Joe Cianciotto – My Top Ten Favorite Moments of 2018 with Hannah & Sophie

Posted by Joe Cianciotto

Dear Hannah & Sophie,

As the year draws to a close I thought I would list out my top ten favorite moments with you both in 2018. Most of them are just that, moments, but a few are routines we had that made it to the list. Anyway here goes.

My Top Ten Favorite Moments of 2018 With Hannah & Sophie

10. Staying up past midnight on New Years Eve with Hannah. So on a technicality these were the very first few minutes of 2018. Sophie tapped out at 11:30 PM, which in itself was a huge accomplishment for our sleep loving Care Bear. But, yeah screaming with Hannah and trying to wake Sophie, as the year started, is one of my favorite memories of 2018.

9. Bottoming out my Volvo each and every morning while driving Sophie to Pre-K. While I spent the first half of the year in Nashville, the last six months I have been back home with you both and Mommy, which has given me the opportunity to take Sophie to school in the morning. There is this one particular bump in the road that every day she eggs me on to speed over so that we can make our stomachs drop and make the “funny sound”. Sophie, the funny sound the Volvo makes, happens because Daddy gently scrapes the bottom of the car when we go over the hill. Side note: The car is sixteen years old so that kind of makes it okay.

8. Spending the day before vacation with you both in North Carolina. Every year we do this trip with your aunts, uncles and cousins and cram five families into one house for a week on the beach. While I’m not a huge fan of that cluster, getting to spend the day and night with you at the hotel the day before we checked in to the house where Mommy and I had you both to ourselves was pretty incredible.

7. Dropping Sophie off to her play date in mid December at her friend Emma’s house. Sophie, while you are a total maniac with Hannah, Mommy and I, out in public you can be somewhat shy and it took a long time for you to warm up to going to school. Seeing you with your five besties was so great, because I realized you’ve got a pretty dope posse and you might be the ring leader.

6. Checking Out Fireworks in the streets of Franklin Square on the Fourth of July.Okay so there is this town one over from ours called Franklin Square, which is kind of like the Little Italy of Long Island. Anyway, as much of a wet turd people in Garden City are about the Fourth of July, that’s how crazy these Italians in Franklin Square get about the holiday…they will literally light up a warehouse full of explosives in the streets in front of their houses with zero effs given to the police. Anyway, we drove around until we found the perfect place to park and just watched the insanity unfold.

5. Watching “Wreck-It Ralph”. Technically a movie shouldn’t really count, but after the years I have had to endure of Anna and Elsa and the horrors of Disney Junior, we actually found a movie that I can watch fifty times (which is your average) and still really enjoy. Someday, I will let you watch “Step Brothers” and you’ll realize why Daddy liked “Wreck-It-Ralph” so much.

4. Hanging out in the Hampton Inn pool next to Interstate 83 in Pennsylvania. So after years of staying at this same transient hotel by the highway, you both finally figured out that they had an indoor pool at the hotel. To placate you, we packed our bathing suits, thinking you would forget…you didn’t. True to my word the three of us went into the pool at like 9 AM in the morning. And you know what? In spite of my OCD germ issues, the radioactive levels of chlorine and the fact that the place was freezing, I actually had an awesome time with you both.

3. Sometime around the first week of December on our way back from Vincent’s Clam Bar in Carle Place, New York, Sophie asked if we could listen to Daddy’s country music station in the car. After hours of listening to Kidz Bop on Alexa and on SiriusXM I had given up hope that I would ever be able to win you kids over to my love of country music and had come to accept a lifetime of hearing “Happy” sung by chipmunks and cherubs. Sophie, you have given me hope.

2. Hanging out on the porch in our rocking chairs. So my absolute favorite place in the world is my designated rocking chair on the porch in the front of the house. I’ve got three more for you both and Mommy so we can all just sort of chill there whenever we want. When the weather is nice, each day after dinner, we’ll go sit out there eat ice cream or candy and talk about complete and utter nonsense, which happens to be pretty fantastic.

1. Getting hugged by Hannah in the bagel store. Okay, to give you both a bit of background, I had spent the first six moths of the year commuting to Nashville Tennessee and starting July 1^st moved home full time. Being the first week of July, I took you both and Mommy to A&S Bagels (where they cook everything on site) late night on our way back from a barbecue. Hannah, you and I went inside and as you were taking in the somewhat sketchy scenery and smell of cooking bagels you spontaneously hugged me as hard as you could and told me how happy you were that I was back home with you all. I don’t think there was an entire moment this year that I was ever so happy and grateful to be alive.

Okay, so there you have it, my top ten favorite moments of the year with my Hannah and Sophie. I can’t tell you how proud we are of you and how much your mother and I are looking forward to another blessed year with you both.

Ah and to just pop a little bit of absurdity into the mix, below is a link to the Rudolph New Years Eve movie that completely blows away anything Pixar can muster.

Love,
Daddy

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