Great first birthday project | DIYFather.com - Father's guide to parenting

Great first birthday project

Submitted by stefan on Wed, 23/04/2008 - 6:20pm.

Matt over at dearspike.com told me about a project he started to celebrate the upcoming first birthday of his daughter "Spike". I thought ... what a wonderful idea so I decided to re-blog it here with his kind permission.

It's great to get an overview of ideas for the first birthday - as the one for my son is approaching as well. It seems just impossible that I've been a dad now for nearly a year. You look from one day to the next - managing all the small and big crises and before you know it ... a year has passed. *sigh*

Anyway - here it goes:

Dear Spike's Friends:

Spike's first birthday will be here soon. All fretting aside about WHERE THE HELL THE PAST 10 MONTHS WENT, I would like to enlist your help in putting together THE GREATEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT OF ALL TIME.

No, it's not a pony.

So I know this is waaaaay presumptuous of me, but at least I'm not asking for cash. No, what I want is blood. Your blood. And sweat. And tears. And maybe a little bile, just for kicks.

Here's the deal: I would like to give Spike a book of letters from people all over this country and all over this world — from people who know her and from people who don't.

I think we'll call it, "Dear Spike: Letters From Your Village."

Catchy, no?

Here's how it works:

1) You write a letter to Spike. Appropriately, it will start "Dear Spike:" and end with "Love,(yourname)"
2) EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE LETTER IS UP TO YOU.
3) It can be very short or very long.
4) It can be very happy or very sad.
5) It can be very serious or very funny.
6) It can be about ANYTHING YOU WANT except...
6a) It can't be about me or Spike's mom, even if you know us.
6b) It can't be about how much you love or hate DearSpike.com, even if you really love it or hate it.
7) You send said letter, by May 12, to me at dearspike@gmail.com
8) I'll publish all the letters here at DearSpike.com.
9) I'll edit them all into one big, beautiful file.
10) I'll send them off to print.
11) Someday when Spike can read, she will receive a book written to her from people — many of whom she doesn't even know — whose stories will nonetheless touch her heart and make her laugh and make her cry and make her think and make her love and make her sigh.
12) It will be a beautiful thing.

So, OK, I know that right at this very moment, there is someone from Nottingham, England, who is saying: "Surely, this chap doesn't expect me to contribute to this bloody project."

Oh yes, I do. And I'm hoping — really, really hoping — that Spike also will receive letters from Omaha and Dublin, from Perth and Nashville, from Vancouver and Baden-Wurttemberg and Tampa and Lexington and Raleigh and Nasiriyah all the other places from which people have stumbled upon this blog and then, FOR SOME STRANGE REASON, thought it would be fun to come back again and again.

And if you know people in Bejing or Mexico City or Mumbai or Capetown or Toledo (Ohio or Spain, either way) or anywhere else on the globe and you think they'd enjoy participating in this little birthday experiment, would you invite them along?

OK, now I'm all giddy. This is so crazy, it might just work.

Love,
spike's dad

Posted by Stef