If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!
I write letters every week to my son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. I am using my writing to put towards his college fund.
If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, below are some good places to start:
Here’s the most recent one - A Day Like Today
I can’t believe we are already celebrating Myles’ first birthday this week. In some ways, it feels like my own birthday too. Not only have we kept him alive, but we’ve managed to keep our own lives intact, even if it's just by the seams of the pants I used to fit. This is easily the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
I’m convinced if raising a child has not killed us, nothing will.
If you’d like to buy Myles a gift for his first birthday you can purchase one here from this wishlist.
I’ll be taking next week off from writing to spend some quality time with my family.
52 Weeks Old
Dear Myles,
This week you are turning one. We are throwing a beach-themed party for you. It’s fitting because you love the water: splash pads, mini pools, and a water table, all in the backyard. I’m happy we get to celebrate you being here. Birthdays were never a thing for me; I used to be a Grinch, but things are different now. After we prayed so long for what we have now, every day is a testimony. For you, we are grateful.
After a meal, when your hands and high chair are a mess, we use a takeout bowl as a basin for you to rinse them. You love splashing around so much that we have to change your clothes again. But every time you dip your hands in, you lift your right one for me to kiss. This moment is worth the cleanup.
Speaking of food, if we are eating, drinking, or putting anything close to our mouths, you magically know how to stand on your feet and assume it’s also time for you to eat. We feel a little silly walking around our own house with snacks hidden behind our backs, gently trying to open a chip bag to avoid setting you off. Sometimes we just want to snack, eat, and drink in peace. I’m surprised we haven’t tried eating in the bathroom.
Sometimes your mother looks at me as if I did it, because you pass gas like a full-grown adult. Admittedly, I am glad I have someone to blame it on now. Sorry, not sorry.
Your favorite toy is anything shaped like a ball. You’ve come a long way from just laughing as I shot your toys into your basket to now shooting on your own. I still can’t believe you’re the same little person we took home a year ago. Your mother makes a great coach.
Eviction day is coming. I’m looking forward to no longer sleeping on the seams of the bed, even though we have a king-size mattress – you are a wild sleeper. We finally got you a real bed for your room that we’ve started using for naps. The transition has been hard sometimes but mostly beautiful. You’ve learned how to get out of bed yourself, sometimes crawling in reverse or using the railing to step out.
I'm convinced that the most important invention in the history of mankind, after the discovery of how to use electricity, is the pacifier. We planned to wean you off it sooner but decided to pick our battles. We will try again next month.
When we say “hug,” you throw your arms open and bury your head under our chin. And when we say “kiss,” you open your mouth wide open and slightly headbutt us, leaving a wet pool on our face. It makes me wonder if the phrase "sucking face" first came from that.
Outside of me and your mother, you are a little wary of others. Sometimes you’ll fuss, cry, or just remain stone-faced when others hold you. They say you’re spoiled. I smile because I know that they've never received this kind of love. I smile because I know it’s a privilege that even I did not get to experience. If spoiling means you feel safe, cared for, and loved by the two people who willed you onto this planet, then I wish we could all be spoiled.
We took some trips to the library. The more I read to you, the more I see these books are meant for me too.
Page from Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman There's nothing like watching you and your mother together. This past month, we celebrated 4 years of marriage. Watching her with you is yet another confirmation that I picked the right person to do life with. But I feel even luckier—out of all the people on the planet, she risked it all for a man she met on the subway in Brooklyn. I’m a safe bet.
Emotionally, this month was probably the hardest in parenting. You caught a fever that reached 102 on multiple nights. We rarely slept, but work still had to be done. We had to feed ourselves, tend to the house, and show up for one another. Some nights you stayed up until 1 am when we had to work at 6 am. That week almost broke me. Maybe some kind of death happens when you become a parent. The thing you thought you could never do, you figure out how to do it. The moment in despair turns into a testimony, and you realize that the capacity you didn't know you had, you somehow find it because there is no choice.
But the highlight after one rough night was this text exchange with your mother. It makes the sleepless nights, the stress, and fatigue seem like nothing.
Maybe, and I hope one day you think I’m a good dad too.
Happy birthday, son. I love you so much.
Love,
Daddy
Appreciation time: Thank you to for recently becoming a paid subscriber. Ason’s writing was the encouragement I needed to go deeper in these letters to my son.
These letters are a labor of love. All funds collected from writing these letters go toward Myles' college savings. A paid subscription also gives you access to these letters where I explore fatherhood more deeply, discuss my own upbringing, and reflect on what it means to be raising a Black son.
If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support, here is my Buy Me a Coffee page.
And if you are on Substack, please restack this letter and recommend it so I can share this love with the world.
Let me know your thoughts:
Which one of these Mylestones/noticings resonated with you?
Did your child's first birthday feel like your own? What did that mean to you? How did you celebrate both birthdays?
What's your earliest birthday memory?
Later this month marks a year since I started writing these letters to Myles. How should I celebrate?
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Want more of Myles’ Letters?
Here are more Myles’ Monthly Mylestones (say that three times fast)
These are Subscriber’s favorites:
How I Met Your Mother was was featured on Substack Reads!
Read about My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think
Have you ever been Cooking in the Bathroom kind of tired?
Check out Carrying the Gift, Holding the Love
Read about Our first Father’s Day.
Happy Birthday, Son