12/23/2014

The Tobin Times #40

Filed under: — Aprille @ 12:04 pm

My sweet Tobin,

I had forgotten what it’s like to suddenly stop being the (near) sole influence on a child’s brain input (along with your dad and brother, of course).  It’s a little jarring to hear you start singing songs I’ve never heard and rattling off facts we didn’t teach you.  A day or two ago, you walked up to the globe in the living room and  recited a perfect rhyme about the continents.  You didn’t have a one hundred percent accuracy rate with where you were pointing, but I was still pretty impressed.  It did make me wonder–does Central America count as a continent, or is that just a political demarcation?  It didn’t make the list in your song.  I’m going to have to look that up.

This new knowledge set is coming from school, naturally.  I’ve been so happy about the easy transition you’ve made.  You still like weekends and free-form time at home with me in the afternoon, but your days at school have been going great.  It’s been nice for me to have some relaxing time in the morning now that my energy levels are at an all-time low.  It’s also been nice to have some gift-wrapping time with no curious helpers poking around.  Still, my favorite part of every day is seeing you come out of your classroom, excited and proud of the work you’ve done that morning, ready to rush into my arms with huge smiles on both of our faces.  I love picking your brother up, too, but the world-weariness of a first grader doesn’t have quite the sock-you-in-the-gut charm of preschool joy.

I was helping you get off the potty recently, and you started counting in Spanish.  I consider that a sign of true potty success, that you’ve mastered the skill well enough that you can focus on a little foreign language practice mid-process.

There has been a lot of yelling in our house lately.  You want to be closely involved with everything your brother does, and you are sometimes too aggressive with him.  Combine this with Miles’s naturally tender disposition, and the result is shouting and tears at least once or twice a day.  He gets upset, you get frustrated, you guys freak out at each other, and ten minutes later everything is back to normal (usually).  I hope this helps Little Potato get well used to the noise and emotional fluctuations of our world and that he’ll be chill and resilient once he comes out.

Photo by Denny

You love reading the big brother book we got at the hospital sibling class.  You like to hear the details over and over, both the physical (you are pretty clear on what a uterus is by this point) and philosophical (“What does it mean to be a big brother?”).  I’m sure it will be a shock to your lifestyle, especially when you have to give up some amount of cuddling from me.  I’ve been emphasizing that Little Potato is your baby too—he’s our whole family’s baby—and I think your strong independent streak will help you take a leadership role.

The Montessori learning environment has helped foster that independence too.  You want to do everything by yourself lately, which sometimes results in shoes on the wrong feet and some weird clothing organization.  We’re trying to keep a big picture attitude about it.  Sometimes it’s hard to watch you jam toys and games into containers with little regard for strategy or well-being of the contents (especially for your dad), but mostly I’m happy that you want to do it yourself.

Photo by Denny

Your current favorites:  oranges, both Clementine and Cara Cara; Jake and the Neverland Pirates; this Indian mythology cartoon whose protagonist you swear is named Kreeshner (hint:  Krishna); reading while cuddling in Mommy and Daddy’s bed; Bristle Blocks; your animal and letter magnets.  You invented your own Montessori-style work by matching up the pairs of animals.  We ended up with two sets, though a few are missing and for some reason we have three pandas.  You are great at playing pretend, and you also love to squish into the chair with Miles when he’s playing his PBSkids.org games.  He usually tolerates that pretty well.

The holiday season has been fun and not too chaotic so far.  We decided to stay home, just in case Little Potato decides to emerge early, and all the grandparents are coming to visit us.  You and Miles have been counting down the days, and you especially have loved having the Christmas tree up.  You mess around with the ornaments all the time, and we’ve been making more to fill the hours at home.  We don’t have very many breakable ornaments, but you immediately homed in on the ones that are fragile.  Nothing has broken so far, which is reason enough to be thankful.

I remember being proud as a little kid to give my parents homemade gifts, but at some point I realized that the drippily-glued mosaics and picture frames were actually sort of crappy.  But now, honestly, I cannot wait to open the package that contains the  ornament you made at school.  I hope it has sparkles.

Happy holidays to you, my precious little Tobes.  The best part of the holidays is spending it with excited little kids, and you’re one of my very, very favorites.

Photo by Denny

Love,

Mommy

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