New Glasses

Kirynie, it has been a while since I have posted anything here for you, honey.  You are six years old now.  For about four days now you have been wearing glasses!  I cannot even believe it!  You look so mature, and so big, and you look very intelligent!  I don’t have a picture handy to post for you, sadly.  Perhaps I will remember to get one on here in the next few days. 

When I was a kid and I had to wear glasses for the first time, I was so scared.  I already got teased a bit at school by a couple of other kids who didn’t like me, and I didn’t want to add fuel to their fire by showing up in glasses.  But my teacher, Mrs. Daily, was a very unforgiving and hard teacher.  She walked past my desk while everyone was writing, and slammed her palm down on it and yelled, “You get your glasses on mister!”  There was nothing I could do but put them on, so very reluctantly I reached into my desk and pulled them out and put them on.  Well, of course I got called Four Eyes and all of that.  Some of the other kids were very cruel.  And that is why I was always nervous about getting their attention. 

When you went to class for the first time with your glasses on, you just walked right in proudly wearing them, and talked to your friend, a little girl you liked.  A little boy who was sat half way across the room stared for quite a while.  Everyone else mostly just carried on with their work while I spoke to your teacher, Mrs. Earl.  Mrs. Earl was very excited for you because you had been really struggling to see what she would write on the white-board.  We agreed that your studies would probably improve, which is saying something as you were already doing really good in your classes. 

As for me, I was so proud of you.  Something changed about you, and you just embraced it and ran forward with it full steam!  I could not have been happier as a father, to see how you smiled and how you spent your first day looking at things whose details had gotten lost in a blur to you before, and how you smiled when you met up with others you knew, and beamed about your new glasses. 

I attended your appointment with you when you were tested for a prescription.  I have a bad left eye, and my vision is quite blurred in it.  I was sat about as far from the wall as you were, and even with my bad eye I could make out the shaped projected there with greater ease than you could, by far.  Your mom and I have decided you get your bad vision from her side, if any, as she has quite bad eyesight in both eyes, like you. 

I love you sweet Kirynie, and I am so happy that you can see well with your new glasses. 

Love,

Daddy

Happy Birthday From Daddy..!!

Kirynie, today is your third birthday, which is so amazing to me because it has already been three years since that day in Worcester that your mom and I were at the hospital, and we took a walk in the Nunnery Wood, your mom on her crutches, trying to encourage you to pop out and say ‘hello..!!’  Of course, now you say hello all the time, and without any help from anyone else!  These last three years have been such an adventure for our family because we had you, we learned how to keep food down you, which was a little difficult at first, then we prepared for our big move, then we flew from England to America, and finally we settled down on a ranch in Nevada, and got horses and chickens and pheasants and ducks.  The whole time you have been going from baby in tow to little girl in charge, learning how to do as much as you could, and always making everyone around you smile and always making me so proud of you! 

Of course, by the time you actually ever READ this on your own, you will be much older, and you will have grown so much more.  Well, my darling, today is the day we celebrate your third birthday, and even though we are still settling in and we can’t get you everything I would like to, it doesn’t matter because you are already everything I could ever want, and that’s how family is.  We have each other, and for that I am the happiest man on Earth!  I hope that you have grown to be as happy as can be, and that whatever has happened in the years between when I wrote this, and when you are sat in that chair, reading it, you have learned to be happy no matter what, to keep learning no matter what, and to make the best choices you can with as much confidence as you can muster, then follow through with courage. 

As I write this, you are across the room from me, teasing Dylan, and smiling as big as can be.  You are learning to form the I Love You sign with your hands and whatever other signs you can learn.  We are heading in to Las Vegas tomorrow, and we are looking forward to getting there and having a lunch that I am planning on dedicating in part to your birthday at the Firelight Buffet in the Sam’s Town Casino.  Right now, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is on it’s last mission, and the last mission for the Space Shuttle program, something that has been going since I was in grade school.  Gas costs nearly $4 per gallon today, though it has gone just over $4 in the past, but when I was a kid I remember prices like $0.64 per gallon, and of course everybody is complaining about $4!  A gallon of Milk costs $3.23 at the local market, and horse feed is costing us $215 per 1,200 pounds bag of Alfalfa cubes.  Barak Obama is the President of the United States, and Elizabeth is the Queen of England.  Osama Bin Laden was killed two months ago, and every day, the world seems like it is about two days from the collapse and end of everything we know, yet we still trudge on, despite the perceived uncertainty.  You keep trudging on too, because that feeling is actually NORMAL!  You will be fine as long as you make good choices and stick to being YOU..!!! 

I love you, Kirynie!  You are learning to speak so well, and you always seem to know what’s going on and what you are doing.  You are wonderful beyond words to me!  You still sleep in our bed, and to be honest, I love having you to snuggle up with!  I seldom ever get angry at you for anything, even though I sometimes have to be stern with you to help you to learn. 

Your blonde hair and your blue eyes contribute to your cute little face, and attract so much attention to you from complete strangers.  I have long lost count of how many people both in England and in America have stopped me and said how cute you are.  You attract attention!  As a father, this is more than a bit frightening at times, and fills me up with more than a little pride as well.  But I know something strangers don’t, and that is that under your shyness, and under your cuteness, there is a little girl who is bound to become a woman, and who is already one of the most amazing people, at THREE, that I have ever known in my life! 

I am happy beyond expression to be your father, and I love you so much, Kiry!  Happy Birthday, and may you have an hundred more  of them! 

Yours in the love and sincerity that only a father can offer you,

Kelsey J Bacon, your Daddy! 

An Article About…

Poop! 

We have been thinking for a while when it is that we should officially start to potty train our little Kiry.  She has not been started, but has had opportunities to learn the things she needs to learn in order to prepare her properly for it.  For example, Kiry has had field trips to the loo to see how the grown-ups do it, and to see what is used in the process.  She has also been learning the parts of the body involved so that she can learn to correctly identify the function involved in the urges she has for the toilette.  She has long been taking her own nappies to the dustbin, and getting her clean ones out, and getting the baby-wipes necessary, and so on.  She can do all of it all by herself, except the actual changes.  So, it stands to reason that once all of this is worked out, and once she can say when she needs a change of nappy, then she can also say when she needs to go to the loo. 

Today was a big day in this process.  This morning, Kiry said “poop,” and pointed to the correct location.  She had already gone, but it was the first time she has correctly identified it, and rather than her usual game of getting the nappy and baby-wipes, then leading dad on a brisk run around the living room in order to keep him fit, she actually put the final ingredient for a change in place by laying down and saying, “baby.”  I have always made it a habit to say the names of each thing required to her, and she can name them well now, but I always was left sitting and waiting and saying something like, “there is just one thing missing!  Where’s the baby?” 

So after Kiry lay down, she said “baby,” and I looked down from my chair and said, “oh, you got me the baby this time!  Right then, I had better get strait to work.”  Down I came, to reward this wonderful action of hers with full success by completing the requested task.  I popped open her nappy, and laying there as proud as can be was a 1/2 inch ball of the required ‘poop!’  Of course, I could not just leave her with it, so I had to change the only ten minute old nappy and put another new one on her. 

Maybe now she can reward me with some more intensive training on the potty, to make up for the money wasted on the half-inch ball of ‘poop!’  :-) 

For some reason, she is calling for and getting her baby-wipes now…  :-S 

Ta!

Daddy!