Dear Callum,

It came to me in a moment of panic last night that I hadn’t written your Callum Chronicle yet for this month.  It’s not the latest I’ve ever been, but it’s also not the timeliest.  With three kids to manage, the schedules of whom are getting more complicated all the time, I have to be pretty mentally organized to keep on top of things.  Sorry for letting this one slip.  I promise I haven’t forgotten you.  In fact, you’re on my mind almost all the time, since we’ve been spending our days together, just the two of us.

You do miss your brothers now that they’re back in school, but you get excited for Mommy/Callum time too.  We’ve been doing some fun stuff together, and we’ve got a pretty good routine worked out.  You often like to sleep in, which sometimes I let you do and other times I don’t, depending on how busy the evening is going to be.  You’ve gotten to the point of not taking a nap every day, but you are pretty crabby come six p.m. if you decline to nap.  Therefore, if I know we have activities at night, I try to wake you up early to increase the odds of you napping and improving your evening personality.  The worst case scenario is that I wake you up early, drive around for an hour trying to get you to sleep at naptime (that’s the most reliable way to get you down these days), you still don’t fall asleep, and them we’re both crabby.  I did choose to wake you up early today, because your dad has a meeting and the big boys have swimming lessons tonight.  We’ll see how it goes.

I took you with me to vote yesterday in the school board election.  There was another important issue on the ballot, a bond proposal that will fund improvements on all our local schools.  There was a vocal opposition to the bond, but it had a lot of support, too.  I’m happy to report that the bond passed with a supermajority.  I’m really proud to live in a community that is willing to pay extra to support our teachers and students.  We’re also really happy that our neighbor Ruthina Malone, a former Lucas parent and all-around stellar person, won a spot on the school board.  You went with your dad to “help” him vote last night too, and I hope your earliest memories of your childhood are of voting, just like mine are.  It didn’t hurt that you got to play on the best playground in the area afterward both times.

You are getting more articulate and hilarious every day.  You are learning to explain yourself well in complex and interesting ways.  You are also getting very opinionated about how things ought to be, what belongs to whom, and the ways things can be categorized.  You can be very particular about having your “crapple” (cranapple) juice in your purple cup, but you also get a subversive thrill out of drinking the dregs Miles leaves out in his own cups.

We’ve had a warm and mild fall so far, unlike the weather-related problems that are causing great suffering elsewhere in the country and the world.  I’m so worried about the people who live full-time in the Florida Keys.  It’s our favorite family vacation spot, but many people who own businesses and homes there are having a terrible time.  Hurricane Irma just passed through, and I’m nervous to even look at pictures.  Apparently our usual destination, Marathon Key, was one of the hardest hit.  We’ve already paid for our condo rental for spring break; I have no idea whether we’ll be able to go or not.  I’m giving the owner some time to figure out the level of destruction.  I’d love to go back and support the rebuilding of their local economy, but I also know six months might not be long enough to let the locals get back into shape.  This is coming right on the heels of Hurricane Harvey, which triggered massive rainfall that has caused a lot of trouble in Houston, as well as wildfires in the west.  It’s a scary world, and I hope it’s not too late to make changes that will help regulate these climate-related disasters.

I may have to visit your children in their condo on Mars.  Start saving now!

Your current favorites:  Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter books, climbing outrageously high on playground structures intended for bigger kids, grapes, waffles, inserting yourself into whatever your brothers are doing, and avoiding bedtime by prolonging the goodnight snuggles you give your dad.  “We’re so cozy!” you say, as you interrupt the book he was reading to Tobin and get under the covers with them.

We’ve started to introduce the potty idea a little more aggressively.  Every night before your bath, you do a great job sitting on it, but you haven’t fill it except for the isolated incident a month or two ago.  You act like you’re trying to pee, but then you give up and head to the tub, where you pee into the water about 75% of time.  We’re working on it.  Maybe it’s time to get out some bribes.  On the other hand, you’re younger than either of your brothers when they potty trained, so maybe we should just celebrate the small successes for the time being.

I love you, my sweet Callum.  Your smile is so heart-warming, even when it’s accompanied by a naughty side-eye.  I love the way your chubby little cheeks jiggle as you run.  I love your tender arms when they wrap around me, and I love that you still believe my kisses heal all your wounds.  Sometimes you want me to kiss your eyeballs on particularly itchy allergy nights.  That never works, but I always try.

A lot of what we do only sometimes works, but we always try.

Love,

Mommy

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