A Father's Letter to His Girls

Dear Girls,

Sorry it took a little while for me to write back. I loved hearing from you. I can’t believe how big you are getting. I love you so much and miss you more than you can imagine. First I want to answer all the cool questions you asked in your letters.

Sophia is doing great. Grandma Sue has been taking good care of her while I have been gone. Grandma says Sophia gets tired around 9 o’clock at night and Grandma says “Do you want to go to bed?” and Sophia runs into the back bedroom and jumps in bed. In the morning, Sophia goes potty, eats and then jumps into bed with Grandma & sleeps a little longer. I remember how Audrey used to call her “Soapie.” How Funny!

I listen to all kinds of music here in jail. I have a radio with headphones. It’s not as good as an I Pod but I get a lot of radio stations. One of my favorite songs is “God gave me you” by country music singer Blake Shelton. Some of it goes “God gave me you for the ups & downs. God gave me you for the days of doubt.” When I hear it I think of my Audrey and Mary. Whenever I feel bad I think about how lucky I am to have two precious daughters like you.

My favorite subject in school was science. We used to do a lot of science – related things together. Remember how we would look at the stars? One time we woke up early in the morning before sunrise so we could see the planets Mars & Venus shining bright on either side of the moon. Remember our hikes when we looked for fossils & flint? We talked about how Indians made tools out of flint rocks. Mary used to wade in the pond & catch things in her net. She brought a tadpole & water spider in the house, put them in jars with water, and labeled them like a real scientist.

My favorite ice cream is Graeter’s mint chocolate chip. I love the big chocolate chunks.

Mary, you guessed it right. My favorite sport is golf. Remember all of the golf balls I had? I bought them so we could hit them out in the field behind the house. We would act like we were on Easter egg hunts and go look for the balls after we hit them. I don’t get to play golf in jail but I do jog a lot & I play basketball. People want me on their team because I am a good shooter. I’m in very good shape because sometimes I run up to seven miles in a day.

When I was your age I went to North Norwood Elementary School. It was a public school & we used to pass it on the way to Grandma Sue’s house. I still have a lot of friends from North Norwood who stay in touch with me.

Of course I remember, XXXX silly. How are they doing? I have a funny story about XXX . When she was little, Uncle XXX and Aunt XXX needed a babysitter so I drove to their apartment in the city & watched her. It was the first time I ever changed a diaper & XXX Pooped! I laughed & asked her how she could do that to me on my first diaper change. We had a lot of fun that day. Tell XXX &  XXX I said hi. Audrey said there was XXX too. Tell little XXX I said hello.

I heard the funny story about Frederina. I thought it was funny that Mary named her bird Fred. That’s what you used to call Holly’s dad, Mike.

I remember Lou. He’s a Bassett hound isn’t he? Does he still bark a lot? Do you remember our friend Ace? He had a dog that was part Bassett hound & part beagle.

Mary, I’m so happy you are doing well with soccer. I was a goalie at North Norwood but I wasn’t as good as you. I see police dogs here at the jail. I take care of the grass around the dog kennels. There are coon dogs, German Shepherds, and Black labs. One of my bosses works with the dogs. I hope you had a fun birthday. My birthday was November 16^th. I turned 39 & will be 40 next year. Can you believe it. I can’t believe you love Garfield books. Uncle Matt & I had lots of Garfield books when we were kids.

Audrey you sound very busy. How do you fit everything in? Girl Scouts, cheerleading, & basketball? Sounds great. I’ve been playing a lot of basketball so I’ll be ready to play you in a game. It sounds like you are losing all of your teeth! You must be getting rich off of the tooth fairy. When I was little, I lost a tooth when I was sleeping & swallowed it without knowing it. I was sooooo upset because I couldn’t get my money from the tooth fairy. Grandma Sue wrote a note to the tooth fairy, explained what happened and we put it under my pillow. The next morning there was money under my pillow!!!!! I was so happy.

I am glad to hear you girls are doing well in school. I hope you like your teachers. I have a lot of school teachers who keep supporting me. Grandma Sue say,XXX my 5grade teacher, always asks about how I’m doing & prays that I get to see my girls soon.

You girls like all the cool stuff!!! I Pods, I Pads, Kindles, & laptops. Those are the kind of things I love. That’s why I got you started early with laptops and the internet. It must have helped you out. When I went to parent-teacher conferences when Mary was in the 1^st grade, her computer teacher said she was one of the best in the class. She said Mary knew how to change fonts in the program Word. I told her I taught Mary how to do it in pre-school. One of my favorite pictures of Audrey is one where Audrey is lying on her stomach on the bed working on her laptop at Grandma Sue’s. It’s a funny picture because she was on the internet and she still was wearing diapers! I think I have a couple of very smart daughters!!!!

I miss you two more than you could ever imagine. Hopefully I will be getting out of jail soon & start working again to see you.  Aunt XXX said she told you not to worry about me because I am doing OK. I’ve lost about 100 lbs since you saw me & I’m working to stay as healthy & physically fit as possible so I can be the best dad I can be for a long, long, time. I miss you very much & so do Grandma Sue & Uncle Matt & the rest of the family. You can call Grandma Sue. She would love to see you and talk to you. You could call her & tell her when you have sporting or school events so she can watch you like other grandparents. She is very proud of her sweet granddaughters. Grandma Sue’s phone number is XXX. I will tell her to look for your call. She will be very excited.

Please remember that I will always love my precious Mary & Audrey and I will always be your dad. I hope to see you soon & Grandma Sue will look forward to seeing you/ hearing from you!!!!

Love Always

Daddy

P.S. I will always save copies of our letters so we can always go back and remember them. Love you!!!!