Today’s Writing 101 challenge was to reinvent the letter. The last letter I wrote was to my husband when he was away for work, so today I decided to write a letter to my son in the future. He may not be a man yet, but he will be one day, and I hope that, on that day, he’ll read this and smile.
Dearest Bubbles,
My goodness, how quickly you’ve grown! It can’t be possible that you’re a man now, instead of the tiny little baby I brought home from the hospital. Surely that was only yesterday?
Oh, who am I kidding? It was last month. I knew I should have tied that brick to your head sooner. 🙂
When I look at you, I still see the happy little boy you used to be. I suppose I probably always will, no matter how much taller than me you are. I hope that someday, you’ll have a house full of happy little boys (and girls?) of your own, but first, some advice.
- Help out around the house. Trust me, your wife will appreciate it.
- Don’t be a doormat. Stand up for yourself when necessary, no matter how uncomfortable it might be to rock the boat.
- Smile! You’ll never know what a difference it could make to someone else.
- Don’t ever let anyone make you feel like you don’t deserve what you really want.
- Always expect the unexpected, and be open to new experiences. Keep an open mind, and try new things.
- Don’t be reckless. It’s all right to take risks, but don’t take stupid ones. Don’t let, “Hey, y’all, watch this!” be the last thing anyone hears you say.
- Carry good health insurance. You never know when it’ll come in handy.
Don’t quit a relationship because it gets hard. Life is hard. Let hard times draw you closer to that other person, and remember that you cannot appreciate the good times without the bad.- Be faithful. Be a loyal and faithful friend to others, and be a loyal and faithful husband. Infidelity cuts to the core; don’t wield that knife.
- Ask for help if you need it, but keep in mind that sometimes the greatest help a person can give to another is to tell them no.
- Play with your children, and remember the things you found fun at their age. Spend quality time with them. Childhood goes by so quickly, so make the most of it.
- And finally, keep family traditions alive. Teach your children to play cards and to love Star Trek and to read all kinds of books. Memories are made through traditions. Share those with your children, and create new ones together.
Are these things the secret to a great life? Probably not. But they sure as heck can’t hurt.
Live well, my son, and strive to make the world a better place.
Love,
Mom
If you could write a letter to anyone, who would it be? What would you say?
(c) 2015. All rights reserved.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 
Fantastic advice, all around. My oldest will be 12 next May and I find myself terrified by how fast he’s growing up. I especially love the family traditions. We “force” our kids to watch all kinds of fantastic geeky shows, Star Trek included. They complain, but they love it.
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I can sympathize – Bubbles turned twelve two months ago today, and it’s truly scary to think that twelve years have passed since he was born.
Our kids adore watching all the geeky stuff with us! Bubbles has been a huge Star Wars fan since before he could walk; I always say that the geek is strong in this family. And we have made more memories playing cards…Cards is a tradition of sorts for us. We never travel anywhere without at least one deck, and we always have so much fun. I’ll never be able to play Huckly Buck again without hearing Bubbles yell, “To the death!” And I’ll never be able to play Up and Down the River again without remembering the time my mother-in-law tricked my father-in-law into giving away what he was going to lead. Those are things we still laugh about, and they’re some of my favorite memories. 🙂
Do you have family traditions?
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Our almost two year old refuses to sleep until someone turns on TNG so he can hum along with the intro music, and our almost 10 year old demanded a Dalek costume for halloween, so I’d say the geek is strong with us as well.
We play Magic The Gathering together; something of a rite of passage for our boys. They have to learn to read to be allowed to play, so they work hard on it. We do a lot of board games as well. Plants Vs. Zombies Risk is a huge favorite, and the Who version of Monopoly.
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That is awesome! My four-year-old was walking around humming the theme song to Smurfs the other day. It was completely out of the blue; they hadn’t watched it in a long time, but he hummed it half the night and it was adorable.
We do board games as well. Sunday night is Family Game Night at our house, and before we moved, we played lots of them. Now all our games are packed up in boxes, with the exception of Sorry, Guesstures, and couple of others that we’ve acquired from garage sales. Hopefully we’ll be able to unpack them soon. Seymour (the hubby) loves strategy games, like Othello and Risk and chess (he captain of his high school chess team back in the day), and he’s got a Star Trek tactics game that he and the kids like to play together. I like trivia games and word games, but Seymour won’t play Scrabble with me because I enjoy reading the dictionary (and the thesaurus) for fun. 🙂
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I’m a dictionary reader too! And in the same boat, I have no one to play scrabble with (not who can actually give me a challenge), my hubby is also a strategy fan, though he usually goes for video games first. Our oldest is a VERY bad loser so we try to play games as much as possible in an effort to help him learn to lose gracefully. We do Friday Night Magic, Saturdays if time permits and the boys haven’t lost their computers for slacking on their chores we do video game night and play Supreme Commander and the like together, and Sundays it’s kind of a free-for-all. My next mission is to teach the boys either hearts or crib, I used to play both with my mom, her friend and her friends daughter every weekend and I miss it.
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My husband loves to play Hearts, but I don’t like it as well as he does. 500 is loads of fun, nut we don’t play it like we used to – our card club disbanded a few years ago and we haven’t found another.
We’ve tried to teach our older kids, but they haven’t yet mastered it.
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That’s not one I’m familiar with at all. Card club? Sign me up! I didn’t know such things existed.
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Really? It’s a lot like Euchre, just with more cards.
Card clubs are a big thing here! Ours was at our church, but it disbanded when we got a new priest who didn’t play cards. Seymour’s parents were in one when he was growing up, and I know there are a few people who have their own in our area, but we haven’t joined any. Of course with our kids’ schedules lately, it’s getting increasingly hard to have a night out to ourselves.
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I know how that goes. Even when we have a free evening, finding a babysitter for 6 when 4 of them are 3 or less is .. well, it’d break the bank I’m sure. Not that I’m ready to leave the twins just yet, anyways. I do miss that outside place sometimes though.
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We have four, two of whom are old enough to babysit, but that also means they’re old enough for other things, too. And they’re not always home, so trying to coordinate everyone’s schedules to accommodate a night out is a Herculean undertaking. I’ve gone out on dates with a raging migraine because we had a sitter and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste. 🙂
You must have the patience of a saint to handle four kids under three.
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No patience, unfortunately. Occasional alcohol, lots of chocolate, and a ton of help from the oldest two. Honestly, the older of the 4 is pretty self-reliant, he’s potty trained, makes his own sandwiches and knows how to make Netflix go, and that makes it a lot easier too.
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That sounds like my house – my oldest two are huge helpers. And occasional alcohol and lots of chocolate have got to be the best cure ever. 🙂
My four-year-old is the kind of kid who needs lots of supervision because he likes to get into things he’s not supposed to.
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>>> Don’t let, “Hey, y’all, watch this!” be the last thing anyone hears you say.<<<
LOL! Love it.
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That will probably be the last thing Thumper says. Maybe when I do a similar letter for him, that should come first, middle, AND last… 😀
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