Dear Future Christopher,

Happy June 10th 2018*! How is it going? I hope well. I mean I really hope things are going well I am you so to speak. The other day something happened and I knew I needed to write to you. You probably don’t remember so allow me to remind you.

For a moment you picked up your four year old son Simeon much like you pick up your 2 year old daughter Ariella, or your 3 month old son Asher. You held him as if he was much younger and in that moment you were caught off guard by just how big he has gotten this past year. Questions begin to swirl in your mind;

‘When did you get so heavy?’

‘When did you become such a big boy?’

‘When did you stop being a toddler and start being a pre-schooler?’

As these and so many other questions swirled you, almost as if by reflex, found yourself thinking, ‘I wish I could have you back as a 2 year old, or 3 year old again’.

Thankfully at this moment you have a 2 year old, and an infant to remind you that you don’t actually want that. Yes they are adorable. Yes they crack you up every day. Yes their combination of innocence, curiosity and wackiness is amazing. BUT they are also your greatest source of anxiety, frustration, and stress. In the end it is all worth it. But day to day it is very, very, very hard.

I know that right now all of our children are past the toddler stage and only Asher is left in the preschool stage. So our memories have whitewashed those hard days and those long nights. Right now all we can think about is those precious grins, those cheerio covered faces, and those mischievous dancing eyes and we are wishing, God I would given everything to have it all back. 

Future me I am writing this to remind you that you don’t actually want your kids that age again. You want the best memories to live again.You want the photos to come alive again. But those memories, and those photos only tell part of the story. They tell the best parts for sure, but not all of the parts.

This time in your life was joyful yes, but it was also hard. So please do not wish it back. What you are wishing for is all the good and none of that bad. What you are wishing for is not real.

Also please, please do not tell the parent with toddlers and infants of their own to cherish every day that their children are this age; because you didn’t, and they can’t. Saying that makes light of what having toddlers and infants is really like.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely Past Christopher

P.S. Did we drop that 25lbs we planned on?

They are so precious here. But after this picture was taken they drove you totally nuts. Remember that.

* The Fine Print–I really am ‘sending’ this letter to my future self but to make this work I am making two assumptions. First I am assuming I am still using some version of Google Calendar, so the reminder I placed it in will actually work. Second I am assuming this blog will still exist in some form or another, so the link I put in my calendar has somewhere to go.