Teddy at 10 Years Out

Tomorrow is Teddy's birthday. Well, today by the time I actually hit publish on this page will be. We've asked him what he wanted for his birthday for a while trying to figure out what to get him. He's pretty hard to shop for in a lot of ways. Give him a white board, some markers, some modeling clay, and he's pretty happy. Sure, he likes video games, but only very specific games and he has them. So we have been bugging him a lot about what he might want. He finally told us last week. He wanted us to write him a letter. 

I've been re-reading things that I wrote 10 years ago, and remembering that time. It was exhausting, stressful, agonizing, wonderful, hopeful, and full of love and joy. In short, it's was a lot like the next 9 years and 10 months with Teddy have been. Teddy is special. He's kinder than a lot of kids. He's smarter than I was at his age. He is completely unable to do things that he doesn't see the value of doing, which makes showing how smart he is a challenge some times. He's frustrating and sweet and irritating and fantastic and so much work and so much more joy. Being his father has made me a far better person in every way than I was before, just like marrying Amy made me a better person that I was before.