your toys (a plastic snake named Snakey, some spiders left over from Halloween) scary but not be actually scared.

When we returned over Christmas, I provided reassurance that would become a mantra: “It’s just a toy. Not scary. Just a toy.”

I said that over and over while touching each stuffed animal in turn, and encouraging you to touch each while saying it.

It’s not a foolproof system. During our zoo trip this past Saturday, you stopped in your tracks at the statue of a kangaroo alongside the trail.

“It’s okay,” I said, rapping it on the nose. “It’s just a statue. Not real. Not scary.”

“Jus’ a STA-choo,” you repeated, but would come no closer.

The system failed us that time, so we moved on, but I’ve heard you saying the mantra to yourself in other situations: “Not SKEERY. Jus’ a TOY.”

A lot in life isn’t really scary. It’s just toys. Not real. We’ll get you to that realization soon enough.

I love you,

Daddy

Dear Evan:

“Elephants is playing! In HHHnow!”

We were at the Fort Worth Zoo this past weekend for Daddy-Evan Day (what I call it when the two of us spend a weekend day together, a regular event) and you were so active, so inquisitive, so excited. You’re in love with animals right now, fitting given that your room is decorated in elephants, tigers, giraffes, etc. The zoo has almost every animal you love with the exception of dinosaurs. (Those, by the way, are a more nebulous concept to you with the exception of T. rex, which you can pick out on sight, and Fluffy, your name for a tiny plastic Brachiosaur.)

More cute, you can’t quite pronounce the s if it’s followed by a consonant at the start of a word. Instead, you make a sound like a guttural H. For example, your toy snake is named “HHHnakey,” snow is “HHHnow,” etc.

“That’s not snow, honey,” I said. “That’s *sand.*”

One of the elephants walked out of the large viewing area, back toward a smaller section of the zoo.

“Elephant is going?” you asked.

I had to think for a moment of a concept that would translate. “He’s going to his home.” While you watched the elephant, I watched you. Your bright blue eyes got that focused look that doubled as a sort of “recording” indicator. After a few minutes, we walked over to the giraffes. On the way back out, we stopped again at the elephant enclosure.

A beat, and then: “Elephants playing in SAND!”

We both grinned.

I love you,

Daddy

Evan at the Fort Worth Zoo (Jan. 2013)