A letter I wrote, before Penelope was born. (Originally addressed to Paige, which is what we were pretty sure she was going to be named.)
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Dear Penelope,
This is my first letter to you – ever. Tina, your mommy, told me she heard that girls become mothers when they get pregnant, and boys become fathers when they see their child. Other than a little ripples in mommy's belly, I haven't seen you yet. So I'm sure I'll know more what to say then, when I watch you literally come into the world, from... not nothing, exactly, but from your pouch where you're growing right now, inside mommy's womb.
I love you. I know that I love you with all of my heart, and I know I'll look back after you're born and wonder what I ever meant, because now I'll really love you in a way I could never have felt or described before – but already, I love you more than I can figure out how to put in words. I don't know what you look like – I've only seen pictures of your bones and your little, lumpy, curled-up body, still growing into a full human being. I'm sure you'll be the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
You were made, literally and figuratively, by mommy and daddy loving each other, very much. As soon as I saw your mommy for the first time, it was only minutes until I was so comfortable with her, my whole body and soul just relaxed and just became happy and okay with everything around me. I've never been really relaxed before – you'll learn very soon that your daddy has a lot of energy, and that he's very restless. Your mommy makes me – not calm, exactly, because I'm just not calm, and mommy would never change who I am, just as I'd never want to change her. She makes me content, though. I'm still full of energy – but the worry is gone. I just am who I am, and mommy is my best friend for life, and we can be ourselves with each other for that long.
I hope – I believe deep within me, but I hope – that you, and someone else who does that for you, and that you do that for, will find each other someday. Part of you and that person finding each other is just being a beautiful, brilliant, and amazing person – which I know you will be. But part of it is hard work. You'll probably have some relationships that start out really nice, and then hurt really bad because they end. That's just the work we have to put in. It sucks, but it gets SO much better. In the end, it's so worth it!
And you'll be amazed how easy every day is, from the day you find that person on – not easy as in no work, but easy as in simple, like you've found your right place and you can just be you. The work never stops in life, at least not that I can tell. Life is all about feeling really good about the work you're doing. A great partner is a key ingredient of that, if and when having a partner is something you want.
For now, you have so much to learn and explore and discover. Me and mommy will try with everything we have to keep you from pain, to fill you with happiness, to make the growing-up process fun and rewarding for you. Babies aren't born able to do everything – humans evolved to make us into a mostly blank slate when we're little, so we can learn things from our mommies and daddies based on the lives they've had so far. Me and mommy will be helping fill some of that blank slate in for you. But there will never be anything you can't think. There will never be anything you can't do, as only you can do it. In other words, you'll always be the best at being Penelope, out of anybody in the world.
I hope we do really well for you, like you deserve. I hope we help you to find your natural strength, and give you some of our own. I want to be a father you can always look to as an example – not that you have to do everything the way I do it, but rather that looking at me helps you figure out the way you want to do it. You'll be your own person, and mommy and me are lucky enough to help you take the first few steps, and to be there as your mother and father for as long as all three of us live.
You can always ask anything – there's no such thing as a bad question. You can always count on us to love you and to support you. And you can always trust that we'll do everything we can to give you the best life we can give you – and then, increasingly, you'll take it from there. But there's a long way to go until you need to take over completely, and I'm so excited to have that time with you to start you off!
I'll tell you more about my own feelings about growing up, and why I was so excited to have a little girl, and why we love you so much. I'll tell you all of that, soon, and then more after that, and, I'm sure, more, forever after that.
But for now, get some sleep – you still have to get a little bigger before you come out and join us! Not too much bigger – poor mommy, she still has to give birth, which is really challenging – but as big as you want and need to be. We'll take care of you the second you're here. So will your really wonderful aunts and uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents, and all the great family and friends mommy and daddy have for you. I can't wait to meet you, I love you, and have as easy a birth as you can!
See you really soon,
- Josh (aka Daddy)
