Dear Lincoln,

Happy Birthday to you! Wow. You’re five.  I’m a little early.

This past weekend we celebrated your 5th birthday. You were super excited about your birthday. You wanted to do your hair, dress up, and you also wanted to help out as much as you can. I think you got too excited and sort of fizzled out at the end. But that’s the way you are. I’m not sure if you enjoyed your party, but I know you did enjoy people singing happy birthday to you. I’m pretty sure you liked the attention.

Anyway, you’re going to start Kindergarten soon. And there’s going to be a lot of changes. A LOT OF CHANGES. Daddy is getting deployed to the Middle East…. for pretty much a year. We’ve been preparing you and Carver for this deployment, but I just don’t know if you really understand the magnitude of it all. Daddy will be gone for an entire year.  Today you said the sweetest thing to him. You saved a cookie for him so that he can take it with him on the plane to the Middle East.  You really do have a big heart. I asked you if you were going to be sad when daddy leaves, and you said no. I asked you why? And you said, because I’m going to be mad! I don’t want him to go!

I know, kid. I don’t want him to go either.

I really don’t know how this deployment will affect you and your brother.  I don’t even know if you’ll remember. But here’s the thing. One day, when you’re reading this, you’ll realize that everybody has to make sacrifices. And these sacrifices will make you into a stronger person.  What doesn’t kill you, will make you stronger.  I just really hope your relationship with daddy doesn’t suffer. You guys are starting to really be buddy-buddies.

I’m sorry. This post was actually suppose to talk about how much you have grown. And boy, you have grown. You love roller coasters. You still love dinosaurs… but I think that is about to be tapered off. You love to dance. You love to dance to top 40 music.  You’re really good at languages. You seem to pick it up pretty quickly. You’re reading just a little bit of Chinese. You can totally read Hiragana, no problem there. And you’re just starting to read three letter words. You do have to sound it out… and you have to stop guessing! You really need to sound out the word!  I’m trying not to stress to much about this. But if by 1st grade you can’t read… there will be an intervention.

You are super fun. You love to greet random strangers with the windows rolled down in the car. You have a great smile (you should use it more often), and you really don’t get mad for a long time, but you do get mad pretty easily. You also have a crazy memory. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know if other kids have such sharp memories. Maybe it’s all that sleep you get. You still sleep a combined total of 10-12 hours a day. I really don’t know what we are going to do when you start kindergarten. No Naps~and no Snacks!

I’m also trying to work on your attitude. I want you to not give up when you encounter something difficult. You’re going to encounter so many difficult things, you need to figure it out.

All in all. You’re a good kid and I love you.