Dearest Caroline

I don’t know how old you will be when you read this, but I am sure that you are by now aware that your mother and I have been taking photographs of you sitting in the same chair every year on your birthday. We do the same for your brother((s) and sister(s)). It’s a great tradition that we hope you appreciate as much as we do.

(If you don’t appreciate it, well you’re still a young woman and I trust that when you are wiser and older you will regret how horribly you treat us. If you’re still angry about that boy, what’s his name, well, he had it coming and you just might as well get over it, because I’m not apologizing.)

What you may not know is that during the first two years of the lives of you and your sibling(s) we tried to take those photographs on a monthly basis. For Thomas, we did pretty well at carrying out this plan. Occasionally we were a day or two late, and we did seriously drop the ball at two years. (That was a rough month: Norovirus for all three of us, your mother pregnant with you, college finals for me, yeah it sucked, so we don’t feel too bad about it.) But by and large it has been a tremendous success.

So it all went well for Golden Boy. Yes, it usually does. It annoys me sometimes too. Why do you think I call him Golden Boy? But we don’t get to choose our siblings. Anyway, this isn’t about him, it’s about you. How did the photographs of your early years go? Well, Bug, the fact of the matter is, it didn’t go so great. We almost never took those damn photographs on the first of the month and we flat out missed months nineteen and twenty-one.

So here goes, right now, right here, I want to tell you sincerely: it wasn’t our fault; it was your fault.

As proof I provide photographic evidence from the most recent set of birthday images.

This is you upon learning that we wanted to take your picture:

This is you “cooperating”:

This is me bribing you:

This is you looking smug:

This is you looking silly with popcorn in your mouth:

This is you being gorgeous:

I rest my case.

Your mother says hello. Give our love to what’s his name. Remind him he still owes me fifty bucks from poker. He can just give it straight to Golden Boy.

I love you, Bug,

Daddy