Dearest Ladybug,
It’s been a week now since the Queen B and I received our referral packet for you. Included in the FedEx envelope, along with several pages of essential paperwork and the three weathered pictures of you, is an eighteen page medical and personal history. Well, it’s actually only three pages of English summary and fifteen pages of Chinese forms, so it’s really only those three pages of English and three pictures of you that that the Queen B and I have been staring at and talking about all week.
I find myself staring you, my cutie-patootie-head, sitting there at your favorite toy in China, and reading the few words about your personality and disposition and wondering about what you will be like. I suppose all dads are like this, but not all dads get a report card and cute pictures of their kids before they meet them, so you’ll just have to indulge me a bit.
According to your foster mom, you just love to listen to music and make noises. Just like your dad! Given your fondness for your noise-making playchair and affinity for tunage in general, I think you’re gonna fit right into our home of recovering rivetheads. Maybe you’ll grow up to be a phat beat-droppin’ deejay. The La-D-J-bug in the hiz-nouse, a’ight!
Of course, your foster mom also says that you’re remarkably clever for a little six-month-old, and your medical report indicates a bunch of IQ numbers above the 100s, which I suspect means you’re smarter than your dad. Couple that with the fact that your favorite toy is, for all intents and purposes, a keyboard with buttons and noisemakers, and you’ve the makings of a future mathematician-slash-computer-scientist. Awww, daddy’s little complex analyst!
The again, given the fact that the you will be coming home to a pair of educators may have its own consequences, what with all the education DVDs and toys and books the Queen B has already lined up for you. Given the natural verbosity of your new parents and your already documented fondness for talking gibberish at your peers, and the you have all the makings of a teacher. Settle down, class!
Oh, all the things you can be, little one! Each day I go back to your pictures and back to your little piece of history and find myself having big dreams for you. Of course, not matter what you end up doing, no matter where your interests eventually lay, it is clear that you’ve already become one thing for your mom and I:
See you soon, kiddo. I love you.
—Daddy
PS. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to help plant the seeds of a future early, so I’ve already bought the you your first tee-shirt from daddy.