Tobin admires his brother’s piano-playing song-writing skills, and he likes to try his hand at it as well.

T:  (mournfully) I have one song, and it’s not very good.

A:  Oh, honey, I’m sure it’s good.  Just keep practicing and you’ll get good at it.

T:  It’s not good because it’s all bad words.

A:  …Oh yeah?

T:  (mashing piano keys) He said, ‘Buuutttthead.’  He said, ‘Poopypants.’  He said ‘Baby poopy faaaaaaaaace.’  (pause)  See?  Not very good.

My dear Miles,

You’re officially done with first grade.  I never doubted that you could do it, but I’m proud anyway.  Below you’ll see pictures of your first and last days of school.  You’ve grown a bit, I think.  You have different teeth missing and new ones in some places.  I don’t know if you remembered your first day pose and purposely emulated it on your last day, or that still just happens to be your favorite way to stand.

First grade was a good year for you.  Your reading really took off this year, and you’re literate by anyone’s definition.  You like playing outside, especially when there are friends at the playground, but you’re just as happy inside with a book (or a game on pbskids.org or Wii).  We’ve gotten all signed up for the summer reading program, and you had completed the first stage not even a week after we started.  Since it’s supposed to stretch over eight weeks, and there are only three prize levels, we may need to pace you a little.

You’ll be starting some summer classes at Willowwind next week, which will reduce your unstructured time somewhat.  That will be a nice change of pace.  Although you and Tobin get along well most of the time, a little separation might help you reduce your squabbles.  The one this morning was over paper.  You wanted to write your own comic book (which turned out pretty cool in the end), and Tobin was freaking out because you wanted to do it on his notepad and he didn’t want to share it.

Rather than, say, looking in the desk drawer to find an identical notepad, or going downstairs and getting some paper out of the printer, you and Tobin both refused to cede any ground.  I had to stop mid-treadmill workout to go play referee.  We talked about finding alternative solutions to problems rather than being stubborn and freaking out.  I have no idea if it worked or not.  We’ll check in on that concept some time soon, I’m sure.

We’re into the summer activity season, including our usual favorites like the Farmers’ Market and Arts Fest.  We’ve also gotten a good start on the list of things you wanted to do this summer.  We’ve been to the library’s Monday Matinee, to the Natural History Museum (for about ten minutes, because you were so disappointed that the interactive displays weren’t working), to Molly’s Cupcakes, and we just did our first Watery Wednesday.  This is an idea I came up with because Wednesday is one of the few days of the week we don’t have anything scheduled, so it seemed like a good time for splashing around outside.  You also had your first swimming lesson yesterday, which went pretty well.  Your problem is the same as it was last year:  you can’t seem to relax while you float on your back.   It drives your dad crazy as we sit in the watching area.  You can’t hear him, but he’s always saying, “Relax, Miles!  Pull your stomach up!”

Much like your attitude toward piano lessons, you’ve kept a positive outlook on swimming, too.  I’m glad about that.  One of the worst things that could happen to you is a fear of failure so crippling that you won’t try new things.  You have a touch of that in you (and I have more than a touch in me, so I sympathize), but I’m really happy that it hasn’t stopped you in the piano and swimming endeavors.

At Arts Fest last weekend, the weirdest thing happened.  There was a caricature artist, and you got really interested in it.  The line was too long when you first saw it, but you watched for a while, and you really wanted to have your caricature drawn.  Your dad and I talked about it, and even though it was really more expensive than what it was worth, we decided to support a local artist and let you go ahead and do it.  We hung around for a while, had some lemonade, and eventually the line was shorter.  We told you you could do it.

At that moment you had some kind of panic, a meltdown.  You suddenly said you were too scared to do it.  Too scared?  Too scared to sit on a stool with us right next to you?  I have no idea what was going on, and you couldn’t explain it.  We waited  a while longer, and I thought you might come around, but you never did.  That single event wasn’t a big deal—like I said, it was foolishly expensive anyway, and I didn’t mind not buying the picture.  But your response worries me.  I don’t want you to live your life freaked out about small things, and equally importantly, I don’t understand what was going on in your head.  I want to help you learn to be brave, but I don’t know how to address this.

In talking about it, I told you that you didn’t have to do the caricature, but I wanted you to set a goal for the summer of doing something reasonable but scary.  You haven’t committed to anything yet.  I think riding your bike without training wheels might be a good one, though you’re resistant to that idea too.  We’ll see what you end up doing and how far you get with it.

Maybe you’ll be able to relax and let your stomach float up.

Love,

Mommy

We’ve made these before, but our last batch was looking pretty sad, so we made some new ones.  They’re a super easy alternative to water balloons that take about 10% of the time to make and with no annoying latex crumbs all over your yard when they’re done.  Plus they’re reusable.  I think I got the idea for these on some Pinteresty website before Pinterest was invented.

You take some inexpensive kitchen sponges…

(please ignore surrounding evidence of life in my house)

cut them into strips and stack them up however you please…

put rubber bands around their middles and fluff them out a bit…

and you’re all set.  Just dunk them in a bucket or bowl of water and throw them at whoever doesn’t mind getting wet.

And that, friends, is what we call Splort Balls.