Dear Dragon

Dear Dragon – 1 Month

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1month

Dear Dragon,

You’ve been home for a month now. You have a name, a decorated room, and more clothes than you’ll ever wear.

Your routine is pretty much to sleep in the mornings, giggle/gurgle in the afternoons, fuss in the evenings, and fall asleep by 11. A routine you’ll likely return to in post-secondary.

We still occasionally forget you exist or have waves of panic that someone was foolish enough to leave us with a child. The feeling is getting less and less common.

If I had to sum up the past month, I’d say it would be fatigue and love, punctuated by small bouts of panic and helplessness. I suppose that applies to you as much as to us.

At a month, you’ve already mastered smiling, puppy dog eyes, and a heart-wrenching whimper.

I both can’t wait and dread you growing up. I’m trying to enjoy the little moments.

By the way, you’re a fantastic cuddler and I really hope that doesn’t change.

You’ve had a constant parade of people who want to meet you. Everyone loves you and wants to be near you. You’re going to grow up loved by so many people. You have your family (Me, Mum, Grannie, Grand-dad, Great-Grand-dad, Oncle Dan, Aunt Amy, Aunt Lindsay, and Modryb Sonia), your massive list of extended family and family friends, the ever-growing geeky community in Ottawa, and Ottawa’s wonderful speculative fiction family.

As loved as I hope you feel, your mother and I feel it just as much. Our families and friends are great. We’re lucky to have found so many awesome people to surround ourselves with.

This is a little disjointed, but it reflects the past month. It’s been interesting, terrifying, and absolutely wonderful. You fill me with love and wonder every time I see you or hear your little noises.

Your tired and loving Papa

Dear Dragon – Names

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Dear Dragon,

In case you didn’t know, I fancy myself a writer. One of the hardest parts of developing a character is choosing a name.

I firmly believe that a character’s name should reflect aspects of their story or personality. Let’s take my first novel, A Study in Aether; there are three main characters and their names reflect who they are.

Elizabeth means “My God is an Oath,” or “My God is Abundance” between the classical definition and the historical, it’s a name for a strong-willed character who is more interested in reaching their goals than anything else.

Jackson (Jackie) means “Son of Jack”. Since he’s Jackson Jr., it shows the strong resemblance (character not physical) to his father. The fact that he shortens it to Jackie instead of Jack shows his stubborn non-conforming streak.

Angela is the female version of Angelus. It’s original meaning being “Messenger” or “Messenger of God”. I’ll be completely honest and tell you I just liked the name. There was a character on Bones, who managed to be both artistic and brilliant with technology. I liked the idea of a character trying to balance two aspects of her life. Balancing two parts of herself is a long running theme with my character Angela.

I almost always name a character based off who they are and what they’ll grow into. That works really well for characters, but not so well for Baby Dragons. (If only I had a time machine.)

We’ve had several names for you chosen for a long time. They’ve changed and moved around, but we never really worried about it. Now that you’re on your way, it feels a little more urgent.

There were a few things we wanted in a name: it needed to sound okay in French and English, it needed to be something that didn’t sound weird for a lawyer, doctor, teacher, judge, prime-minister etc (The Right Honourable Yoda Desmarais wasn’t an option), it needed to be something that wasn’t ridiculously common, and it needed to be something people wouldn’t make fun of.

That’s a high order, but we ended up with five names that we liked. One we sort of lost interest in. Another we told to someone and they reacted so poorly that your Mum didn’t want to use the name anymore. (I’m contrary and almost insisted on the name, but decided that was a bad reason.)

That has left us with three names. Two are relatively traditional but the third is different. It’s still easily pronounceable and follows our guidelines above. I made the mistake of mentioning it to someone (I’m contrary and learn slowly) and they don’t think it’s a good idea because it’s not a traditional name. I’m not sure which we’ll pick. I’m procrastinating by saying we’ll wait to meet you, but that’s just an excuse.

A lot of people, articles, etc. have pushed the importance of picking a name and it’s stressful to think about.

Fortunately, no matter what we name you, you’ll grow into it. It will become you and you’ll become it.

Hopefully we pick well, but worst case scenario you can always change it.

Your Loving Papa

Dear Dragon – Looking forward to meeting you

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Hello Baby Dragon,

It’s the end of July and that means you’ll be here in a month and a few days. (Probably. Everyone keeps telling me babies arrive when they want to.) I’m extremely excited to meet you, to see who you’ll be, what you’ll like, how much you’ll sleep.

Everyone else is just as excited to meet you. You already have fans among our friends. It’s amazing to see people who we don’t get to talk to much get really excited about you.

Right now the person who seems most excited to meet you is your grandfather. He’s making sure that everything will be perfect for you. Even stressing your mom and I a little with his excitement. You’re really lucky to have him. He seems gruff sometimes but he has the biggest heart and will accomplish impossible things for those he loves. He’s a wonderful father, father in-law, and he’ll be a fantastic grandfather.

It’s going to be amazing to see you grow and become your own person. It’ll also be amazing to see what happens in the world and with technology during your life.

You’ll always think I’m old, but in my 33 years I’ve seen some astounding scientific and technological changes. The Chicken Pox and HPV vaccines, the internet, the discovery of the Higgs Boson, interactive media, and so many music and video formats it’s not funny.

Right now the world is obsessed with a game called Pokémon Go. You might remember it (I’m sure we’ll play it for at least 2 or more years.) It a game that players walk around and look for digital things in the real world. Using GPS and a map of landmarks, the game randomly generates Pokémon (cute pocket monsters).

For you, this will be an old idea but for the rest of the world it’s something new. I predict that when you look back at 2016 it won’t be 4k TVs or another feeble attempt at virtual reality that is the big tech news, but the dawn of augmented reality. It has the potential to change the way we interact with our world.

We live in exciting times and you’ll see your old Papa geek out a lot over new technology. I hope it’s something we can share.

I love you Baby Dragon,

Your Papa Éric

Dear Dragon – The World Today

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Hello Dragon,

I hope you’re afraid of monsters under your bed, boogeymen, or (like your grandmother) of Freddy Kruger. It’s not that I want you to be afraid but that I want you to only have fictional things to scare you.

I hope you never feel the fear of going out to a public place, or going to school.

I hope you never fear for your life walking down the street or traveling to other countries.

The world right now is on the cusp of something. I’m not sure what it is yet. Optimistically it’s the movement towards a united and peaceful world. Pessimistically it’s the movement towards another great terrible war or series of wars.

Weekly in the news, we hear about bombings. Sometimes more than one a week. In the UK they just voted to leave the European Union. Some for economic reasons but mostly for racist reasons; and hate crimes have risen to historic highs. In the US, the argument of politics seems to be more about skin colour and genitals than actual policies.

All over the world people are afraid. Afraid for their lives, afraid of others, afraid for our world.

The earth isn’t dying. People will tell you we’re destroying it. They’re wrong, we’re making it uninhabitable for ourselves. Just another thing to fear. Some people deal with that fear by trying to change things, others by ignoring it.

“I would never bring a child into this world, why would you?”

Someone asked me how I could think of bringing children into such a broken world. My answer to them was simply, “Hope.”

You, Baby Dragon, represent hope to me; a hope that you will have a wonderful life that you will see a world free from hate and fear, that you’ll help make that world.

And the truth is it’s not all doom and gloom. The Ozone Layer has started to heal, infant mortality is at its lowest in history, life spans are longer, more people can read, food production is more efficient than ever. Every day we as a species invent, discover, and create something amazing.

 

The world we’re bringing you into isn’t perfect, far from it, but it has hope and that’s worth a lot.

I love you, Baby Dragon!

Your Loving Papa

Dear Dragon – Some advice on advice

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Hello Dragon,

Throughout your life people will give you advice on everything; whether you like it or not. Most people mean well and are genuinely trying to help. You’ll get it from your family, your friends, that extremely nosy person in line at the grocery store…. Everyone! (You’re not even born yet and I’m already giving you life advice.)

It’s important to remember that advice is just a suggestion. Take it all in, think about it, do research, and then make up your own mind. In the end it’s not me, or your best friend that has to live with the consequences, it’s you.

The difference between good advice and bad advice can be really hard to spot. Just because someone is genuinely trying to help, doesn’t mean their advice is good. This holds for people in authority too (Yes, even your parents) they make mistakes and they can repeat bad advice.

A lot of advice gets filtered through multiple people. If it’s important advice, find the original source or one you trust. Then decide if the advice is worthy of following.

Your grandmother told me when I was young, “Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear.” It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Unpacked of meaning, it simply reminds you to think about what’s going on around you, what you’re seeing, and what you’re being told. If you think critically, you can avoid a lot of trouble.

A lot of bad advice involves certainties. Everyone believes this, or It’s always that. The moment people are completely certain about something, it’s your responsibility to wonder if their advice is bad.

Remember, you’re not alone, your Mum and I will always be there to help you work through things. Even if you just need us as a sounding board. We love you and we’re here to help.

 

I love you, Baby Dragon,

Your loving Father

Dear Dragon – I’m Sorry

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Hello Dragon,

You’re half way here. Right now you’re swimming around in your mother as if you were a fish. I can’t feel you move yet, but she does, and it somehow makes you more real.

Dragon19-weeks02

We found out that you’re going to be a girl. At least, your sex designation at birth will be girl.

I have never doubted that I wanted to have you; even when you were a small probability in the far future. I always wanted you. That doesn’t mean I haven’t worried about bringing you into this world.

We (humans) as a race are capable of such horrible things. I will tell you it’s because of fear, insecurity, or sickness, but sometimes it just seems inexplicable. Nothing in all of history has killed more humans than humans themselves. When we don’t attack each other physically, we do it with our minds and words. The world is filled with people who want to make themselves feel better by bringing someone down.

I’m sorry for everything you will have to go through because of other people. Every parent wants to protect their child and hopes these things won’t happen.

There is good in this world though. There is beauty. (and ice cream!) For every terrible thing in this world that humans have created, there is something beautiful. They don’t balance themselves out, but the beauty can help. Music, art, literature, architecture, and science can help you recover. Life is not easy and as a girl it’ll be a little harder.

There are two things I want you to remember. The first is that there’s always hope, as long and you can find the beauty in the world. I will never have to look far for it, as long as I have you and your mother. You are my hope.

The second thing I want you to remember is something I will repeat over and over. Your mother and I love you and we’ll always be there for you when you need it. Life isn’t always fair, humans aren’t always kind, and you will have terrible days; but we will ALWAYS be there for you; even if it’s only in these letters.

Enjoy swimming around and try to stop kicking that nerve that makes your mother uncomfortable.

I love you, Baby Dragon,

Your worried Father

Dear Dragon – Secret 1

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Hello Dragon,

Most parents call their unborn children things like peanut, or monkey. Your mother and I are not most people. Your parents are weird. We’re just as likely to get excited about Disney princesses as you are, we’re always saying quotes from movies and books, and we love games.

Ultrasound picture.
Aren’t they cute?

You’re now -181 days, and I don’t think your existence has fully sunk in. I’m not quite sure what I’m in for and that’s the first secret I have to tell you.

Despite what I’ll say, I do not know everything. I’m not perfect and I’ll make mistakes. Hopefully by the time you realize it, it won’t shatter your trust or belief in me.

I may not be perfect but I will try my best to take care of you and no matter what I’ll always love you.

If I have one hope for you, it’s that you’re never afraid to confide in me or your mother. We want nothing but the best for you, no matter what that ends up being.

I love you Baby Dragon,
Your nervouscited Father