Dear Tobin,

This time of year is the best for Timehop. March brings so many wonderful photo memories of our adventures together. Everyone in our family enjoys a vacation, but you and I are the true enthusiasts. You’re always ready to help me plan, and once the plan is in place, you’re always ready to read reviews of restaurants and attractions and look at photos of our lodging.

As it is an even year, we made our trip to the Florida Keys. You were on the tail end of a cold on our way down, so you had a little trouble with plugged ears. You’ve always been susceptible to that, being a small-eared person. We did find that you’re now eligible for an adult dose of Sudafed, and that seemed to be what helped the most. By about halfway through the trip, your ears were doing pretty well, and you didn’t have any trouble on the plane on the way home.

I’ll write more about the our vacation below, but first, I should update about your school year. It honestly hasn’t been a great school year for you, mostly because your teacher was out on maternity leave for most of the second trimester. You weren’t too thrilled with your long-term sub. Apparently there are some loud, raucous kids in your class, and she didn’t do a good job managing the classroom environment. You said it was hard to learn, and you often expressed a pretty bad attitude toward school. That bummed your dad and me out, since you are such an enthusiastic person by nature. You have tons of school friends and had always enjoyed school before, so it was hard to hear you be so down on it. Fortunately, your main teacher is back now, and I’ve noticed your mood has been better. At your conference, which was just a day or two after your teacher’s return, we talked about the struggles you faced during her absence. You said she laid down the law when she got back, so I imagine we weren’t the only family who brought it up. I think the environment is improving, and it seems like you’re more positive about your daily school experience.

In our conference with your ELP teacher, she called out what a good leader you are. She said a lot of times students get caught up in tangents and get off-task, but you’re good at maintaining focus and reining in your ELP classmates. That made your dad and me smile a bit, since in our household, you’re usually the one running around in circles and requiring the reining in. Just about every family dinner includes some kind of critique of your behavior from your dad, whether it’s loud chewing or not sitting still or interrupting. I asked your ELP teacher if she thought you had characteristics of ADHD, and she was quite sure you do not. I have never been overly concerned about it, certainly not to the extent that I felt the need for any intervention. Still, when you do research studies and I have to fill out long surveys about your behavior, your wiggliness comes to my mind. It’s good to hear that you know how to focus and lead in a school environment. I guess when you’re at home, you’re comfortable letting loose and running laps around the dinner table.

You got to let plenty of energy out during our trip. You and your siblings swam every day, usually multiple times. We also took our traditional morning beach walks. You’ve reached the life stage where you prefer to sleep in late, but you made an exception each day to go out and get ankle-deep in the ocean with me. We saw all kinds of interesting things on our walks, from jellyfish to crabs (which ranged from tiny to huge) to lizards to sea sponges. Your favorite place to take a break was a little grotto decorated with shells and buoys. It had a swing where you liked to sit and look out over the ocean.

Along with our old favorite activities, this time we visited Pigeon Key. That’s a small island not accessible by car. People walk, bike, or take a trolley, which is what we did. Pigeon Key was the home base for the construction of the original Seven Mile Bridge when it was used for a railroad. Your dad and siblings took the historical tour, which I would have enjoyed doing, but our highest priority was snorkeling. We had heard that good snorkeling was available right off shore, so we changed into our gear and headed out. We saw all kinds of interesting things, like fish of many sizes and colors, including a big angelfish, conch in their shiny pink shells, and sea urchins. Callum came in at the end and did a little snorkeling too. I was at your exact life stage—spring break of my sixth-grade year—when I first snorkeled, and I’ve loved it ever since. It was so much fun to share that with you. You are excited to try it again. I know there are more places around the Keys we can do it, including some boat excursions to off-shore reefs. I bet you’ll help me do research for a future trip.

Back the condo, your dad and I sat by the pool, watching you kids swim and listening to the sounds of the ocean. He suggested that we go back next year rather than waiting two years. You can imagine my response to that idea, and you can also imagine whom I told first. We haven’t made any solid bookings yet, but I’m going to hold him to that promise.

Your current favorites: hanging out with friends, trip planning, watching YouTube videos, playing Gorilla Tag on the Oculus VR, being part of your school Chess Club, sports (baseball and spring soccer both start next month), helping cook, and laughing.

I’m so glad to have you as a travel buddy, Tobin. You are a shining light.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

Things are looking up around here. You are my number one excitement-sharer for our upcoming trip to the Florida Keys. Perhaps certain members of the family get annoyed with my travel enthusiasm, but lucky for me, I can always count on you to do a wiggly dance as we think about our plans. You talked Callum into a nightly ritual of crossing days off the calendar as our departure approaches, and you’re always up for a scan through the photos of our condo or a visit to the websites of the various restaurants and attractions we’re going to visit. You’ve mentioned several times how excited you are that we’re returning to the same condo we stayed at last time. I agree–not only do we know it’s a nice place, with a fantastic pool and a beautiful beach on-site, but it’s extra special to be able to visualize the space and know what to anticipate.

We have some definite plans and some vague plans, but one thing I know we won’t skip is our morning walks on the beach. You’ve been more into sleeping late as you approach your teen circadian rhythms, but I think I’ll be able to drag you out of bed for a walk on the sand, especially if the foot shower is working.

You’re continuing to take any opportunity you can find to earn money. Whenever a paid research job for your demographic crops up, you always want to sign up for it. Between your lab rat duties, yard work for neighbors, and gift money from grandparents, you’ve got quite a nest egg. You’ve expressed some interest in finance, including possibly taking a financial literacy class as an elective in school next year. Maybe you should take on the task of choosing an investment strategy instead of blowing your earnings on Hot Cheetos.

Earlier this month, you wrapped up the most recent research study you’ve been doing. The researchers had to go back and re-do the brain MRI you started previously, because of a problem with the software they were using. You were slightly annoyed to have to do it again, but you did a good job. I hope it helps you feel less nervous if you have to have an MRI for a legitimate medical reason in the future. You definitely like the payout that comes from these research gigs.

One good outcome of repeating the MRI was that you got your 3D-printed brain in the mail a couple of days later. It’s kind of wild to know that every little groove and wrinkle on that plastic brain represents what’s really in your skull. It’s a lovely brain, and I’m very proud that you’re an important part of scientific research.

All your usual activities have been keeping you busy. You’re finishing up basketball season this week, and it won’t be long before soccer and baseball start. Spring and early summer are always a nonstop time around here, though it gets a little easier once school is out. On the advice of friends who’ve done it in the past, you signed up for a soccer camp in July. Given the amount of socializing you’ve been doing this school year, I foresee another summer full of biking to friends’ houses, going to the pool, and bouncing at the trampoline park. It can be exhausting managing your social schedule, but I see how you thrive with a life full of friends and activities.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: travel planning, hanging out with friends after school, thinking about going to middle school, pizza, cocktail hour, watching shows with your dad at night, and wearing sweats.

Your smile, your laugh, and your zest for life make every day brighter. I can’t wait to walk on the beach with you, my heart.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

It’s been a long, weird winter break. You had the expected couple of weeks off around the holidays, and due to inclement weather of various types, you haven’t had a full school week since then. Last week was the closest, with four days of school, and it’s looking like next week will finally be normal. You’ve been relishing the extra time off. You are slipping into the teenage circadian rhythms—you’ll sleep in until 10:30 or 11:00 if you can. You used to be an early riser, but now that you’re nearly twelve-and-a-half, it’s not too surprising. You’ve also been shoveling our neighbors’ sidewalk and driveway because they’re spending most of the winter out of town. We’d had an almost snow-free winter until January, when it all fell down at once. We got fifteen inches in forty-eight hours during the first wave, and then we got another five or so inches a couple of days later. I read that it’s the largest amount of snow our area has gotten in that short a timeframe since 1973.

The first round of snow was wet and heavy, too, which made for a challenging shoveling task. We all worked at it, since we needed to get our own driveway and sidewalk done as well. Callum mostly rolled around in the snow, but everyone else worked hard. I had to re-up our hot chocolate supply, because that was a popular post-snow-removal treat. After the first blizzard, the temperature dropped severely. You had school cancellations due to the low temperatures, and then when the temperatures rose again to around freezing levels, you had another cancellation due to icy conditions. We’ve had a lot of melting since things have warmed up, but the snow is still pretty deep.

Along with the money you’ve been earning moving snow, you had your highest-paying lab rat job to date. As I may have described in previous monthly letters, you were part of a multi-stage study about the brains of high achievers. You completed a variety of tests, including computer-based activities, interviews, biometric data collection, and an IQ test. You were paid for each phase, but we thought you wouldn’t be eligible for the big payout: the brain MRI. The research is comparing the brains of high-achieving kids both with and without ADHD or autism, and you were in the “without” group. The MRI was only supposed to be for kids in the “with” group, but a member of the research team called me and said your IQ test (verbal IQ specifically) was so high that they wanted to include you. I asked not to get the results, because I didn’t think it would be useful or helpful for me or you to know, but I guess it was a pretty high score.

We went to have it done, and everything went fine from your perspective. Unfortunately, there was some kind of problem with their software for one part of the MRI, so we need to go in next week to finish it up. In any case, you were very excited to get a fat check for your efforts. I’m proud that scientists agree that your brain is so interesting it deserves special scrutiny.

You’ve been very jazzed about starting junior high next year. They’re actually changing it to middle school; you’ll finish out your sixth-grade year in elementary school, but as of next fall, the middle school will house sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders. You’re not only excited about the new opportunities that middle school will bring, but you’re glad that you won’t be in the youngest grade in the school. The principal came to your class earlier this week and talked about all the interesting classes you can take, and we spent a long time filling out a survey the middle school sent to gauge interest. You’ll take the basic classes, of course, as well as ELP and a few electives. You expressed interest in Family & Consumer Sciences (because of the cooking element), metalworking, some art classes, and an introduction to Spanish and French that can set you up to take a more rigorous class in eighth grade.

You’re excited to move on in part because this school year has not been going so great. It started well, but your teacher (whom you liked a lot) left for maternity leave, and you don’t feel very confident in your long-term sub. I guess there are a number of kids in your class who aren’t very well-behaved, and the sub doesn’t have a very firm hand in terms of discipline or classroom management. You’ve been feeling pretty negative about school lately, so it’s nice to see you enthusiastic about what’s coming up next year. I’m hoping that your regular teacher will whip the class into shape when she returns in early March. In any case, the school year always seems like a race to the finish once we hit spring break, and that is coming up in not too long.

You’re my best buddy for spring break dreaming, and we’re very happy that this is a Keys year. You and I share a special joy in looking at pictures of our condo (especially because we’re returning to the same place we stayed last time, which has a particularly lovely pool overlooking the ocean). You also like to look at the websites of local restaurants and attractions with me. Each time we visit, we like to balance returning to our old favorite destinations with trying something new. This time, our plan is to visit Pigeon Key. It’s a little island that was a home base for the people who built the original Seven Mile Bridge, back when it carried a railroad. We’ll take a ferry to get out there, and once we’ve arrived, there’s some historical and natural splendor to enjoy. You have expressed interest in snorkeling there with me, as apparently there’s some good off-shore snorkeling available. It sounds fun, and it’s always good times when I get to do something aquatic with you.

Your current favorites: thinking about junior high, playing with friends, figuring out what we’re having on take-out night, Adidas sweatpants, helping cook, sports, reading (both physical and audiobooks), playing Gorilla Tag with your friends on the Oculus VR, and making money. You have a lot saved up now, so we really need to get you your own bank account so you can make some choices about how to save and spend.

It occurred to me that you’re truly unstoppable, Tobin. With your smart brain, adventurous spirit, and entrepreneurial attitude, I am confident you’ll go far. I just hope you invite me along, or at least let me visit pretty often. I love you so much.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

As usual, you spent this month brimming with energy and enthusiasm. You haven’t been super excited about school lately—your regular teacher is out on maternity leave, and I think your long-term sub isn’t quite living up to the standards the regular teacher set. She should be back this spring, and I know you’re looking forward to that. You love babies, and I know you’re going to be excited to see pictures of her newborn and hear about his developments. While you’re not thrilled about the day-to-day school experience, you’re certainly invested in the sixth-grade social scene. Almost every day after school you play at a friend’s house, and you’re invited to sleepovers many weekends. It can be hard to keep track of your social calendar, but it’s helped that you have an Apple watch now, so at least I can find your location and text you if we need to make adjustments to the plan.

Your money-making schemes have yielded some good dividends lately. You’ve been doing a multi-part study about the genetics of giftedness. You had to spit into a tube to provide a DNA sample, then you did some interactive activities and had biometric data taken, and then you took an IQ test. The staffmember who administered the IQ test mentioned that you may or may not be eligible for the final part of the study, which is an MRI. She said it sounded cool, because you get a 3D printout of your brain when it’s all done. I later received a communication from the research lab stating that people were only eligible for the MRI part of the study if they were academically gift and also had a diagnosis of autism or ADHD.

I’ve had my suspicions throughout the years that you may have a touch of the ADHD, but it was never disruptive enough that I sought out any kind of diagnosis or treatment. I was never sure (and am still not sure) if your inability to sit in a chair through an entire meal is outside the normal range for a kid; all I have for comparison are your siblings, both of whom are on the sedate side. Regardless, you’ve never had a problem achieving good grades in school, and your teachers have never complained about your behavior. You get along well with others, so I figured as long as you weren’t experiencing any negative outcomes, there was no need to pathologize you.

In any case, it didn’t matter, because a member of the research team called me up and said that you scored so high on the verbal portion of the IQ test, they want to do the MRI on you. I clarified that you do NOT have an ADHD or autism diagnosis, and she double-checked with her supervisor. She was right the first time: they want to take a look into that weird and wonderful brain of yours.

I expressed some concern about whether you’d be able to lie still in an MRI machine for that long, and she assured me that even if you can’t complete the full session, they can still use whatever information they can get and it shouldn’t dissuade us from doing it. I imagine if their usual audience is kids who definitely have ADHD or autism, they’re prepared to handle a variety of tolerance levels. I’ve had MRIs several times, and for me the worst part is the loud noise. You have no qualms about loud noise, so you may do just fine. The best part from your perspective is that you get $95. Despite being a person with no expenses, you really love earning and saving money, and being a lab rat is an interesting way to do that.

You had your first band concert as a member of the advanced band. It’s amazing how much musical growth happens in one year of band lessons. Attending those concerts reaffirms my belief that there is no more selfless a human being than an elementary school band teacher. You and Artemis both like the band teacher at your school, and I think she has a good sense of humor. That is probably a requirement for the position.

At dinner the evening of your concert, you mentioned that you had asked to introduce the song “Samba la Bamba,” but the teacher had only vaguely acknowledged your request. From attending previous concerts, it seemed to me that the kids who did introductions had something fairly lengthy prepared, probably with the teacher’s input, so I wasn’t really expecting you to do the introduction.

When “Samba la Bamba” came up in the program, you walked to the microphone and gave a very eloquent introduction to the song. Then, at the end, you said “also known as SAMba la BAMba,” in a crazy accent that cannot easily be rendered in text but reminded me of Yosemite Sam. I’ve watched the video of it about a hundred times, and quite a few parents laughed about it with me after the concert. You’re a nut and half, Tobin.

Your current favorites: food from Panda Express, playing online games with your friends, sleepovers, the Percy Jackson book series by Rick Riordan, Flamin’ Hot Funyuns, cookies and milk, maintaining family traditions, wearing Adidas sweatpants and hoodie, and playing indoor soccer with Callum. You’re a great brother, a great son, a great friend, and a joy to have around. I don’t know exactly what I expect to see when we get the 3D printout of your brain, but I have a feeling it’s going to be spectacular.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

As usual, you’ve approached the last month with enthusiasm and vigor. You play with friends almost every day after school, and you’re always up to some kind of plan or adventure. Earlier this month, you and two of your neighborhood friends earned almost a hundred dollars by raking people’s yards on one afternoon. You claim to be saving up to build a gaming PC, though I’m not sure you really know what that project entails. Your dad seems reluctant to get you started on that, maybe because he anticipates how much of it he would end up doing. You already spend a fair amount of time playing video games on the devices we own, so adding another piece of hardware (many different pieces, I’d guess) might not be the best strategy for your development.

Another money-making scheme of yours is participating in scientific experiments. You tell me to sign you up whenever an experiment comes along that you are eligible for, and you’ve raked in a good amount of money and gift cards for your efforts. Your most recent one is a study of talented and gifted youth. You filled out a survey, did an interview, did activities on a computer, had your vitals measured (including the hand-scan below, which was measuring your finger proportions), took an IQ test, and sent in a saliva sample for genetic analysis.

We haven’t received the results of the IQ test yet, and I actually told the graduate student who administered the test that I’d rather not know. I feel like there’s not much benefit to knowing your own or your child’s IQ. I think of you as really smart, and there’s no need to put a number on that. If your score on that one test on that one day were lower than I expected, I’d feel sad. If your score were really high, you might get an overinflated ego or put too much pressure on yourself to succeed. Either way, we’re happy to support the research, and the details matter less than the fact that I know you’re a creative, bright, friendly, excellent kid. You’re also happy to get Amazon gift cards.

You had a fun Halloween, joining up with a group of friends in a neighborhood not too far from ours. You were a Chaos Agent, which I guess is a character from the video game Fortnite. I had never heard of it, but you showed me a picture, and I did the best I could. I think the costume turned out pretty cool. It was a chilly night, but you were pretty well-bundled and came home with lots of candy. You were kind enough to include Callum in your group, at least to start. He is good friends with the little brother of one of your friends, so it worked out well for a little-kids’ subgroup to form. Your dad walked with the little kids, and the bigger kids were free-range. Luckily everyone stayed safe and watched out for each other. It was a good night, and I think you’re finally through your candy.

You’ve enjoyed having more free time now that soccer season is over. As I mentioned above, you spend most afternoons playing with friends. You always want plenty of warning on stir-fry night, though, so you can help me make it. You also are an expert pizza maker. Mubby and Skitter were visiting a couple of weeks ago when we made Tobin’s Famous Pizza, and it was fun to include them. We only make one smallish pizza at a time, so it becomes an entire-evening affair, with the whole family involved. This time around, you not only did your usual saucing, pepperoni-ing, and cheesing, but you also cut up vegetables. You’re a pretty big vegetable-eater most of the time, but for pizza, you’re a purist. Luckily there were other pizza-eaters who appreciated the peppers and onions.

We’ve been talking a lot about our 2026 Europe trip, and I know the pizza part will be fun for you. Maybe we could even take a cooking class or do some other culinary activity. You have an adventurous spirit, and we’ll have a wonderful time learning together. Our spring break trip to the Florida Keys is coming up in a few months, and we’ve been sighing over how excited we are to get there. Not only do you love adventure, you love family traditions, and that’s what Keys are for us.

Your current favorites: helping me plan travel, such as scouring VRBO for possible European vacation rentals and viewing the one we already have booked for the Keys; being wiggly and not staying in your chair through meals; your favorite Adidas sweatpants and cozy hoodie; playing soccer and other sports with your friends; cooking and trying new foods; and reading (especially the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book you got at the school book fair and anything by Rick Riordan).

You’re a joy, a spark, a dash of flavor in our family sauce. I love you so much, Tobin.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

Sixth grade is continuing along well. While you’ve never had trouble making friends, this year has marked an especially big boom in socializing. You’re still close with you long-time friends, but you’ve also expanded your circle. It seems like every weekend you’re invited to a sleepover at a different friend’s house. You were begging and begging to host one, and since we hadn’t yet reciprocated the generosity of the families who hosted you, your dad and I relented. You had a long weekend off from school, so one of those nights, a few of your friends came over. You played soccer, hide-and-seek, and touch football in the park; ate pizza, chips, and Oreos; stayed up late shrieking; and had a good time all-around. You were really happy with how it went, and I’m sure we’ll be doing it again before sixth grade is out.

You’re a good brother, always ready to engage in active pursuits with Callum. He’s noticed you reading a lot lately and copied you, getting excited about a thick, challenging book. You included him really kindly in your sleepover, letting him hang out with you and your friends until bedtime. You told me that when Artemis had a sleepover, they didn’t let you hang out much, and it hurt your feelings. I read an adage somewhere that a good litmus test of character is whether pains of the past spur a person to expect others to suffer equally, or whether they spur a person to make the world better for others. I’m really proud that you’ve chosen the latter.

Soccer has been another big deal for you lately. You switched to a different team this year, one that includes a lot of your school friends, and you’ve been having a blast with it. Your team had been doing very well until the last couple of weeks, when you’ve had losses, but overall it’s been a great season. You love carpooling to practice with your friend Zach, scrimmaging and skill-building with your friends, and playing the games. You only have one game left this season, which is probably disappointing to you, but I’ll be glad to have soccer wrapped up. It’s only going to get chillier as we move through fall. Also, since Callum’s games are usually not at the same time as yours, it can make for a long day out at the soccer fields. I’m sure you’ll want to play again in the spring, though.

Although you’ve generally been an early-riser when left to your own internal clock, it’s been getting hard to wake you up in the morning. I fear you’re shifting to a teenage schedule of wanting to stay up late and sleep in late. In our school district, secondary school starts an hour later than elementary school, so next year your timeframe will be different. Even when you were a baby and toddler, it was very difficult to wake you up before your body was ready. I remember needing to wake you up early from a nap many days when it was time to go pick up your sibling from school, and I quickly learned that I needed to build in a ten-minute buffer. If I tried to maximize your sleep by letting you continue your nap until the last minute, there was hell to pay. You needed at least ten minutes to just sit there and be grumpy before I could even talk to you.

You’re not quite as much of a turd upon waking up these days, but it’s still a challenge. Your dad handles that task most mornings while I’m packing lunches for you and your siblings. Now and then I am the one who does it, and it always amazes me how challenging it is to get you out of bed. Once the parent in charge finally succeeds, you go straight to the couch and sleep some more. I go over and ask you whether you want your usual cereal for breakfast, and you murmur a yes. I pour your cereal and milk and go back to tell you it’s ready, but you’re always fast asleep again. Then either your dad or I has the job of prying you off the couch. Once we’re successful in that, you eat your breakfast and get dressed. Most days, I then find you asleep in Callum’s bed, fully dressed and ready for school, but happy to nap for a while longer while Callum finishes getting ready.

When you’re not sleeping, playing soccer, or hanging with your friends, you enjoy being part of science experiments. I frequently receive invitations for various paid research endeavors, and whenever you’re eligible to be a subject, you want to do it. You’ve crossed simulated roads while virtual reality cars are passing, you’ve had electrodes measuring your brain waves as you hear different sounds, and you’re part of a longitudinal study about how kids read and learn language. The most recent one you’re doing is part of a study researching the genetic elements of intelligence. You and I both filled out surveys and spit into tubes so they scientists could learn about our genes. You got invited back to the second stage of the study, which involves having your vital signs taken, participating in an interview, and taking a test. The third stage, which is optional, involves an MRI. I don’t know if you’ll be invited to participate in that or even if you’ll want to, but I’m sure the compensation will be part of your decision-making process. You love getting the paychecks and gift cards that come of these experiences. I love being a part of science that could help future generations be safer, healthier, and happier.

Your current favorites: The Percy Jackson book series (and its spin-offs) by Rick Riordan, online gaming with your friends, hanging out with friends after school, sleepovers, soccer, helping cook, and sneaking naps on various soft surfaces throughout the house.

You’re a hoot, a joy, and a big source of smiles. Your mouth always has something enthusiastic and energetic to say, even if your dad wishes you would eat more quietly. It doesn’t bother me, and I’m glad you approach every facet of life with gusto.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

The school year has begun, and you have jumped right into a high-action lifestyle. Lately you’ve been getting up early to go for a run before school, sometimes with your dad, sometimes with your friend Jack, and sometimes by yourself. I really admire your dedication. You’re adjusting well to your new class. It doesn’t have your entire friend group in it, but it has enough of your close pals that you’re generally satisfied. Almost every day after school, you play with friends. You have soccer several days a week, and you’d probably be playing fall baseball, too, if I let you. That would just be more than our family schedule could handle.

One thing that has been good for all of us is the arrival of your Apple Watch. It’s very handy for you to text me with your after-school plans, and I can see where you are using Find My iPhone. It’s a relief to me to be able to keep better tabs on you, and of course you think it’s cool to have a not-quite phone. Given your personality, I could see you overdoing it with a true phone, so this is a good compromise. It’s also harder to lose something that’s strapped to your body.

As a sixth grader, you have more opportunities and responsibilities. You’re a member of Safety Patrol, which is a group of sixth grades tasked with helping younger kids cross the streets around the school safely before and after the school day begins. You recently had your first week on duty, and you loved it so much. Somehow it’s not surprising that you enjoy power, but I think you were friendly about it. Callum and I got a kick out of letting you guide us past the parking lot entrance as we walked home. You were bummed out when you found out there were six teams, so it won’t be your turn again for over a month. It might be a little less pleasant when it’s very cold outside, but the faculty sponsor provides hot chocolate on the chilly days. I’ve heard talk that the program may be ending this year, because sixth graders are moving to the junior high next year. I guess it remains to be seen whether fifth graders are mature enough to handle the job. In any case, I’m glad you got to be part of possibly the last class of Safety Patrollers.

You got really into swimming this summer, and our local pool closes after Labor Day. Labor Day happened to be a hot one, so you convinced the whole family to go out and celebrate one more summer splash. You’ve gotten very competent at swimming and brave about going off the diving boards. You’ve also expressed interest in snorkeling on our Florida Keys trip this spring. I’ve been wanting to take a trip to Pigeon Key, and their website indicates that there’s good snorkeling there suitable for beginners. Maybe one day we’ll do a bigger-deal snorkeling trip, but this could be a good way to start. You may need to put a new wet suit on your Christmas list.

After much campaigning on your part, we’ve decided to let you stop masking at school. In my ideal world, you’d mask forever, but you really didn’t want to. Very few people mask anymore, and you’re such a social person that I think the weirdness factor influenced you. Your dad and I just got our Covid boosters, and I’m working on getting them scheduled for you kids. It’s true that Covid isn’t the deadly threat it used to be, and Callum’s doctors reassured us that even kids like him on immunosuppressants generally do okay with Covid. I guess it’s just a matter of when at this point, but I’d still like to avoid it as much as I can. It generally hits adults harder than kids, so if I get it, who will take care of you and your siblings? You might have to get the Chomp Delivery app on your Apple Watch.

I still ask you to mask in crowded situations like the trampoline park, and you grumble about it, but I can deal with your attitude. I’m also planning to ask you to mask at school the week or so before our spring break trip, because there’s no way I want to miss that. I think you’re excited enough about all the swimming and fun that you’ll handle it okay. What would be hardest on you is the isolation required after a Covid diagnosis. You crave human interaction so much, it would be very difficult for you. Artemis, who is a much more solitary person than you are, handled it just fine when they had Covid last March. I think you’d start bouncing off the walls of your room after about eighteen hours, though. Maybe that would be a good learning experience for you. You’ve been texting me a lot ever since you got your watch, and I feel like we’d end up doing a lot of FaceTime. That’s okay. I like your face.

Your current favorites: the Percy Jackson book series by Rick Riordan, online gaming with your friends, playing the video game Bloons with Callum, helping with cooking tasks, playing soccer both on your team and informally with friends, and being a fun and adventurous person.

I’m glad you’re having such a great start to your “senior in elementary school” year. We’ve started making some plans about going out to the soccer field for me to take pictures of you to commemorate this time. I’m not saying you’re forgettable, because you’re definitely not. I just want to always remember your smile, your spirit, and the little-boy sweetness you still have. You’re a treasure.

Love,

Mom

Happy birthday, dear Tobin!

We went out to dinner tonight, and even though you chose not to order from it, I noticed that the age limit for the kids’ menu was twelve. It’s a relief to know that, at least by that restaurant’s standards, you’re still a youth. You seem more grown-up every day to me, though you do sometimes show your little-boy self. Sixth grade has begun, and I’ll write more about that next month. It’s a time of big change and growth, and you’re doing great for the most part.

You’ve been busy-busy-busy this summer, with social activities multiple times a week. It seems like every day you’re out an about with your friends, riding bikes around the neighborhood, playing video games at someone’s house, or going to the swimming pool. You did a lot of good swimming this summer, and you chose the pool as the setting for your birthday party. You and a handful of your friends splashed in the chilly outdoor pool water, jumped off the diving board a hundred times, and then dried off for some time eating treats and hanging out. Over the last year or so, you’ve cultivated a good group of friends. You are still close with Kit, and you’ve gotten to be better friends with Jack, too. We’ve known Jack and his family for a long time, but it was only in the last school year that you two got to know each other well. He lives nearby, so you’ve trod the path between our houses many times.

Your friend group is a mostly nice, respectful, and kind bunch of kids. I thought you would be the only twelve-year-old in the world who requested a veggie platter at his birthday party (along side Double-Stuffed Oreos, chips, cake, and Gatorade), but the veggies actually went pretty fast.

In fact, you got to have two birthday cakes: one for your party with friends (Grammy’s chocolate cake) and one at home (pumpkin cake). You decided chocolate would probably be more of a crowd-pleaser, which is probably true, but it also made for a lot of cake-baking for me. That’s okay; I like baking cakes and celebrating you. You haven’t received it yet, but you’ll be getting an Apple Watch some time in the next couple of weeks. You’ve been begging for a phone, citing very reasonable examples of times when it would be useful for communicating with me. Your dad and I aren’t sure you’re ready for a phone yet, but an Apple Watch seemed like a good compromise. You’ll be able to text and call with it, so we can be in touch, and I can use it to track your location. As you are a person who is frequently on the move, having an idea of where you are will be good for my mental health. Hopefully something that’s strapped to your wrist will be hard to lose, too.

The week before your birthday, you spent a week at Mubby and Skitter’s house with your siblings. I think you inherited your on-the-move nature from Mubby, because she kept you kids hopping. Every day you were there, I think you did at least three activities. One day you went fishing in the morning, out for lunch, then to a movie, then to the swimming pool. I don’t know how Mubby has the energy to do so many things, but you especially thrived in such a stimulating environment. I know you guys played a lot of poker, too. I bet you also had a lot of cocktail hours and junky snacks. Mubby and Skitter also reported that you got along well with your siblings and were kind and well-mannered. The last time we heard a report like that, Artemis muttered that it was just because Mubby and Skitter can’t hear you very well. That may be the case, but I’m glad you can at least give the illusion of good behavior.

You tell me that your career goals include being a chef or an astronaut. You have been expanding your palette lately, trying new foods and preferring vegetables to apple slices in your sack lunch. You’ve reached a level of competence that when you help me make your favorite dinner, stir-fry, you’re legitimately helpful. You said you want to start helping make dinner more often, so I’ll have to take advantage of that. I have zero expertise in terms of space, though, so you’re on your own for astronaut training.

Your current favorites: playing online (especially Fortnite) and in-person with your friends, swimming, helping cook, wearing your soccer and baseball jerseys as shirts, laughing, hot Funyuns and Cheetos, being in the center of any action available, and sleeping in. You used to be an early riser, but these days you’ve been enjoying a late sleep. You usually request an 8:30 a.m. wake-up on non-school days, but as often as you actually get out of bed, you tell me that you’d rather sleep. I guess the teen years aren’t far off.

In the meantime, I’ll have to love you extra hard as a twelve-year-old.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

We’re entering into the last month of summer and your last month as an eleven-year-old. You’ve spent most of the summer with friends, whether playing basketball and soccer outside, jumping on trampolines, going to the swimming pool, playing video games, or attending sleepovers. You going to sleepovers isn’t my favorite thing in the world, partly because I miss you and partly because of health anxiety. COVID isn’t over, and especially with Callum’s newly immunosuppressed status, colds and flu are just as big a problem. However, you are someone who could probably never be happy without lots of socializing, so I’ve been trying to calm down and let you do some unmasked hanging out. We got an air purifier for the room you and Callum share, and the plan is to have the two of you sleep in separate rooms if either of you is at all ill. It’s not easy for me, but I want you to have a fun and fulfilling life. We all have to bend sometimes.

It won’t be long before you start sixth grade. In fact, the back-to-school ice cream social is on your birthday, and the first day of school is just two days after that. It might not be as exciting as previous years, since you’ve been seeing your friends just about every day this summer anyway. Our school system is changing the year after next; it has been organized with students in kindergarten through sixth grade in the elementary schools and seventh and eighth graders in junior high. They’ll be moving to a middle school model with sixth grade in the junior high building, but not until after you’ve completed your sixth grade year. You’re pretty happy about that, and I’m glad for you too. You’ve gotten such a good friend group established over the last couple of years, you’ll surely relish being the top dogs in the elementary school. Plus, as you pointed out, you won’t have to be the youngest kids in the school next year. I’m sure it will be good times.

You’ve earned some money this summer doing science experiments. The picture above came from an experiment in the department of audiology. The researcher connected electrodes to your scalp (just with gel, no needles) and you heard a series of sounds through headphones. The electrodes communicated your brain activity to a computer that did some kind of analysis. The goal of the experiment was to learn about how people of different ages differentiate between similar sounds (e.g., p and b), with the long-term goal of making better hearing aids and cochlear implants. It’s a pretty well-paying gig for a kid, and you have told me that you want to do any other research opportunity that comes along. I just replied to another one today, so we’ll see how that pans out. You love accumulating money, though you haven’t decided yet what you’re saving up to buy. You mentioned something about a new gaming console, but I could see you changing your mind about the specifics between now and the time you earn enough money for it.

Our family vacation was a big deal. We don’t often make a major trip in the summer, as we usually save our money and energy for our Florida Keys trips every other spring. This year, though, we were invited to a family reunion in Ithaca, New York. You had a lot of fun getting to know cousins you hadn’t spent much time with before. It was a very outdoorsy trip, featuring lots of waterfalls and fresh-air time (actually kind of smokey-air, due to the Canadian wildfires). We also took side trips to the Corning Museum of Glass, where you got to design and help make a glass ornament, and to Niagara Falls. You kids all seemed to really enjoy the Maid of the Mist ride. I didn’t get any great pictures of the falls proper, because when we were very close to them on the boat, it was much too misty to take out my phone. We didn’t get too went thanks to the ponchos, and it was a lot of fun.

The ride home was a bit challenging due to a malfunctioning air conditioner in the van, but you kids all behaved very well and responded positively to frequent stops for slushies and stretches. We made it safely home, and you were ready to jump back into your regular summer friend hangouts almost immediately.

Another cousin-centric part of your summer was time with your Tennessee-based cousins. They don’t get up to Iowa much. We usually see them either by going to Tennessee or meeting in Missouri, but this time they made the trip. You loved having a person in the same house (your cousin Aleks) who was willing to play basketball with you at any moment. You had fun going to the baseball fields, making s’mores in Mubby and Skitter’s firepit, and sampling new sports drinks.

I can always count on you to have fun, especially when sports and treats and friends are involved. I love your cheerful nature and constant state of readiness for action and excitement. Sometimes it’s tiring, which is why it’s helpful that you get along so well with cousins and other kids. Whenever I hear balls banging around and people shouting in the basement, I can be sure it’s because you’ve talked Callum into a game of Hamper Ball.

Your current favorites: helping me cook and trying new foods, going to the pool, sleepovers, video games (alone and networked with your friends), special lunch dates downtown with food from Z’Marik’s, frozen yogurt, audiobooks, and sleeping in. You sometimes want to wake up early to play online games with your friends, but more often lately you’ve been enjoying a teenage schedule.

You’ve had a heck of a summer, and I hope you enjoy the last weeks of it, as well as your last weeks of being eleven. I couldn’t ask for a better tween.

Love,

Mom

My dear Tobin,

It’s been a busy and fun month for you. First of all, you finally got to be part of the winning team in your school spelling bee. It’s the first time the bee has been held since pre-pandemic times. When you were in second grade, you received the assignment to write your goal for the year. Your goal was to win the spelling bee. Now, three years later, you and your teammate realized that dream. I was so happy and proud of you. It was tough to watch you, because you and Callum were competing at the same time in different rooms. I was dashing all over the school, trying to glimpse your moments of success and challenge. When you and your partner hear the announcement that you were the winners, your mask couldn’t disguise your excitement. It’s extra special to see your name on the official winners’ plaque. It’s sitting in our house right now, because it was your dad’s job as spelling bee chair to coordinate the engraving, but soon it will be on the wall at school for all to admire.

You have one more year in elementary school, so you’ll get to enjoy the glory as people pass by and see your name. The school system is restructuring a bit, changing to a sixth-seventh-eighth middle school model, but not until after you finish sixth grade in elementary school. It’s special that you’ll get to be part of the last class of sixth graders graduating from elementary school in our district. You’re also happy because you were part of putting a time capsule together that will be opened in 2024, and if you hadn’t been at the same school at that time, you would have missed it.

Your school year went very well. As usual, I have very few concerns about you. You did well academically both in your regular classroom and in ELP. You and your ELP classmates did a trimester-long project about making a business. In your case, it was a restaurant: Luftwaffé, the Waffle Café (my apologies if I spelled that wrong). You planned out all kinds of variables and strategies about how to make a success, and on the last day, you made waffles in class. Fortunately, you have ELP first thing in the morning at school, so I skipped feeding you breakfast that day and let you be a patron at your own restaurant. You got to bring toppings, and you admitted (bragged about) squirting canned whipped topping directly into your mouth.

You remain mostly a happy and fun kid, though you occasionally slip into a bout of moodiness that I guess is to be expected in the tween years. Your favorite thing to do in the world is spend time with your friends, whether you’re riding your bikes around the neighborhood, playing video games, playing sports, or sleeping over. You get the crabbiest when I won’t let you do the things you want to do. We had a miscommunication about a potential sleepover a couple of days before our vacation. It wasn’t great timing anyway because we were about to be stuck in a car and single hotel room together for the first chunk of the trip, and I require some health precautions like masking in common spaces and social distancing at meals after I let you do an unmasked social event like a sleepover. Callum is on immunosuppressant drugs, and we’re working hard to protect him not only from COVID, but from other illnesses and infections as well. So anyway, originally I thought the timing of the potential sleepover was impossible, but it turned out I misunderstood and it was merely inconvenient. Boy, were you mad at me when you found out it was happening at a time when you could have potentially attended.

You’re still a sweet guy, though. You want me around at your games and events, and you were very happy after school got out and I could stay till the end of your baseball games. During the school year, they went so late that I had to leave partway through in order to get Callum showered, fed, teeth brushed and into bed at a reasonable time. Once we got to start staying till the finish, you were always happy to see me in the crowd. You’re developing your skills as a pitcher. You’re still a beginner in that area, but you’re getting better, and you made your goal of striking out a batter. You do funny little celebration dances and chest thumps to acknowledge successes, nothing obnoxious or offensive, but noticeable to those of us watching you closely. It always makes me smile to see you expressing the joy that defines your personality.

Baseball season is over now. Another thing that irritated you was that you had to miss the championship tournament due to our vacation schedule. You knew about that prior to starting baseball, and asked you whether you’d find that so frustrating that you’d rather skip it and just do soccer in the spring. No, you insisted: you still wanted to do baseball. It made for a busy, busy spring, with you and Callum playing both soccer and baseball, but you truly love it. Next year might be a little different, because Callum will change leagues, and you’ll play your games at the same time rather than consecutively. That means you won’t have that extra hour and a half before your game starts to pal around with your friends, eat concession stand food, and play catch. Something tells me you might insist on going early to get some of that done.

Your current favorites: sports, playing with your friends, swimming, torturing me by telling me about dangerous things you did when I wasn’t looking, snacking, being a goofball, introducing Callum to your favorite childhood TV shows like Scooby Doo and Odd Squad, and playing online games with your friends. You used your own money to buy a microphone headset, which makes you look like a very fancy gamer indeed.

You’re full of strong feelings, my dear Tobin, and I’m glad that most of them come out as happiness and enthusiasm. Things are never dull if you’re in the vicinity, and you push my boundaries most days. I hope you look back on your kid years and know that I felt a constant struggle to balance letting you have wild adventures and keeping you safe. I appreciate the way you help me evaluate my motivations and look beyond my fears. You give me worry-wrinkles but a whole lot of laugh lines too. You’re worth every single one.

Love,

Mom

My sweet Tobin,

You are busy, busy, busy, and you love it. Just about every afternoon and evening in your schedule is booked, you’re playing with friends after school, practicing and playing in soccer and baseball games, playing in your school band concert, and going to sleepovers on weekend. Sometimes it’s challenging raising a child whose threshold for being busy is so much higher than mine, and it’s definitely a challenge to keep up with your life. Your dad and I split the duties, and I know you’d like it if I could attend every single one of your events, but sometimes it’s impossible. I need to get your siblings to their classes and practices too, and your baseball games go too late for Callum on school nights. One might argue that they go too late for you on school nights too, but I don’t think you’d ever leave before the final inning. We’re nearing the end of the school year now, and I’ve promised you that I’ll stay till the end of your baseball games once the need to get Callum home to bed is less pressing.

You’re happiest when you’re running, jumping, swinging a bat or kicking a ball. Even around the house, you’re always moving, pacing, and wiggling. You had your school track and field day recently, and you and your friends had a blast doing all the events. Your team even won the 4×100 relay. It was thanks largely to a super-speedy anchor, but he couldn’t have pulled it off if his teammates hadn’t pushed him ahead. You finished the day happy, sweaty, and tired. You were also happy that I came. I was chatting with your friend’s mom at baseball the next day, and she said her son didn’t want her to come. I felt glad that you appreciate my presence at stuff like that, because I love going. I have been really grateful lately for the flexibility of schedule I have. Being present for the special moments in your and your siblings’ lives is so important to me, so it’s nice that you always make me feel welcome.

In non-athletic news, your school year seems to be wrapping up well. We spent a lot of the month preparing for the school spelling bee. I’ll write more about that next month, because it technically occurred after your month birthday. I try to limit the content of these letters to the events of the month, but last week was so busy I’m only now getting a chance to write it. Nevertheless, it was a lot of work to prepare for the spelling bee. Fifth and sixth graders are given a list of words generally intended for seventh and eighth graders, to push you beyond your usual level. We spent a lot of time practicing those words, and it was sometimes pretty frustrating. You had particular trouble with the words precipe, defendant, and fluorescent. We worked hard, though. Watch this space for the exciting conclusion to the spelling bee saga.

You’re still a good helper in the kitchen. You just helped with your favorite, beef and snow peas stir-fry, and you also got a kick out of scraping frozen margarita mix out of containers for your dad and me. You say you want to be a bartender someday like your great-Grandad, and I know you’d be great at it. Like him, you’re good at chatting people up and being charming. I’m sure you’d get a lot of tips.

You were a good sport about participating in the Family Folk Machine concert, but I fear your role in that group may not last long. For you, musical performances is more about spending time with friends and less about the satisfaction of making music per se. You seem to enjoy school band, but that’s more because your friends Ben and Elizabeth both also play saxophone so you get to hang out with them at rehearsals and concerts. Family Folk Machine is fun when your (other) friend Ben is available to play, but he’s also part of the FFM band, so he gets busy with his role doing that toward the end of the session. That leaves you without many peers, since most of the FFM kids skew younger. You’re a good support to Callum, but he’s getting big enough now that he can probably handle it on his own. It will be interesting to see what kind of involvement you choose to having moving forward.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: granola bars, pizza, playing with friends, being goofy, watching Scooby Doo with Callum, playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch, and cuddling up in bed with Callum and me for bedtime reading of the Humphrey series. You started doing that a while ago, and it’s become a tradition. Sometimes you and Callum jockey for space in bed, which in turn shoves me around, but I like having you there. In fact, you and Callum agreed that we’d skip Humphrey tonight, because you’re at a friend’s house for a sleepover, and we wouldn’t want you to miss out.

You’re a joy, a bright light, and a resilient kid. Though your life is not without its trials and disappointments, I can always count on you to bounce back quickly and find something to smile about. You are something to smile about, every single day.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

Springtime is here, and you’re loving it. You’ve been busy with sports most nights, and any out-of-school time you’re not at a game or practice, you’re probably out playing with your friends. Over this school year, you’ve expanded your existing friend group into a nice neighborhood cohort. You often walk home with friends and play after school at someone’s house, or a group of you will bike around. You’ve been lobbying hard to get a phone, and while I don’t love that idea for certain reasons, I also would appreciate the ability to get touch with you or track your location. You’re usually pretty good about checking in at the prescribed time, but the more mobile you get, the more useful it would be to have strong communication channels.

While you’re definitely getting more independent, you’re still sweet. You don’t feel quite right if we don’t do our nightly ritual of an extensive goodnight back-and-forth. You’re appreciative of your advantages and opportunities. We’ve had the chance to attend some theatrical and cultural events lately, and you love doing that sort of thing. Mubby got us the generous gift of tickets to The Lion King, and we had a lot of fun seeing that a couple of weeks ago. We’ve also gone to Artemis’s jazz band showcase and the high school production of Mamma Mia. You’re always eager and excited for experiences like those, even if you have a hard time sitting still.

You are definitely a wiggler. You’re still the kid in our family who is least likely to spend an entire meal seated. You’re high energy and always ready to jump up and do the next thing. After one of the “lab rat” jobs that you do for a little extra cash and to support university research, the researcher indicated that you might have ADHD. While that does track to some extent, at this time I don’t have any interest in seeking a formal diagnosis or treatment. Yes, you’re energetic and have a hard time sitting still, but I don’t feel any need to pathologize those qualities, because they’re not negatively affecting your life. You’re doing great academically, have lots of friends and interests, and don’t seem to be struggling in any major area of life. Your wiggly self is doing just fine. The challenge will be finding a career or other life path that capitalizes on your strengths, rather than forcing you to sit in a cubicle all day. You would almost certainly wear out the spinning function of a desk chair if you had to sit in one all the time.

You attended a sleepover birthday party at a friend’s house last weekend. It’s the first time we’ve let you do an indoor, unmasked group situation since COVID. It wasn’t my favorite thing in the world, but you agreed to mask around the house for a few days afterward. You had a blast, were a good sport about masking, and had a negative test a few days later. I know I’m going to need to relax about all this eventually, because I don’t want my own anxieties to create undue limitations on your social life and development. You’re at the age where social relationships are becoming more and more important (including the handful of girls from your grade who keep turning up when you hang out with your friends). I guess at some point I’ll have to concede and accept that we’re going to get COVID. Most people do just fine with it, especially kids, but since it hasn’t hit 4/5 of our family yet, I’m still clinging to the strategies that have worked so far. I hope vaccines continue to improve, because with the federal state of emergency ending, we’re getting less and less data.

I’m someone who wants all the data all the time, and it stresses me out not to have access to daily or weekly local case numbers. Right now my best sources are states that are still reporting (which are most non-Iowa states). I keep an eye on key metro areas: New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and the Quad Cities. That, plus hospital admissions rates, gives me a sense of general trends. At the moment, things don’t look too bad. That plus all the outdoor recreation opportunities summer brings will hopefully give us some good times ahead.

Your elementary band concert is coming up next week. I haven’t heard you play your saxophone much; music doesn’t seem to stir you in a particularly deep way. How I gave birth to such a jock continues to bemuse me, but I appreciate that you continue with saxophone and Family Folk Machine. You’ve taken a break from your bass lessons for the time being due to being so busy with other activities. Music may not be part of your long-term plan, but I’m glad you have some background in it and can know the joy that comes with group musical expression. Maybe it’s the same kind of feeling that you get from group sports. It’s okay if we don’t always like the same things, but I’m glad you’ve given a variety of areas a fair chance. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep you involved in Family Folk Machine, as it’s getting harder and harder to get you there. I see that with a lot of other parents in the group. They join with their kids, and the kids end up pursuing other activities while the parents stick around. You mostly are in it for the social elements. Your good friend Ben is usually around, but he plays fiddle with the band. As we draw closer to the concert, he’s busier doing that and can spend less time goofing around with you.

Fortunately, you have many other friends and many other opportunities to goof around. You want to be wherever there’s action and adventure. That can be exhausting for those of us who try to keep up with you, but I love seeing you thrive.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: helping to cook, riding bikes around the neighborhood with your friends, soccer, baseball, spicy chips, watching shows at night with your dad, onion rings, and trying new foods. You’ve gotten excited lately about the Spicy Korean Beef Noodles from Noodles & Company and the Beijing Beef from Panda Express. You’ve always been a fan of Asian (and Asian-inspired) foods, and it’s fun to see you branch out.

You even like soft-sculpture pizza.

Have a good month, my funny pup. I love you so much. Wear sunscreen, please.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

The word that best sums up your month is friends. You have been hanging out with friends nearly every day recently, often going to your friend Jack’s house after school. He lives near the school, and his house (and the outdoor entertainments, like a basketball hoop and trampoline) have become a popular gathering spot for you and other classmates. When you’re not at Jack’s house, you’re riding your bike around the neighborhood, picking up friends along the way. You go to area parks, the school playground, and sometimes to a convenience store to buy snacks. I’m thinking it’s about time to get you a smart watch or phone so I can keep better track of your whereabouts.

You continue to be a good helper in the kitchen. I appreciate how you often want to contribute to meals (especially pizza and stir fry), and you’ve become more interested in trying new foods, too. We have adopted Sunday evening as our regular night to get take-out, and you’ve been branching out on the menu at some of our usual favorite places.You are a relatively new fan the Spicy Korean Beef Noodles from Noodles & Company, and Beijing Beef from Panda Express. I hope you continue to try new things and find favorites at some non-chain locations, too. It was my turn to choose the restaurant this week due to my recent birthday, and I chose Shakespeare’s. It’s a bar and grill in our neighborhood that a lot of people like, but for some reason it just hasn’t been on our rotation. You enjoyed the wings and onion rings you got from there, and everyone else seemed to like it too. It would be fun to walk there on a nice summer night and eat on the patio.

I’m really looking forward to the summer weather so we can start doing more outdoor family things. Cocktail hour on the balcony is one of our favorites, and it will be nice to get back to that. Also, we generally don’t eat in restaurants indoors, so returning to some of our local joints that have outdoor seating will be great. We’ve gotten pretty accustomed to take-out, but there’s something special about sitting down at a restaurant and getting fresh, hot food put in front of you.

The spring/summer sports season is starting soon, and we’re going to be a busy family. You and Callum talked me into letting you sign up for both baseball and soccer, so we’re going to have very few free evenings. I already warned you that I might not have the strength to attend every game, but I think we’ll be spending a lot of time at the baseball and soccer fields. You said you like playing soccer more but like the social elements of baseball. I think that’s because a lot of your friends also have little brothers who play baseball, so during the younger kids’ games, you and your pals hang around together and eat concession stand snacks. I’m sure it entirely negates the health value of playing sports, but anything that involves hanging out with friends is something you want to do.

You have a favorite outfit these days: one of your two pairs of Adidas sweatpants, your fuzzy hoodie with a couple of layers underneath that emerge as the day warms up, and a fedora. You wore the fedora to a special school “fancy day,” and you’ve worn it quite often since. You get your clothes pretty dirty, and I’ve already patched the knee of one pair of sweatpants. One day last week, both your pairs of Adidas sweatpants were obviously (to me) too dirty to wear. You tried to pull them out of the laundry basket to wear again, but I stopped you, lest your teacher think I’m raising a savage. You were rather grumpy about having to wear a sub-par pair of sweatpants to school, but that was preferable in your mind to jeans. Jeans are torture, according to you. Having observed kids lately, jeans seem to be out of style. Kids wear sweatpants, athletic warm-up pants, or leggings, and that’s about it. I thought jeans of one cut or another would always be around, but I guess that’s not the case.

Your school conference earlier in the month went very well. Both your classroom teacher and your ELP teacher had very good things to say about your academic and social development. You get along well with your classmates most of the time, though your teacher pointed out that sometimes you can be a little verbally harsh. That’s something we’ve noticed at home, too, in your interactions with your siblings. You are thick-skinned; when Artemis or Callum zings you, you usually laugh it off pretty easily. Sometimes you forget that not everyone is so quick to move past slights and insults, and what seems like a fun game to you isn’t always fun for others. We’ve talked about that, and I hope you’re working on it. I know you always feel bad when you end up hurting someone’s feelings.

Mostly, though, you’re a fun guy and a great friend. You’ve really blossomed socially this year. You have a solid friend group of some nice neighborhood kids, and I know you’ll continue to have fun with them over the summer next year as well. Our school district is changing from a K-6 model in the elementary school to K-5, but not until after your sixth grade year. You were very glad to hear that you’d be part of the last sixth grade class at your school. You’re also happy that when you start seventh grade, you won’t be the youngest in the school, because the new crop of sixth graders will be joining the middle school at the same time. I’m sure you could have handled being a sevvie, but I can still understand the appeal of skipping that stage.

Your current favorites: watching Ted Lasso with your dad and all the new swear words you learn from it, which I decided its okay because it’s part of your English heritage); nearly every sport; reading books and listening to audio books by Stuart Gibbs; biking around with your friends; working on your ELP podcast about NBA players; playing chess with anyone who will join you; and hanging out in your office downstairs.

You’re adventurous, fun, and full of energy. You’re a great kid, and you make life spicier every day.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

The spring thaw is coming (and going, and coming again), and you are so ready for it. You are not a person who is happy being stuck inside, and I can see you itching for outdoor adventure again. Even though I initially said you needed to choose between spring soccer and baseball, you begged and begged, and I eventually relented: you’ll be playing both. That will mean a lot of hauling around town for practices and games, and now of course Callum wants to play both as well. I’m sure your dad will handle the majority of that, so I am grateful to him in advance for all that legwork and emotional support. It will mean lots of active outdoor time for you, so I’m sure you’ll be happy.

Your fifth grade year is now nearly two-thirds done. As usual, the winter was a bit of a slog, with managing snowpants and hats and boots and gloves, but you got it done. You seem happy with how the year is going, and your report card indicates that you’re doing well. We have your conference later this week, so we’ll get to hear from your teacher about all the things you’ve been doing. You have a good friend group, and every day you spend the walk home telling me about the day’s soccer games and drama. Someone’s water bottle always gets stolen (but eventually returned), there’s always a funny anecdote about silent ball, and you often have mud-stained pants from diving for a soccer ball.

Your bass lessons have gotten derailed by your sports schedule, and we’re hoping to squeeze a few more lessons in before soccer and baseball start. You still have some music in your life with Family Folk Machine and the school band. You’ve been playing saxophone, and you had one concert so far in the fall after just a few weeks of lessons. It was…a sensory experience. I remember Artemis’s school band making a lot of progress between the fall and spring concerts, so I look forward to hearing yours later in the season.

You went to a birthday party last weekend that sounded like my personal nightmare: Go-Karting. Naturally, you loved it. I knew the second I saw the invitation that it was exactly the kind of thing that you would want to do and that I would feel anxious about until you were safely home. It was all the way in Cedar Rapids! Drivers don’t even wear helmets! You don’t even have a driver’s license! Your one concession to my mental health was to agree to wear a mask whenever possible, so at least I had that. You had a blast and have requested to have your birthday party there in August. We’ll see about that.

Your basketball season has been a little bit frustrating. You had originally planned to be on a team with your friend, but his mom got mixed up and signed him up for a different team than the one she told me put you on. Your teammates don’t show up consistently to practices or games, so there’s a lot of pressure on you. At your last game, only five players from your team came, and the other team had nine. That meant that in order to play five-on-five, you and your teammates had to play the entire game with no subs. Still, you did great. You were hustling and rebounding and made some good shots. I do wear mom-goggles, of course, but I still think it was pretty obvious that you were MVP. Later that afternoon, you watched an amazing final minutes of the Hawkeye men’s basketball team, in which they came from behind for a spectacular overtime victory.

That’s part of why I ultimately caved on the soccer and baseball issue. It’s not something I fully understand, but sports are very enjoyable and fulfilling activity for you. You’re even becoming a more gracious loser. I guess this year’s basketball experience has helped you in that area. I didn’t keep careful score on your last game, but I think you may have won that one. I’m glad the season wasn’t a total wash.

Your current favorites: your fuzzy grey sweatshirt (as evidenced by these photos, which I swear were taken on many different days); sports of all kinds, but especially basketball right now; books by Stuart Gibbs; playing chess with your siblings; playing with your friends; pizza, including your famous homemade variety; stir-fry; and our special-occasion trips to Coralville for Popeye’s. We don’t have any big spring break plans, so I’m hoping we can build a list of local fun things to do. I anticipate the trampoline park, movies, and another Popeye’s excursion will be on that list.

You continue to be a bright light, a force that makes any day better and any room happier because you’re in it. You still enjoy my hugs and being with your family, so I’m going to soak up as much of that as I can get. I’ll even sit through some baseball games because you’re there.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

Every night before you go to sleep, we have a little ritual. You tell me what you wish for, ask me what I wish for, and tell me something special about your day. A lot of times by that point I’m pretty groggy, because I’ve usually just woken up after snoozing in Callum’s bed for a while. You, however, always have a lot to say in those moments and want to hear my thoughts too. Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with something in my stupor, so I just say that I wish us all to have a good night’s sleep. Your list is always much longer, often ending on something implausible, like wishing for twenty bags of name-brand chips. Then you’ll turn around and say something sweet, like how much you enjoyed the little Lunar New Year party Callum orchestrated. You’re a goofball and a sweetheart.

Over break, we played a lot of board and card games. You’re becoming a more gracious loser, which is an important skill for you to hone if you’re want to continue to be invited into group games. You start basketball this week, so I hope you can maintain the good sportsmanship you’ve been developing through games of spades, Selfish, Utter Nonsense, and poker. You were originally supposed to be on the same basketball team as a school friend, but his mom got the days mixed up and accidentally signed her son up for a different team. I’m not too worried about it, since you’re likely to know other kids on your team, whether from school or other sports and activities. Plus, even if you don’t, you’re good at making new friends and will surely find your place.

You haven’t had a sport since soccer ended in the fall, so you’re looking forward to getting into basketball again. The deadline is coming up for signing up for spring sports, and you’re trying to decide about soccer versus baseball. You really want to do both, and I trust that you could handle the busy schedule; however, as a person who drives to practices and attends games, I’m not sure I could. Add into the mix the fact that Callum wants to do one or both of those as well and that’s a whole lot sports-momming. I hope you pick soccer, because I find it a lot more palatable as a spectator, but I’m trying not to push my preferences on you too much.

Our holidays were nice and mostly calm. We ended up spending a week in Ames, because Suzy and Joe’s travel plans got delayed due to weather and we didn’t have much else to do. You and Skitter got matching aviator squirrel (sort of flying squirrel, but not exactly) t-shirts to replace the one he gave you when you were a toddler. It was your favorite shirt, but you’ve long since outgrown it, and I’ve been looking for a replacement ever since. It was exciting to find them, and you guys looked cute in your matching shirts.

We went ice skating twice while we were in Ames. It had been a while since you skated, but you got the hang of it pretty well. You were an enthusiastic coach for Callum, who was skating for the first time. You had minimal wipe-outs, and you bounced up from them without much damage to body or spirit. For some reason we don’t often get to the skating rink in Iowa City (technically Coralville, and technically in the Coral Ridge Mall, aka one of my least favorite places in the IC metro, so maybe I just pinpointed the reason). You did such a good job and had so much fun in the rink in Ames, though, that it might be a fun way to spend a free afternoon some time.

You’ve also been really into skateboarding lately. You used some of your Christmas money from Nana to buy a new skateboard, and after a few frustrating sessions and some extensive tweaking of the wheels and trucks, I think we got it rolling effectively. You’ve been gliding around on the path by our house whenever the weather permits, and you’re getting more and more consistent in your ollies. January is not a great time for skateboarding, so you haven’t had a ton of practice opportunities, but I predict that the spring will bring a lot of improvement. You were ill with some unspecified bug right before winter break, and it was alarming to see you lethargic. You slept, both on the couch and in your bed, for most of two days. You’ve fully bounced back now, but a low-energy Tobin is a sad thing to behold. I’m so glad you recovered in time to enjoy the holidays, ice skate, and skateboard.

Your current favorites: family movie nights with popcorn, helping make stir-fry for dinner, skateboarding, granola bars, hanging out with friends, online Minecraft games with friends, helping me plan our summer vacation to Ithaca, and jumping and bouncing and creating a ruckus.

You are a bright and shining person, Tobin, and I’m so happy to be in your life. May all your implausible wishes come true.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

This month has been mostly a fun one, with the events that typically occur this time of year. You’re someone who really loves tradition and special occasions, so the winter holiday season is a great time for you. Unfortunately, you caught one of the many bugs going around your school in the weeks before break, so you had to spend several days mostly in bed. It wasn’t COVID, though we’re not sure exactly what it was. We never took you in for an influenza test, although there was a lot of that going around the area. We got our flu shots a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, so it’s possible that it was influenza tamped down by your vaccine-begotten immunity. You had a fever on and off for a couple of days, never to a scary-high level, but enough that it dragged you down. You had low energy and slept a lot and missed three days of school. You’re almost completely better now, with just a little lingering sludge and congestion.

For you, the biggest torture was the semi-isolation. I wanted to confine the illness to one person, because I was worried it would cascade through our whole family and derail our holiday travel plans. You did most of your eating in your room, and other family members masked up whenever we needed to go in there. Callum slept in my room for a few days, and your dad went down to the guest room. I went through a whole lot of disinfecting wipes on the doorknobs, faucets, toilet flushers, and light switches. You really, really dislike being anywhere other than in the middle of the action, and I felt very bad for you. You even seemed to take it as an insult that I wanted you to use different bathroom towels than the rest of us. Nevertheless, the techniques worked, because no one got as sick as you. We have some stuffy noses to varying degrees, but nothing serious or plan derailment-worthy.

You’ve always enjoyed being a helper in the kitchen, and your love of pizza-making has continued to grow. The Adam Ragusea pizza recipe is definitely a keeper, and I can see additional pizza tools being part of your future. Family Pizza Party Night is becoming a somewhat regular event. Considering your love of ritual, I don’t see that changing. You can even do the swift little jerk motion required to move the pizza from the peel to the hot stone (or steel, as I predict we’ll be using next time). That’s a move that takes confidence. Do it timidly and your pizza will crumple and maybe even dangle halfway off the cooking surface. That would be a disaster (for the pizza and for the person tasked with cleaning the oven later). Luckily, you’re a bold kid, and you aren’t afraid to jerk that pizza right into its place.

We had a predictably fun time going out to Wilson’s Orchard to pick out a Christmas tree. Of course, with you involved, there would be no skipping of the doughnuts and cider. Naturally, we had to decorate the tree immediately after we got home, sipping cider as we worked and listening to Bob Dylan sing “Must Be Santa Claus.” You get a big kick out of looking at all the ornaments, including your favorite little fox. You like to hide him somewhere in the tree so he’s peeking out at us. Largely out of pressure from you, I finally put some lights up on the house this year, too. I figured I’d better do it while I’m still young and spry enough to climb a ladder. The plastic clips that hold the lights in place probably aren’t intended to stay out year-round, but installing them was  the hardest part of the process. We might have to see if they can last two years at least.

You had your first elementary school band concert. I’ve gotten accustomed to the high level of musicianship that comes out of City High, so it was a bit startling to go back to the “Hot Crossed Buns” type of performance. It’s amazing how far players can go in just a few years. In fact, I remember Artemis’s first year of band and how much they improved between the fall and spring concerts. I am looking forward to watching you develop as a saxophonist. I was very proud sitting in the audience and watching you play onstage with your friends. You looked cute in your white dress shirt, too. When Art was in elementary school band, there was a stricter dress code than the current director requires. In a nod to past fanciness, I got out Art’s old band clothes and got them tidied up for you. I could tell who else in the band was going by the old rules, because you weren’t the only one in a smart oxford shirt.

Your current favorites: the Jurassic Park movies, both the original trilogy and the Jurassic World films; playing basement soccer with anyone who will join you (usually Callum); pizza, both restaurant-acquired and homemade; family cocktail hour, especially if it includes Sunkist Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade; board games and card games; spicy chips like Takis and Flamin’ Hot varieties of regular chips; wearing a fuzzy hooded sweatshirt; and showing up with great enthusiasm for almost anything. Even though your recent illness wasn’t terribly severe, seeing you motionless for long periods of time was disconcerting. I’m so glad you’re back to your bouncy, horn-tooting self. Your the sunshiniet, best kid ever. I love you so much.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

Once again, you have filled the month with enthusiasm and brightness. I can always count on you to have a project, an idea, some new hobby or interest. Sometimes your passions align with holidays, which is handy for gift-giving, but other times they fade before whatever related item I chose has shipped. For that reason, the Jurassic Park t-shirt I ordered for you is going straight into your dresser as soon as it arrives, rather than waiting for Christmas.

We watched the original Jurassic Park movie for a family movie night a couple of weeks ago, and you really got excited about the idea. You love family movie nights in general, especially because you get to spread out a blanket and have popcorn downstairs, which is typically not allowed in an effort to preserve the new carpet. This time, the movie was a particularly big hit with you. You’ve watched two of the sequels already and started reading the book on your Kindle. I read that book when I was in high school, so I wondered if it would be too challenging for you, but you seem to really be enjoying it. It might help that you’ve seen the movie first, so you have a general familiarity with the concepts. I don’t think it’s a great work of science or literature, but maybe it will push you into an area of further exploration. None of you kids ever got as excited about dinosaurs as I was when I was young, so perhaps now is the moment that we can ooh and aah at dinosaur skeletons in a museum together.

Halloween was good fun as usual. I’m glad you’re still enthusiastic about Halloween events and like homemade costumes. This year you chose to be a Tusken Raider, which I learned is a Star Wars character and totally unrelated to the north of Italy. I spent a lot of time and hot glue making you a costume, and I think it turned out pretty darn well. You were very excited about it and appreciative. It was very fun to collaborate with you on that project, comparing different inspiration photos and assessing materials and strategies. Our kitchen island was covered in scraps of fabric, craft foam, toilet paper rolls, and dabs of paint for several weeks.

Your school doesn’t do Halloween parties anymore, which is a bummer, but you still got to trick or treat in the neighborhood and go to a trunk-or-treat event sponsored by your dad’s workplace. I doubt you would ever say you got enough candy, but you certainly got a respectable quantity. You and Callum have an ongoing conversation about how you would rate and rank the various candies you received. You’re a big Butterfinger fan.

The rest of the fall has been busy as usual, with soccer, Family Folk Machine, playing saxophone in the school band, and bass lessons. You had been doing your bass lessons on Zoom, but you’re going to switch to in-person starting next week. It’s a bigger hassle for me, since your teacher’s studio is in Coralville, which means traffic and winter driving. You prefer in-person lessons, though, and I want to do what I can to make your music-learning experience the best it can be. You’ll have your first school band concert in a couple of weeks. It will probably be a shock for us audience members, because we’ve grown accustomed to the level of performance that the high school band provides. Listening to a bunch of fifth graders who have been playing their instruments for two months might be a big jarring. In any case, I’m proud of you for starting your saxophone journey. It’s hard to say whether you’ll continue with it like Art has; I could see you putting your focus into sports or other activities rather than music. Still, I’m glad you’re part of it and getting the experience.

We had your school conference recently, and your teacher said she loves having you in her class. She mentioned that you’re always willing to volunteer to answer a question or explain a problem in front of the class. You’re also getting better about not being too talkative at inappropriate times. One comment she made that made especially glad was how caring you are. She has two little kids, and one had been sick recently. She said that you often asked how he was doing and really seemed concerned about him (he’s okay now). Caring about others is a fundamental quality I want my kids to have, and it made me so proud to know you’re displaying that.

Another major family accomplishment this month was the making of New York style pizza. You found a YouTube video that described a method and recipe, and we gathered up the ingredients and made it happen. We ended up having to combine a couple of different techniques due to local availability of certain ingredients and hardware. It was a great success. The pizza was delicious, the process was fun, and most of the family got involved. I’ve been impressed lately with your interest in food, both from the perspectives of trying new foods and being part of the cooking process. It’s nice to see you being brave about new flavors and wanting to be on the creative end as well. You’re my kitchen buddy, and I love that about you.

Your current favorites: board games, Jurassic Park, YouTube, playing with your friends, playing outside, audiobooks, grey t-shirts and your fuzzy blue hoodie, being silly and goofy, and watching shows with your dad. You and your siblings verbally spar a lot, but it’s almost always good-natured. You don’t let things get you down too much, and your low moments never last long. I can always count on a Tobin smile.

I love you so much, my sunshine son.

Love,

Mom

Dear Tobin,

This is nothing new, Tobin, but the first thing that sprang to my mind to say about you is that you are a joy. You are so resilient, so energetic, so quick to laugh and shrug off negativity. You even kept it together when you didn’t win at Exploding Kittens a couple of times recently. You’re still a pot-stirrer; you have not yet mastered the art of knowing when to drop a topic. It seems like every dinner includes you getting admonished for needling one of your siblings (or for your dad’s pet peeve, chewing loudly). Still, almost every dinner concludes with you thanking me for dinner and telling me you love me. You are super-duper forgivable.

Earlier in the month, you and your siblings had a five-day weekend, so we turned it into a mini-vacation to St. Louis. We are considering it your Eleven trip, and while it was less exotic than Art’s Eleven trip to Orlando, we still had a really good time. I think you enjoy planning vacations as much as I do, and we did a lot of research together in preparation. You helped pick out our rental townhouse, which was quite nice and well-located. It was in the same neighborhood we had stayed in before, Lafayette Square, which has a lovely park, historical buildings, and good restaurants. Another topic you helped me research was the flavor selections at Clementine’s, a nearby ice cream shop, which we visited twice.

Our three big outings on the trip were the City Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, and the Gateway Arch. Though we’d been to the City Museum before, we had never gotten rooftop passes before. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t worth it, though you and your dad went on a Ferris wheel that looked terrifyingly high. It was still a good time, and we had a lot of fun exploring the rest of the place, including some nooks and crannies we hadn’t noticed before. The zoo was great, of course, and you felt a special kinship with some of the animals. I had a hard time choosing whether to include the picture of you below (the Wild Child) or one with the Somali Wild Ass. Guess which animal’s name you chanted more.

We found several good restaurants with outdoor seating, and the weather was so nice that we were able to relax and enjoy them. One thing I really miss about pre-pandemic life is restaurant dining. I know a lot of people have returned to it, but we aren’t doing that just yet. That makes it extra special to find good outdoor places. The first one we enjoyed was a pizza place near the City Museum. It made for a pleasant break from the crowds, and the piping-hot pizza helped me remember life before takeout and delivery were our main pizza consumption channels. The second was a brewpub in our Lafayette Square neighborhood. We met up with a friend of your dad’s and had a fun evening. Finally, on our way out of town, we got enormous pancakes and waffles at a place with a pretty patio.

You kept a great attitude the whole time, enjoying all the activities and relaxing cocktail hours that come with vacation. It made me glad to know that you had so much fun. As our family’s greatest tradition enthusiast, you enjoyed returning to old favorite places. We talk a lot about European trips, which are all still in the fantasy realm, but that doesn’t stop you from hunting for vacation rentals with me. We’ve identified some lovely city apartments in Rome and houses with pools in the Spanish countryside.

The mini-vacation had to end, and you went back to school. Even though you moan and groan about getting out of bed in the morning, you really thrive in the school environment. You have so many friends—every day when I pick you and Callum up, we’re met with a long succession of people yelling, “Bye, Tobin!” You’ve been enjoying learning about computer programming in ELP, playing with your friends at recess, and playing saxophone in the school band. I’ve gotten accustomed to the level of musical expertise the City High band displays, so it will be very interesting to go to your first concert in December and hear how a bunch of fifth graders sound.

Right now you’re trying to decide which sport to play in the spring. You had a good experience playing soccer this fall, and you’re strongly considering playing the spring as well. I told you that you need to pick between soccer and baseball, though, because I don’t have it in me to handle both. I’m hoping for soccer, myself. Now that you’ve joined, I find it hard to believe we haven’t been a soccer family all along. I genuinely enjoy watching the games, and I see friends among the adults at almost every game. We’ve been carpooling to practice, so I haven’t even had to do all that much driving. You say that you like playing soccer more, but you like the social elements of baseball. Since Callum usually played on the same nights as you but at a different time, you had a lot of hangout time at the baseball fields to have fun with friends and spend your savings at the concession stand.

Your current favorites: spicy chips (served with a large glass of milk), ice cream, online and in-person after-school hangouts with friends, helping prepare your Halloween costume, reading the Masterminds book series by Gordon Korman, listening to audiobooks, Star Wars, and wearing comfy clothes. Today was school picture day, and I convinced you to wear a nice sweater, but you insisted on sweatpants for your lower half. I couldn’t argue with your logic that they wouldn’t show.

I love you, you freckle-faced smile machine. Thanks for bringing me on your adventures.

Love,

Mom

My dear Tobin,

Fifth grade has begun, and you’re doing just as well as I knew you would. We had a back to school night last week, and it was great to talk to your teacher about how it’s all going. She’s a newer teacher to your school, one I didn’t know at all before you were assigned to her classroom. You seem to like her a lot, and she seems to like you a lot too. What she told me about your work and behavior in her class didn’t surprise me: you’re smart, confident, quick to volunteer to answer a question or do work on the board. She also mentioned that you can be chatty, which also wasn’t surprising. The family joke is that you started talking at age one and haven’t stopped since. Although your best friend is in the other class, you still have plenty of good friends with you, and you are never low on conversation topics.

One thing she mentioned really impressed me: after you and your friends got a bit of a scolding for being overly talkative, you approached her, apologized, and said you would work on doing better. She also said that after that you really did cut back on the talking. That’s exactly the kind of person I want you to be. No one’s behavior is perfect, but the ability to acknowledge mistakes and work to improve is the mark of someone who will succeed.

You celebrated your eleventh birthday with friends a little late, since your best friend had COVID around the time of your originally-scheduled party. We were keeping the group small, so we pushed it to the next weekend in order to make sure it was a safe situation for everyone. You jumped at the trampoline park, kindly including Callum in the mayhem, and then gathered in our backyard for pizza and cupcakes.

You’ve chosen St. Louis as the destination for your Eleven Trip. It’s not quite as glamorous as Universal Orlando, which was Artemis’s special trip, but we’re also able to stay a bit longer. You have a mini fall break from school next week, so after your Saturday morning soccer game, we’ll head southward on the Avenue of the Saints. St. Louis is a reasonable road trip from our home, and it’s full of fun stuff to do. We’re planning to hit the City Museum again, this time getting rooftop passes. We’ve been there a couple of times but never sprung for the rooftop before, and now seemed like the perfect time to do it. It will make it a little bit more eleventh-birthay special, plus the more we can do it open air the better. We’re also planning to visit the zoo and spend time in Lafayette Square park, one of our favorite places in the city. It also happens to be near Clementine’s Naughty and Nice ice cream, which is another destination high on our list.

As a kid who loves ritual and tradition, you’ve been very interested in sorting out the details for the trip. You like to look at vacation rentals with me, both the one we’ve actually reserved and other ones for vacations that are still in the fantasy stage. We’ve been talking about trips to Spain and Italy for years. We haven’t yet put any of those plans into action, but I really hope we can one day. You’d be a good European travel partner, I know, because you’d be good at walking around a lot, and you get really interested and excited about topics. There’s plenty we could research in advance of a big trip like that.

You’re also very invested in our smaller-scale rituals and traditions, like our annual apple-picking trip to Wilson’s Orchard. While Wilson’s has expanded their agricultural offers to include pick-your-own strawberries, sunflowers, and Christmas trees, I appreciate that it hasn’t turned into a theme park. It seems like a lot of orchards do that, and tons of people seem to enjoy them, but I really appreciate the experience of wandering among rows of apple trees and finding good specimens. We were a little late to Honeycrisp season this year, and we had to walk pretty far into the orchard to find trees that still had good fruit on them, but our perseverance paid off. We got several buckets of apples, and of course we didn’t skip the apple cider doughnuts and locally-produced cider. Apple-picking is probably your favorite of our reasons to go to Wilson’s, because the early fall weather is perfect for a leisurely stroll, and apple-picking doesn’t rely much on being able to see the color red. Strawberry picking is a little frustrating for a kid with red color blindness.

Soccer has been a new thing for you this fall, and you’ve really been loving it. You were assigned to a team with a few people you knew, and of course you’re becoming friends with the ones you didn’t yet know. We’re carpooling with another family, the mom of which is a friend of mine. You didn’t know her son before this soccer team assignment, but you two seem to have hit it off. It’s a decent drive out to the soccer fields, and you two have all kinds of interesting conversations about space, gravity, the multi-verse theory, and strategies on how to be really good at Simon Says.

You’ve been playing goalie a fair amount, and to my untrained eye, you’re doing a great job. At the last game, your team won 3-0, and not because the other team was never in a position to score. You didn’t let a ball get by you. I hope you get to try out other positions, too, because you seem to really be catching on. I was afraid you might need some time to figure out the rules, but it hasn’t been a problem. You jumped right in and are a valuable member of the team.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: soccer, playing with your friends both online and in person, reading (especially books by Stuart Gibbs), helping make stir-fry, singing “fry, fry, fry, fry, stirrin’ the fry, stirrin’ the fry” to the tune of “Stayin’ Alive” while you make stir-fry, alternating between your two favorite grey t-shirts, and generally being a part of things. You told me recently that you don’t like non-team sports. I think that’s because you have the most fun when you’re surrounded by friends. That’s convenient, because you can hardly avoid making friends in any group you encounter.

I’m so glad you’re able to have a reasonably normal school year. Most people in your school don’t wear masks, but I still ask that you and your siblings do. I know it’s not your favorite thing to do, but you’re a good kid and you don’t complain about it. We’ve talked about how it’s foolish to live as if the pandemic is completely over, but with some compromises and strategies, we can still do a lot of really fun things.

Every day with you in it is fun, Tobin. Enjoy your Eleven Trip and all the great things that come with being a fifth-grade dynamo.

Love,

Mom

My dearest Tobin,

The other day we were chatting, and you told me about how much you enjoy family traditions. We talked about big-deal traditions, like our every-other-year spring break trips, as well as smaller-stakes traditions like mini-vacations, cocktail hour on Saturdays, and take-out on Sundays. On an even-smaller scale, you cherish regular check-points. Every night before bed, we run through a routine in which you say (really fast, now, because it’s a firmly-ingrained habit) “Good night. I love you so, so much. You’re a great mom. Do you promise never to leave me?” I reply, “Yes,” and then you say, “What do you wish for?” I often have a hard time coming up with ideas for a wish, because I’ve usually just woken up from snoozing in Callum’s bed. Unless there’s something particular on my mind, I mumble about hoping for a good night’s sleep. You always have a list: for good weather for playing outside, for a good school day, for everyone to stay healthy, and for Krysty to get better. Krysty is a young friend from Family Folk Machine. She’s been fighting a serious bone cancer, and I’m thrilled to report that she has finished her chemotherapy and is doing a lot better. She has a titanium femur to replace the one destroyed by cancer, and she’s getting more and more mobility. She even came to Family Folk Machine last week and, in my opinion, looked good. Her mom said she’s doing well and really excited to jump back into her regular activities.

I don’t believe that wishing for Krysty’s healing has a specific or direct impact on her. We did our best to support Krysty and her family emotionally and financially in concrete ways. I do, however, believe that wishing for Krysty’s healing has a specific and direct impact on you, Tobin. It’s normal and expected for kids to be self-centered. Part of human development is going through the stage where your own perspective is the only one you can see. But knowing that you were thinking of another person every single night, wishing the best for her, shows me the kind of heart you have. Exercising compassion like that will help wear high-quality grooves into your thought and behavior patterns.

You’re eleven now, a full-fledged big kid and a fifth-grader. Now that school has started again, you’re getting a routine established and thriving in the company of so many friends. You had a fun summer with lots of hangout time with your best friend Kit and his sister, but it’s also good for you to be surrounded by other people from different backgrounds with different ideas and experiences. You’ll be starting soccer in a week or two. Even though most kids who play soccer have been doing it for years, you dropped it in favor of other sports after you finished the preschool league. But you wanted to do a fall sport, and quite a few of your friends play soccer, so you asked to sign up. I admire your willingness to give something a try even though it will be new to you. You’re brave and quick to find the fun in any situation.

We celebrated your birthday with a family party over the weekend. Of course we continued our family tradition of decorating the chandelier with balloons and a sparkly number eleven. You opened presents, drank a fancy juice and Sprite cocktail, had your favorite stir-fry for dinner, ate cake, and tried out your basketball and video game gifts. You chose a cake that was new to our family: pumpkin bars that were layered into cake form with lots of cream cheese frosting. It was quite a hit. Cake leftovers usually linger around our refrigerator for a long time, but this cake got fully demolished in just a couple of days. I can see that being another family member’s request before your next birthday rolls around.

On Sunday, your true birthday, we skipped our usual takeout and instead ate on the patio at Jimmy Jack’s. That restaurant is a family favorite in part due to their excellent fries, which aren’t quite so excellent after a ride home in the car in a paper bag. The ones we had on Sunday were hot, fresh, crispy, and perfect. You even got a fountain drink, which we normally don’t get, because it was your birthday after all. We’ll celebrate next weekend with some trampoline-jumping and pizza with friends.

Tobin, you are a person who really cares about others. When school lets out, you usually make it to our meeting point before Callum. You watch for him so intently, peeking into the door and announcing his arrival long before I catch a glimpse of him. When he comes out, you give him a big hug. You confessed to me that you were worried about how school would go for him, since he did online school the last two years. You were concerned that he’d be nervous or have trouble making friends. As soon as he comes out, you want to hear everything about his day. I was a little nervous about his transition to school life as well, but it makes me feel so much better knowing you’re there with him. Even if you don’t see each other in the halls much, I’m sure he is happy to know you’re there too.

As we walk away from school every day, kid after kid shouts your name to say goodbye. I know you’re the kind of person who doesn’t have to work hard to make friends, that it comes easily and naturally to you. That makes it all the more meaningful that you show such caring to Callum, brand new in school, and Krysty, with her brand new femur.

Your current favorites: the new Spy School book that hasn’t arrived yet (I pre-ordered it for you as a birthday gift, and you’re awaiting its arrival with great anticipation), wearing the same three grey t-shirts over and over again, laughing and talking and having opinions about everything (especially if your opinion is different from your siblings’), and soaking up all the energy and stimulation the world has to offer. I don’t always understand how you work, Tobin, but I always love and admire you.

You’re a bright light, my effervescent pup. I’m so happy you shine on me.

Love,

Mom