Carter,

We did it! One year successfully completed!

I found out your Mom was pregnant the way most people find out their wives are pregnant: by opening a gift bag full of wiffleballs in a parking lot that had positive pregnancy tests hidden under them in the bottom of the bag.

You’ll soon find out that I, along with a large group of friends, have an almost unhealthy love of wiffleball and your Mom thought this would be a simple way to surprise me. Well, it worked. I was surprised, but not shocked. After all, we were trying to have you. We want a big family and you have to start early.

The day we found out you were on the way we so happened to be driving up north to Grandma’s to visit and play our annual series of wiffleball (see, told you!).

While common sense says one should wait quite a few weeks before telling anyone of your pregnancy, we just couldn’t help but spill the news to just about everyone we saw that weekend. Luckily for us everything worked out, but we don’t plan on doing this for your brother(s) and/or sister(s).

Fast forward about 20 months and you are 1 years old — the quickest 20 months of our lives.

It’s tough to write down in just a few hundred words what you mean to us. It’s also tough to remember life without you. Each day gets better and better as your personality continues to come to life. You’re already a total goofball like your Mom and I and I love it.

So, I’d simply like to say thank you for being better than I ever could have imagined on that fateful day when I thought I was just getting wiffleballs, but instead got the best gift in the entire world: you.

Until next time..

Love,

Dad