My email response to your first email!

Here is my response to your first email, sent Sept. 25, 2012. I'm publishing it here just in case you do not receive it.

Hi Kieran,

It was so wonderful to hear from you after all of these months. I’ve missed you every day that we’ve been apart.

I chuckled when you said the email was long – I suppose it was for an email, but we’ve been apart for a long time and have lots of catching up to do. I write and edit books for a living, so whipping off an email that long was pretty easy for me!

I’m so glad you like kindergarten and school. Other than your family, there’s nothing more important than your education. Even when school may seem boring or difficult, always do your best, and in the end you’ll be a very happy person.

I’d love to hear about your school. Do you go to kindergarten all day? When I went to kindergarten, I only went half a day, in the morning, and got to eat lunch at home with my mom and little brother. What kind of crafts have you made in kindergarten? Who are some of your friends that you play with? What is your teacher like?

I’m so proud of you that you’re learning to ride a bicycle! You might remember that before you left California we went to a few shops and looked at bicycles for you, and you were very excited about getting one. Pushing the pedals was very difficult, but now that you’re older and stronger, I’m sure it’s a lot easier. What color is your bicycle? Do you have any fun do-dads on it? When I was your age, we used to put streamers on our handlebars, and some of the kids even had horns! A few of us boys put a playing card in our wheel spokes so that it’d make this cool thwap! thwap! sound when we cruised around.

You might recall the book “Lizzie’s Do’s and Don’ts” that we got from the library (“Don’t climb high in trees. Don’t put 10 band-aids on your knees!”). One of the don’ts was that Lizzie’s mom got upset at her when she took a card from the playing deck and put it in her bicycle wheel!

Have you read any good books lately? I bet your kindergarten teacher reads books to you at story time. I just read “Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type.” It’s about these cows that find an old typewriter in the barn, so they type a letter to Farmer Brown asking for electric blankets. When he doesn’t give them any electric blankets, they go on strike and tell him, “No electric blankets, no milk!”

You said you have several pictures of me. I am glad to hear that. Where did you get the pictures? I don’t recall you having a photo album. I’d love to look at the pictures with you; I probably can tell you lots of fun stories about what was happening when the picture was taken.
Well, that is all for now. I can’t wait to hear from you!

Love,

Dad