My special Miles,

As usual, at the end of your piano lesson today, your teacher came out to update me on what you worked on and what we should think about for next week.  Now, she is normally a very positive and effusive person (perfect traits for a kids’ music teacher), but this week she was especially excited about your progress.  You have been rocking your hardest piece yet, Linus and Lucy (aka the Peanuts theme).  I think I wrote about that last month, when it was brand new and very daunting.  Now you can play the whole thing, beginning to end.  It’s still not completely smooth—you need to pause here and there to find the next hand position—but I am very impressed by your hard work and dedication.  It’s a whole lot harder, mentally, to play competing rhythms on the right and left hands than to just play chords on the left.  I am so happy that you haven’t gotten frustrated and given up.  You’ve just chipped away at the piece every week, and you’re now getting to the satisfying part:  sitting down and playing a really cool song.  It’s been a privilege to go through this experience with you.

We had a fun, small-scale Easter celebration last weekend.  Sunday morning represented a brief lull in a swath of illness that has gone through our house.  Tobin had his mega, multi-orifice blowout a couple of weeks ago, and then he had an apparent relapse.  I think it must have been something else, something more contagious, because not long after we got done hunting for eggs, I started to feel queasy.  I spend most of Sunday in bed, and a day or two later, your dad got it.  You and Callum have so far miraculously avoided it.  I think we’re all past it now.  I really, really hope so.

You’ve been a fun guy to have around lately.  I’m glad your dad and I are feeling better, because it seems like you’ve been getting the short end of the parenting stick lately.  When our resources were so strained, the most capable kid ends up taking care of himself more than usual.  It used to be that Callum would be happy to sleep downstairs in your dad’s arms while I put you and Tobin to bed, but lately he’s been very grumpy at night and will only accept me.  That means that you and Tobin haven’t been getting your usual nighttime ritual, which involves me lying in bed with you and cuddling until you both fall asleep, first Tobin in the bottom bunk and then you in the top bunk.  Tobin has been pretty ticked off about that, and listening to his bad attitude is only marginally easier than listening to Callum scream.  You, however, have been so sweet and understanding.  I really appreciate how your age and maturity level have advanced to the degree that you can think of others’ needs and see some empirical priorities.  Still, it breaks my heart a little when I have to crawl down from the top bunk, apologizing for not being there for you, and you sigh a shaky sigh and say a reluctant, “Okay.”  Last night Callum did better and I was able to stay with you.  Maybe that will start happening more often.

Once we start Family Folk Machine again in the fall, we’ll have some special time together.  Tobin claims he’s joining too, but something tells me he’ll spend more time playing with his friend Digger Ben than singing.  Like your piano work, singing together in Family Folk Machine has become a really important Mommy/Miles activity, and I’ll be glad to get back to it.

You were a featured part of a concert a couple of weeks ago, the For Kids & By Kids project.  The Family Folk Machine kids recorded a song for the CD of the same name, and you performed live at the Englert for the CD release event.  It’s pretty cool that you’re a soloist on a CD distributed to people all around the city.  You did a great job, exhibiting no noticeable stage fright or reluctance to sing right into the mic in that big, full theater.  That’s a pretty big sign of growth for a kid who has struggled with shyness.  I love it when you stretch yourself, Miles.  You can do amazing things.

I read an article  today that scientifically supports something I’d always suspected:  babies wake up a lot at night because it’s a natural part of our evolutionary progress.  The article went on to state that there’s a strong correlation between babies who wake up a lot at night and  high cognitive function, empathy, and conscience.  I wish someone had told me that when you were a tiny baby, Miles.  I remember how much I struggled in those early months when I was so sleep-deprived.  Later on, when we’d worked out a pretty decent night management strategy and I didn’t feel tired during the day anymore, I still felt stressed out because I kept getting the message I was doing it wrong.  “Good” babies sleep through the night, and “good” parents find a way to make it happen.   By the time Tobin was born, I was totally over any hangups about that and just did it in a way that worked for us, and you’d better believe I don’t let anybody make me feel bad about the way Callum sleeps.  But you were my first baby, and I wanted to do it right, whatever that meant. The staff at the doctor’s office tsk-tsked me about co-sleeping, about putting you down when you were already asleep, about nursing you to sleep.  I beat myself up about it plenty, but I could never bring myself to do anything else.  Those things soothed you, and when you needed me at night, I just woke up and took care of you.

Well, apparently that helped to make you smart and empathetic, so those tsk-tskers can suck it.

Yes, I realize correlation does not equal causation.  Yes, I am still jealous of people whose babies naturally sleep eight consecutive hours through no particular effort on the parents’ part.  But the article helps.

Over the weekend, you proposed a game for our family to play called “Secret Friends.”  We each drew another family member’s name out of a shoebox (except Callum, who cannot read, write, or dictate).  All week we’ve been writing notes to our Secret Friend, and you’re planning a big reveal event this weekend.  You helped Tobin write his notes, and they’ve all been very sweet.  I’ll have to gather them up and post pictures of them when the project is finished.

I hope I get to lie with you until you fall asleep tonight, Miles.  I did it when you were a baby, and even though you don’t truly need me to do it now, I’m pretty happy that you want me to.  You’re not going to want your mom in your bunk bed with you forever, so I’d better soak you up while I can.

Love,

Mommy