My little Miles,

It’s your last month of being seven.  As usual, the holidays are going by in a blur, and as usual, your birthday is sneaking up on me.  Can you really be almost eight?  Every year goes faster than the one before it, and you are growing so fast.  A lot of your pants are high-waters now.  At Thanksgiving, Aunt Dorothy remarked upon how, the last time she saw you, you and Tobin were a lot closer in height.  Your feet are huge, and I’m sure we could share socks if I weren’t opposed to you hogging up my socks.

Your favorite thing to do is draw elaborate pictures and write captions for them.  You’ve strewn the train table downstairs with your cartoons, and some of them are pretty creative.  You like inventing bands of superheroes and assigning them roles and powers.  You even include Tobin a lot of the time.

We had some recent drama involving a school library book.  Every Tuesday, you and your classmates get to check out items from library, and they’re due the following Tuesday.  A few weeks ago, I realized you had left your books at home, which would mean you wouldn’t be allowed to check out new ones.  Since I knew that would devastate you, I stopped by school and dropped off your two books at the office.

If I’d known then what I know now, I would have just left them at home and had you bring them back a week late.  But a snafu spiraled, involving the books going to the wrong class and the wrong Miles, and you weren’t able to check anything out.  You were pretty upset at pickup that day, and I was pretty frustrated, since that’s exactly what I was trying to avoid by dropping off the books.  I emailed the secretary and the librarian and explained the situation, and they said not to worry, the books would turn up.  The next Tuesday came, and you had media again.  From what I understand, you go to the library, pick out your items, and then a teacher or librarian reads a list of kids who can’t check books out because they have overdue items.  You were so, so sad when your name was on that list and you couldn’t check out your stuff.  The next week:  same thing.  I think that’s a pretty crummy way to do things.  Maybe the point is to give kids incentive to return their items, but I don’t like the public humiliation and disappointment elements.

Maybe most kids don’t care too much about that sort of thing, but you do.  I completely understand, because I would have absolutely hated that as a kid too.  It was all the worse because the missing items weren’t missing due to any fault of yours.  The next Monday night, I emailed the librarian again asking her to make an exception to the no check-out rule.  I never heard back from her, but when I picked you up on Tuesday, you had a huge smile on your face.  The first thing you did was show me the library book you’d checked out.  I didn’t hear back from her until Tuesday evening.  It turns out she didn’t make an exception for you; they found the book.  I guess it all ended up okay, but the whole situation was annoying.

It’s not like you don’t have anything to read.  We make regular trips to the public library (though that might have led to a very disgusting weekend of Vomitpalooza for our family), and we’ve been reading the Harry Potter series together, sometimes you reading aloud and sometimes I.  In fact, you’ve become a huge Harry Potter head.  Your Christmas wishlist is largely Harry Potter stuff, and you love to talk about it with other people who’ve read the books and seen the movies.  We’ll be finishing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the next couple of days, which will mean it’s time for another popcorn and movie event.

We had several Family Folk Machine concerts:  one at our regular Senior Center space, one at the Old Capitol Senate Chambers, and the Englert’s annual Festival of Carols.  As always, I was so proud to see and hear you singing with bravery and enthusiasm.  Family Folk Machine is just the best.  We’ve met so many nice people and had so much fun.  It’s become a whole-family affair, since Tobin is singing now and your dad and Callum often come to hang out during rehearsals.  Still, though, I’ll always have fond memories of when it was just my little Miles and I singing “Country Roads.”

Photo by Gary Clarke

This will be your first birthday with Callum around, so we’re going to have to figure out how to manage the consecutive birthday schedule.  I don’t think our family could handle two full-sized cakes in two days, so I might have to make half a cake for each of you.  You’ll want chocolate, your forever favorite, and maybe I’ll go with something fruity for Cal.  Maybe you can help me divide the recipes in half.  You did a good job helping me with the math of doubling the pancake recipe last week (you can really put away the pancakes these days), so I bet you’ll figure it right out.

I love you, my little seven-year-old.  You’re my Golden Snitch.

Love,

Mommy