“What?” is your most common refrain. You say it as a deadpan “WUT.”
You picked that up from my own failing hearing reply and think it’s just the way to acknowledge a question or comment.
“Hey Matteo, what do you want to drink with dinner?” Reply: “Wut.”
“This is such a cool movie.” Reply: “Wut.”
“Can you put pants on?” Reply: “No.” (There are exceptions to this pattern.)
I’ll chalk this all up to a typically masculine trait of selective hearing and polite acknowledgement in absence of attention. When you’re checked in, you’re all in. Recently, Legos and Hot Wheels have captured your imagination and hours of playtime. You love creating Star Wars characters and spaceships with the Legos (as they masterfully intended in that licensing deal) and multi-height tracks and jumps for your cars.
The playtime has been a nice distraction for your Mom and me. Your monthday is the same as Election Day this year. The country had to decide to keep Donald Trump in office for a second term or replace him with Joe Biden. I’m writing this a couple of days later (though I always timestamp letters on the 3rd of the month) and we still don’t know the outcome. The results of tight state races trend toward Biden, but we’re not out of the woods yet. The country has been holding its breathe and might pass out soon. The compounding stress of the election and COVID is just a lot to deal with.
My sincere hope is that by the time you can make sense of presidential elections we’ll have a calmer political environment and maskless society. I don’t know if I’m being hopeful or nostalgic in that statement.
Either way, you have your toys and imagination, and most days that’s all you need. No matter wut.
Love, Dad