Dear Arlandria: Month Six

Dear Arlandria,

You're six months old today. Holy moly! I can hardly believe it.

While you've developed a lot over the past month, I had a moment tonight, when you were in your exersaucer that I felt connected to you.

You've been grumpy. Like, really grumpy. And it's different than the grumpy you've had before. It used to be that when you pouted your face or made a pained noise you were hungry, you were bored, you were cold, you had a poopy diaper. There was immediately some sort of need you had that wasn't being met. To be honest, you were kind of a Sim baby. You had meters, and when the meters got low, we had to fill them back up.

Dear Arlandria, Movies we'll watch in the future

                                      

Hey Arlie,

A lot of what I've written you so far has been a lot of dour forward looking stuff that I think makes people cry (in a good way? but like still crying) and today I wanted to change that up a bit.

Today, I want to talk about something that Daddy is super-duper passionate about: movies.

Now, movies and Hollywood haven't always been (or perhaps have never been) super positive places for women, but as of a few years ago that's changing. There's a new wave of feminism and cultural shift about that's changing things for the better! And what that means is that throughout your life we're going to have some films that I think will not only help from a general humanist standpoint in your life, but even some that will demonstrate the power of women - which as you may have figured out is something Mom and I want to emphasize a little bit in your life time.

So the following are three movies that we will definitely watch someday:

Dear Arlandria: Month 5

Dear Arlandria,

Recently you turned five months old. Five months since I first saw you and heard your first cry. Five months since you were a grumpy lump in a hospital baby bed. Five months since I held you for the first time on my chest and let you sleep with short little breaths.

This month you've begun to jump, yes, even when your legs aren't on the ground. You stretch and explore with your hands. You've begun to teleport direction and location when we leave the room for a minute or two. You are in love with Gatsby and Donut. We took our first trip to Independence and you love your Aunt Brigette and Grandma Ramsey and all of your cousins. You went to church for the first time and slept the whole way through (she might be a daddy's girl).

You stopped sleeping in your cradle a while ago, but now you've stopped sleeping in your bassinet too. Now you sleep in Pack n' Plays. You sleep in Dock-a-Tots. The little girl that sunk in her cradle is now in the ninetieth percentile of height for her age. Like Dylan croned fifty years ago, the times they are a' changing.

3.18.18

Dear Arlandria,

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote you. You're beginning to focus more. Your hands are grasping toys and fingers with a renewed vigor. Your first tooth is struggling to break free of your gums. You are learning there is so much more to food than just formula.

It's amazing watching you grow.

I often find myself thinking about the trials you are going to face as you grow. Trials of being a school-age kid, learning how to trust the adults around you, learning which adults to trust around you. Kids with all their multitude of backgrounds and appearances. Loving those people for who they are and loving yourself for who you are.

And that's where I wanted to focus on. You are a woman. That means you are going to have a lot of challenges that Daddy has no solutions for. People are going to demand you are publicly attractive. They're going to demand that you speak quieter and more respectfully. They're going to demand that you get married, have kids, and don't focus too much on school or education.

It's going to be easy to get drug down by that. And when you do I'm worried you are going to be faced with the challenge of Depression.

1.23.18

Dear Arlandria,

Your Mom and I have been together for two and a half years today. Let me tell you a bit about the day.

Your Mom came down to Tulsa from OKC to hang out with me and Grandpa D. We were going to a Wes Anderson film festival. Your Mom had never seen a Wes Anderson film before.

Backstory, Dad loves Moonrise Kingdom. It's his favorite Wes Anderson film, (even though Grand Budapest is probably better) because it is the film that best captures what Dad thinks the spirit of love is.

In Moonrise Kingdom two kids run away from their lives to be together, alone, on a little inlet. It's a dumb move. They're so sure about how correct it is though, and honestly, when they set out on the journey, they don't know that much about each other. Quickly they begin bumping into each other's personalities, they learn about each other. They are dedicated to the love, but she's made him into magic because he's an orphan - like the characters in the books she reads - and he's prickly because his background has given him some practical skills but not necessarily emotional ones. They are awkward, they are cute, they have a long journey ahead of them, and they go to the only place they think they can get away from everything.

When they get there they solidify. They become the couple we know they're going to be. Simple, easy, children. They share their first kiss together, just as awkward as every other moment together. Then when they wake up its all threatened.

Because everyone around them thinks its wrong. It's just wrong, they're being stupid, they're being dangerous, they're being young and in love and that's just not the way the world works, can't you see that you stupid dumb kids?

But none of these adults have it together either. Her Mom is cheating and his Foster parents simply "can't accept him back in their home." Her parents don't know her at all, and the world has nothing to do with him besides force him away from where he wants to be - with her.

Its with these odds that they begin their second adventure together. Now with the help of their friends, they scavenge, running away from a reality that looms over them. They get married, they get captured, and when they reach the clear end of their journey - the whole world dropping rain and thunder around them - they're ready to be with each other until the end. They have a leap of faith they have to make together and hope that they'll be okay when they reach the bottom - even though it seems pretty clear they won't be.

"Thank you for marrying me," he tells her.

Everything works out of course, they don't have to make that jump. In the nick of time, the world shows up for them. Not the whole world of course, but the parts of it that matter, the parts that they thought useless or lost that drove them to each other in the first place. And the story ends there, with everyone they care about and each other, happy.

When I proposed to your mother, I strung together this journey in a short abated form. I wanted to remind your Mother that when I saw this movie for the first time, before I'd even known her,  it was her I imagined. It was her love that I felt, touching me from the future. And that I was about to solidify it.

And perhaps importantly, we still had struggles in front of us.

Like the characters of Moonrise Kingdom, we were married, far away from the people that perhaps mattered most to us, with the company of Aunt Kelsie, and Elvis. There still amounts in front of us, struggles that we haven't faced yet: age, scars, stress, medical problems, you're attitude as you grow up (knowing your Mother and myself, we have the fiercest little girl ahead of us - for ill and for greatness).

At some points, we see the storm, we see it brewing on the horizon and we stand hand in hand. And sometimes I forget the line I'm supposed to say next. I forget that I'm supposed to look at her in my darkest moments, her darkest moments, our darkest moments and say what's written on my heart.

"Thank you for marrying me."

It echoes through the years, little girl. And I hope that if Moonrise Kingdom doesn't make you feel that way that something, a song, a book, a person, or even us - your parents, happily married, still facing our storms, our darkness, hand in hand, and ready to jump - leaps of faith over every obstacle and problem - and that you realize that not only can Art transcribe onto your heart the most important lessons - but people can too.

You have a long list of people that love you, and I know you'll have a journey to go on too one day, probably for someone you love. And I hope we teach you that there's no better way to do it than against the world - sometimes - and against us - sometimes - and with only the truth on your heart to guide you.

After all, your heart is made of us and I don't know any two people who love you more.

With Love,
Dad