Open Letter to the Newest Person I Know

Dear Lennon,
Thanks for joining us.  Along with your brothers Ezra and Miles, you're one of the best reasons I've got for being a better person.  I'm so glad you're here because now instead of evaluating the world, in terms of the two boys in my life, I now have a little girl in my world.  This world, from where I stand, isn't always keen on caring for girls of any age. More on that later.

You've been alive for a few hours.  I've had Dexter Marathons that have lasted longer than your whole life so far. More on that much later. In these few hours, actually in the first few seconds that you and I shared air in the same room, I came to love you.  Profound, inexplicable love overwhelmed me and your uncle with the tattoos cried like a...well a you.  I love you because my sister and my brother in law made you.  I love you because you don't know anything and have very little opinion about anything outside of nipples, and I respect that. You're pink and weird and have tiny parts that are doing what they do for the first time.  Scientists tell me that it will be a long time before you recognize me.  That's okay, take your time.  I think Ez and Miles will vouch for me. One day I hope to come into your house and hear you yell out "Uncle Adam!"  Until then, just know, I love you.

Having nephews is easy.  We pee in front of each other.  There's farting. There's loud music and talk of girls with Ezra and cars and ninjas with Miles.  I'm better with the ninjas.  With boys my uncle duties are about exposure to cool and fun elements of the world: guitars and Woody Allen and jeeps and The Talking Heads and sandwiches and antique stores and video games and advice that doesn't make sense and being your fan and helping your conquer.  But you're my niece.  You'll need privacy when you pee and you'll have these feminine moments that I know about but can't experience.  My instinct with you is protection and nurture. You may not want to conquer, you may want to improve what you find here. Having this new thing, this girl, in my life is cause to take stock.

All of a sudden all this internet that's full of porn (more on that never), restaurants that have shitty food served by women in young girls' clothing, and thongs for tweens... all of it... it's shifted from silly to dangerous.

So here's the deal.  I'm going to get your back in a big way.  You're not going to need me and your dad and your older brothers to protect you from douchey guys.  We're going to spend our time together validating you for valid reasons.  I'm sure you'll be beautiful, my people breed pretty. What's better is that you'll be shockingly equipped.  You're going to grow up with men in your life who tell you you're kind and smart and generous and funny.  Sadly, by the time you're old enough to really read this, I doubt the world will have gotten past body issues.  If you're a little bigger than the girls in your class and decide that ballet is for you, dance little one, dance.  If you're tall and skinny as hell and seem to be made of elbows and knees and decide to get into wrestling, go hard, be careful, but go hard.  I hope you love something weird, like math or geology.  I don't know anything about those things so we'll watch Discovery channel and then have some adventures.  If you're into fashion, I will wear whatever you make me.  I will eat what you cook me, I will mend what you bring to me broken, I will play music you can dance to and ask you to sing even if you're only as good as me. Even if you're worse, which you won't be.  I will do these things not only because you'll be impossible to resist, but because I value you.  You.  Your little 5 hour old self.

You should get into golf, there's a ton of scholarship money in Women's Golf.

You will not have daddy issues.  I know your dad and your grandads.  We will give you so much real love and validation that you'll simply request to be treasured properly or properly left alone.

I know your mom, your Aunt Candice, and both of your grandmothers. Pretty sure there are no pictures of them making a duck face, wearing only cheer shorts and tank top on the internet.  Well, maybe one of your grandmothers has done that, but I don't judge. 

You've been born into a family of liberal, music loving, festival attending, homeless people at Thanksgiving hosting, sports fanatical, religiously skeptical, drug experimenting, animal loving, equal rights demanding, quasi-vegetarian, good-hearted, world traveling, green, Americans.
Feel free to be none of those things.  Feel free to be all or some, feel free to lead the way for us sometimes too.

I hope you'll love our music and your music (more Wilco than Gaga, please).  I hope you vote with your conscience.  I hope you serve with your heart.  I hope you cheer for The Mavericks.  
One day you'll know complex terms like: gender and equality and marriage and divorce and body mass index and GOP Primaries and you'll worry about cellulite and boobs and body hair and god knows what.

Before that day, before the worry of tornadoes and where we go when we die creep into your little mind, know that for all its chaos, the world put a guy like me, in a room with a girl like you when you were minutes old, just so I could fall in love with you and come to to the end of this letter and realize, that you're changing my life. I've got more years on me than you've got hours, and already you're bossing me around, telling me to shape up and straighten up the place.

I listened to a song today on the way to meet you by The Grateful Dead.  You'll know them pretty well here soon. There's a line that I heard, and it's just for you, I'm sure of it.

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world. The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings.  The heart has evenings, its seasons, and songs of its own." 

Wake now, Lennon.  See the world for us, for me.  Grab my finger and say, "Look Uncle Adam!" And I will, Lennon.  I can't wait.

Love,
Uncle Adam