Dear Evan:

We are all of us under a huge amount of stress right now. It’s never easy moving house (even if the result will be much more space for all of us). It’s even less easy when factoring in a 4-year-old who has only ever called one place home. We’ve started slipping, letting you watch hours of Paw Patrol and Octonauts while we pack or renovate or clean or fill out paperwork. Your behavior has gone downhill (though you’re still better behaved than most) and I’m ashamed to admit mine has as well. I am short; I lash out verbally more often than I’d like; I retreat into my own head during the few minutes of downtime I can manage.

I wonder whether you’ll remember any of it. I’ve hugged you and explained calmly what’s going on, and that it will all be better soon. I hope that mitigates some of the less good times. I hope that makes up for me snapping at you or asking you to go play alone in your room at times.

I moved around a bit when I was your age, though by 5 or 6 we had settled at the house where I spent most of my formative years. When I dream about a sense of home, that’s the form it takes: a small house in what was then a dusty neighborhood at the edge of a low-end bedroom community. When you are older, will you dream about the house we’re leaving? Will you find yourself back in the cream-and-brown safari-themed room you now occupy? Will you dream of toddling into the lavendar-walled office-slash-guest room, where I spend the first few minutes of weekend mornings playing online before you wake?

Or will your mind take you back to where we, at this point, haven’t been yet? I don’t know what your room will look like, outside the basic dimensions. I don’t know what we’ll do about the upstairs living area, or the large back yard. All good things, but I wish you could tell me, when you read this, send a hint back in time. I wish you could reassure me and take some of this stress off my shoulders.

I love you,

Daddy

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