Happy spring, my dear.

We kicked off March with an unusually-early Spring Break. It was a great time to get away from grey and gloomy Iowa and spend some time in the Florida Keys. We had a fantastic week, eating at our favorite restaurants, spending lots of time in the pool and the beach, engaging in a little cultural education, and enjoying perfect weather. It was 78F and sunny pretty much the entire time. Our travels were mostly smooth, and except for Callum getting strep throat, it was a near-perfect trip. Even the strep throat got addressed quickly, so I think we can all agree it was a great time.

We returned for the second time to the same condo, which is nice because it’s bigger than ones we’ve rented previously. You’re a person who enjoys privacy, and this space allowed you to have your own room. You skipped out on some of our earlier pool and beach trips, choosing instead to sleep in, but that’s okay. Vacation fun is different for everyone, and I’m glad you got to mix up some relaxation and adventure. You did get a kick out of mini-golf. We tried a new restaurant, Porky’s Bayside, mostly because they recently opened up a mini-golf course and it seemed like a fun way to spend an evening. The restaurant turned out to be delicious (not that you tried anything unusual—you remain committed to your narrow-range diet), and we all had a good time putt-putting around the waterfalls and foliage.

One notable change for you is that you spent a week without your scoliosis brace. At your last check-in with your orthopedist, he told you that your growth is nearly complete. That means your spinal curve is unlikely to progress any further, and it’s currently in the “acceptable for a normal life” range. He said that it’s a best practice to continue wearing your brace overnight, but you no longer have to put it on right after school and wear it until you leave for school in the morning. What’s more, he said there’s not a lot of evidence showing that overnight bracing makes much difference at this stage. With that in mind, your dad contacted the orthopedics clinic before our trip and asked whether it would be okay for you to take a week off. They agreed that it seemed reasonable, so you spent the week in spinal freedom. It was a lot easier on us, because traveling with a medical device is a hassle, and I know you enjoyed not having to wear it. That’s probably why you relished your sleeping hours even more than usual. You’ll have another appointment in a couple of months, so we’ll see what the orthopedics team has to say about your progress and your future.

Your biggest interest right now is still film. You saw almost all the films nominated for major-category Oscars, and we had a good time watching the ceremony together. You’re also taking a foray into filmmaking. You have been writing what you describe as a TV show, though I’m not sure exactly how that’s defined these days. In any case, it’s a multi-part, serialized piece of narrative fiction, and you’ve recruited some of your friends to act in it. You recently purchased an external mic to use as part of your filming hardware, and you say you’re going to start shooting in the next week or two. I hope it works out for you. It’s an ambitious project, and it could be a lot of fun. It’s nice to see you passionate and excited about something. One thing your dad and I sometimes fret about is that you have a lot of academic strengths but no clearly-defined interests. We thought music might be that for you, but your enthusiasm for school band has been waning. Filmmaking may be that type of area of focus for you. I hope you can continue to develop your skills and remain interested.

Your current favorites: comfy clothing, working on your film project, pasta, discussing foreign language idiosyncrasies, and cracking jokes.

You’re an interesting person with interesting ideas, Artemis. I’m looking forward to seeing what your creative brain puts together in the coming months. I love you so much.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artemis,

I’m afraid I’m writing this very late–your month birthday fell the day before our Spring Break trip began, and I was too busy packing to do it on that day. Then we were gone all week, and I didn’t pack my computer, and composing this entire thing on a phone was too daunting. I’m going to try to save all the Spring Break content for next month, so I’ll try to remember what happened prior to the trip.

We got your final grades, and you did just splendidly. I’m proud of your hard work and how little prodding you need from me to get your tasks done. You’ve decided not to do marching band next fall, which meant that you had to get a couple of other classes added to fill out your schedule. You said you signed up for some art classes, which I think you’ll enjoy. One of them is digital photography, so I’m interested to see what kinds of projects you complete. You’ve had good experiences in the art department at your school, and I hope you continue to find satisfaction in the creation and appreciation of beauty. I always enjoy attending the end-of-trimester art show at school, so I’m glad you’ll have items on display.

I’m not sure what else you signed up for. I seem to remember my parents having more input into my schedule when I was in high school than I do for you. You just assured your dad and me that you are all under control. I guess the school counselors have a pretty good handle on what students need in terms of classes and hours for graduation, but I really don’t know because it all happens free of any conversation with me.

Your biggest out-of-school interest lately has been film. You’ve been going to movies a lot, sometimes with friends, sometimes by yourself, and sometimes with me. I semi-jokingly told you that even though I suspected you only invited me to movies because you know I’ll pay for both tickets if we go together. You told me it’s actually because some of the movies you wanted to see were rated R and you could only get in with a parent. Oh well. I’m not too disappointed, because I saw a lot more of the Oscar-nominated films this year than I have in a long time. You saw almost all of them, between going to the theater in person and watching them on streaming services. It was interesting to hear you talk about your impressions and critiques. I’m glad we have access to Filmscene, an independent movie theater that shows a lot of films that might be hard to see otherwise. I got you a Filmscene gift card for Christmas last year, and it turned out to be the gift you most appreciated. Next year I’ll get you another one and put more money on it.

You had a busy month with musical events, including several trips for concert band and jazz band. It’s hard to get much out of you in terms of any enlightenment or enjoyment that comes from those events. I have the impression that in your ideal world, you’d just be in your room playing video games or watching movies. You do usually walk to school, even when I offer you a ride because it’s cold and I worry that your sweatpants aren’t warm enough. Your social life is opaque to me, but I think you like walking to school with a friend or two, so I guess that’s a good combination of physical and interpersonal exercise.

Your current favorites: cream soda, pasta, ice cream, watching movies, wearing sweats and pajama pants, the color red, and making us laugh with your dry wit. You’re an interesting, unusual person, Art, and I am glad to have the opportunity to get to know you. Thank you for including me in your world sometimes.

Love,

Mom

Hello, my dear.

As we slog through the tedious winter weeks of February, the pastime that has been keeping you the most engaged is film. You’ve been going to movies at Filmscene (putting to good use the Filmscene card you got for Christmas), watching movies on the various streaming platforms we have, and talking about them online and in person. Last weekend, Mubby and Skitter were visiting, and you spent a long time talking with Mubby about the movies that have gotten award nominations this season. You’ve seen a lot more of them than I have, and Mubby likes to go to the movies a lot too, so you had some good conversations. I did go to one movie with you, Past Lives, and I enjoyed it a lot. Mostly I enjoyed having an evening out with you.

You’re not very excited about band anymore these days, but your dad and I want you to keep at least one extracurricular activity. There’s a French film club at your school, and I think you’d find that enriching. Another possibility is robotics club, as a couple of your friends do that. Finally, if you can’t find any sort of team or club, you could get a job. I suggested that you apply to work at Filmscene, citing your multi-year animation camp participation and frequent movie-going as qualifications. You said you looked and they’re not currently hiring, but it seems like it would be a good idea to put out feelers to the people you know there.

Speaking of Mubby and Skitter’s visit, they both so enjoyed how much time you spent with them. Your default at home is to disappear into your room, emerging only for food and sometimes to grab one of the gaming systems from downstairs. Your dad encouraged you to hang out, and you really did more than I expected. It means a lot to them to get to know you as a person. I feel lucky to be having the same opportunity, albeit in smaller doses throughout the days and weeks. You’re becoming a thoughtful, funny, and interesting young adult, and it’s fun to see those sides of you.

We’re getting ready for our Florida Keys trip next month, and depending on how the budget works out, it might be our last trip there while you’re in high school. We’re planning the Great Clarke/Crall Europe Trip for the summer after your senior year, which would also be a Keys year according to our usual schedule. I had initially planned to skip the Keys that year, in order to dedicate more of the travel budget to the Europe trip, but I’m doing pretty well with my Europe trip savings fund. Because we normally go to the Keys out of the general household operating budget, maybe we can still make it happen.

Tobin and Callum are both really pumped about our upcoming trip, but you haven’t shown as much enthusiasm. That might just be your generally chill nature, though. Tobin and I have been planning to do some snorkeling at Pigeon Key, and I suggested that you might like to do it as well. Several trips ago, you did some snorkeling at John Pennekamp State Park. You were young enough that we didn’t get too adventurous, but I think you enjoyed it, and you seemed at least mildly intrigued by the idea of trying it again.

We had some serious winter weather in January, and you were helpful with moving snow. Usually you grumble a bit when asked to do household chores or yard work, and I imagine you grumbled this time too, but you got the work done. We got tons of snow, and we needed the efforts of everyone in family to get it moved. Tobin was busy shoveling our neighbor’s sidewalk, but you, your dad and I got our sidewalk and driveway done. Callum came outside sometimes, but he wasn’t terribly helpful. After all the snow, the temperature plummeted. Between the snow and the cold, you missed a lot of school. From what I understand, you’re now at the limit of how many snow days you can have before the school year has to be extended. The school year is already going late, because the district has added a number of holidays throughout the year (the most recent of which was a four-day weekend in honor of Lunar New Year). While there’s no guarantee we won’t have any more storms, I hope we don’t, because I don’t want your summer to get unduly shrunken.

I admit, though, I enjoyed having you and your brothers around a lot this winter. It was pretty relaxing most of the time, and you had a lot of hot chocolate. Luckily we never lost power or Internet, so your dad was able to work remotely, and you probably watched a lot of movies.

Your current favorites: movies, pasta, Goldfish crackers, Honey Nut Cheerios, ice cream, cozy clothing, walking to school with your friend Jacob, sleeping late, your French and English classes, reading, and playing video games.

I love you, my dear. I’m happy to see you becoming excited about a subject area, and I’m looking forward to watching you grow even more.

Love,

Mom

Happy 16th birthday, my darling!

Your birthday was the last day of winter break, and we celebrated with your favorite home-cooked dinner the previous night (linguine with homemade tomato sauce) and your favorite take-out (Panda Express) and ice cream cake on the actual day. You also enjoyed some presents and general goofing around. It’s a crummy time of year to have a party, especially considering the weather challenges we’ve had lately, but you got together with friends a couple of times during the break. Maybe when things warm up you can do something more organized.

You only went to school two days this week, because we had a couple of big weather events. The first storm came on the afternoon of your first day back to school following break. It dumped fifteen inches of snow on our area, which I learned is the largest accumulation of snow this county has had since 1973. You had two days off after that happened. Once that passed, you went to school one day. The following day, there was another storm, and you got Friday off school, which makes it a four-day weekend since Monday is Martin Luther King day. Now the temperatures have plummeted, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the four-day weekend morphed into a five-day weekend. So far you and your brothers seem to be enjoying the time off, but I think at some point you’ll feel ready to get back into your routine. January is always the month with the most weather challenges, and it seems to have all happened in a one-week span this year. Hopefully we’re almost past the worst of it and you’ll be able to get back to learning and socializing.

You’re not quite ready to get your driver’s license yet. You’ve completed Driver’s Ed and the written portion of your driving test, but you still need to wait until April until a full year has elapsed with your permit, and you need to take the driving test as well. You definitely need some more practice between now and then; we haven’t done enough this winter, and right now it’s dangerous even for an experienced driver. You don’t seem to have a lot of urge to get your license. I think that’s a generational difference. Many of your friends aren’t in a big hurry to either. Maybe it’s because we have pretty good public transportation around here, and we living within walking distance of your school. Either way, you’re not chomping at the bit. It would still be a good accomplishment, and once the streets are more passable, we’ll have to get out there and get more practice hours in before you take the final step.

We enjoyed some nice holiday togetherness with family, including a trip to Albia to see your dad’s family and a trip to Ames to see mine. The scarf in the photo above is actually a pair of pants, but you look cute in them either way. It was a pretty relaxing break, with nothing too wild happening. The whole family had to pitch in on the snow-removal effort, so you helped with that, with only minimal grumbling. It’s too cold to leave the house now, even with your jaunty scarf, so we’re all just hunkering down.

I really enjoy your company. You’re a good sport about hanging around for a while during family cocktail hour and at meals, and you always have something funny or interesting to say. You got the go-ahead at your most recent orthpaedics appointment to only wear your brace during sleeping hours. That’s been a nice lifestyle upgrade for you, since I don’t think it’s very comfortable. You’re almost done growing (which is good for our family shoe budget), and it means that your back is probably at or very near its final position. While it will never be completely straight, it’s close enough that you don’t have any activity restrictions, and it’s certainly not visibly noticeable. I’m glad you never needed to wear it to school, and I’m very glad that you did such a good job wearing it for the prescribed hours over the last few years.

Before break, you had a band concert, which Mubby and Skitter attended. It was impressive as usual; you and your fellow musicians do a great job. Right now, concert band and jazz band are your only school activities. I wish you’d get excited about something else, and you don’t even have the best attitude about music these days. I’m not sure what it will take to get you motivated about a particular area of study or recreation, but it seems like you need to get a fire lit under you somehow. Right now it seems like your level of enthusiasm is pretty low all around. You seem cheerful enough; you always make us laugh at the dinner table, and you have been watching a lot of movies and getting interested in film.

I’ve been looking around for summer camps or class that would let you do hands-on filmmaking, but I haven’t found anything yet. You attended the Filmscene animation camp many times and the miniatures camp once, and you liked them a lot, but you feel like you’ve gotten all you can get out of them. I reached out to the Filmscene people to see if they were running any more advanced filmmaking camps, but they’re not for the time being. I’ll keep looking around. Your dad wants you to get a job this summer, which is not out of the question, but I’d be just has happy if you were engaged in some kind of learning and/or artistic experience.

Your current favorites: sleeping in late on all these snow days, playing Minecraft, watching movies, watching the show Lupin with your dad, pasta, Honey Nut Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, making us laugh with your witticisms, getting good grades, and being a great kid.

I love you so much, my dear Artemis. Sixteen will bring new challenges and new joys, and I’m so glad to share them with you.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artie,

December is sliding by so quickly, much like all of your fifteenth year. This is your last month of being fifteen, and with all the hubbub of the holidays, I’m sure it will be your birthday before we even have a chance to catch our breath. A sixteenth birthday is a big deal, but I have nearly a month before I need to come to terms with that.

Your grades first trimester were magnificent, straight-As in all your classes, including a few A-pluses. You’re taking honors French, honors English, and AP World History, as well as biology, Algebra II, and band. After finishing up a sculpture class first trimester, you finally have a study hall now. As of this year, participating in marching band counts as a P.E. credit, so that gives you a little extra room in your schedule.

Partly as a reward for your excellent report card and partly just because you needed an upgrade, we got you a new cell phone. So far the screen isn’t cracked at all, and it seems to be working well for you. I hope you enjoy it and put it to good use. Your school has a pretty strict no-phones-in-class policy, so when I feel an urge to send you a funny meme, I try to time it so you get it at lunch. Sometimes you acknowledge it and sometimes you don’t, but it makes me feel better knowing that at least your hardware is reliable.

You have an appointment coming up next week in orthopedics to check on the state of your spine. At your last checkup, they found you were close enough to being done growing that it was unlikely for your scoliosis to worsen. I certainly hope you get confirmation of that prediction at your appointment. Assuming you can get to your full skeletal development without significant worsening of your curve, you can avoid surgery. That would be wonderful, since spinal surgery is a pretty major operation with a long and painful recovery time. Obviously it can’t be avoided in every case, no matter how diligently the patient braces, but your fairly mild curve plus your great bracing work will, I hope, keep you out of the OR. You have done a truly exceptional job being consistent with your bracing. I don’t know a lot of teenagers who would never have to be reminded at all to put their brace on or to wear it for the correct number of hours. You handle it all perfectly, including making up time on the weekends when some kind of weeknight activity makes you lose a few hours.

At your last appointment, the doctor said there’s the potential that you could reduce your bracing hours to only overnight, which would be a nice lifestyle improvement for you. We’ll find out soon whether that will come to pass. I was talking to Callum about the various ailments our family members have, and he was feeling nervous that he might have scoliosis too. I told him that it was possible, but one good thing about scoliosis is that it has an end. Unlike Crohn’s disease, which he will probably have to manage for the rest of his life, scoliosis either resolves itself through bracing and physical therapy or surgery. In any case, it’s not a life sentence, and I’m so happy of you for (hopefully) being near the end of your scoliosis journey.

You’ve gotten into movies lately, often watching them in your room at night on our various streaming services. You also went to the movies with friends last weekend. You saw Godzilla Minus One, and you really enjoyed it. You explained some of the plot to me when I drove you home, but I still don’t know what the title means. This will be a spoiler on the off-chance that you read this before Christmas, but I got you a FilmScene gift card so you can continue to see a lot of movies. FilmScene is our local independent cinema that shows a lot of more independent and artistic films than the mainstream theaters, so I hope you can make good use of it and enjoy film both as entertainment and as an art form.

Your current favorites: watching movies, pasta, Mubby’s Chex Mix, telling jokes, giving me goofy smiles when I take pictures of you, winning the quiz games you play in French class, lounging in your bed, playing video games, and keeping the dinner table conversation lively with your witty rejoinders.

You’re a special person with a lot of really interesting things to offer. I wish everything in life could be as comfy as your preferred clothes, but even during the bumpy years, you’re still one of the great joys of my heart.

I love you, my sweet firstborn.

Mom

Hello, my dear,

I was sorting out some details for our spring break trip, and I had to fill out of form that asked for my kids’ ages at the time of arrival. I had to write nine, twelve, and sixteen. I know you’re not actually there yet, but seeing that number in front of me was a little startling.

You’ve been pretty jovial lately. You don’t give me many details of what goes on in your daily life, but I can only surmise that things are going well. Your grades are stellar; you grumble about band (especially marching band) yet are always in a good mood when I pick you up from a band event. You seem to have friends, though you don’t do a whole lot of socializing, at least in-person. I don’t know if the pandemic messed that up for you or what. Maybe you missed out on the time when a lot of social bonds develop. A lot of people have moved back to in-person social activities, and you do sometimes (like the Halloween band party, discussed below). Most of the time, though, you hang out in your room. I would probably also hang out in my room most of the time if I didn’t have other obligations, but I know from experience that I do better if I pry myself out now and then. I hope you get enough chances to do that.

The last time we discussed it, you did not seem interested in going on the music trip to the UK. I thought it might be something you’d want to do, since you had expressed some interest in it before, but right now you say you just want to go on the Great Clarke-Crall Europe Trip because you don’t have to play music. I can understand why it would be a hassle to haul a trombone through airports, train stations, and European hotel hallways, but it’s too bad you consider playing music a downside. You were invited to play in the Family Folk Machine concert, but you declined. I wonder if music is becoming less enjoyable to you than it used to be.

I don’t feel like I know what your thing is yet. I’m not sure you do either. I was thinking band mind be your thing, because it’s your only extracurricular, but you don’t seem to want to put in the effort required to really excel in band. I’ve tried to encourage you to get involved with other school groups, like theater or Robotics Club, but you’ve never taken the bait. I guess you’re still in a life stage of figuring out where your interests lie, but in the meantime, I wish you’d explore a little more enthusiastically.

You did get involved in a few Halloween activities. You happily carved and accessorized your pumpkin, which turned out pretty cool. You and your fellow trombonists all dressed as CIA agents for the band Halloween party. We couldn’t find a fedora, so you were more of an MI6 type in your bowler hat, but you had the right attitude. On actual Halloween night, you decided to stay home while your little brothers when out trick-or-treating with friends. I did have some teens come to the door, and they got candy from me with no judgment, but I understand the feeling of growing out of it. I did reserve some candy from our bowl for you. We had plenty extra, because it was a crummy night out and not a lot of kids showed up (though more than I was expecting, and Tobin and Callum stayed out decently late too). Just because you feel too old to go trick-or-treating doesn’t mean you feel too old for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Albanese Gummy Bears. I also do not feel too old for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Albanese Gummy Bears.

You’re funny and witty and have a lot of interesting things to say. You usually seem happy enough to hang out with us, and cocktail hour and dinner table conversations get better when you chime in. You hadn’t said much at dinner tonight until I asked you how AP World History was, and you talked about how you were tasked with debating whether the Mongol Empire was a good or bad thing. That got us all talking about the Roman empire, which got Tobin asking questions about ancient Greece and history versus mythology. The whole evening turned out better because of your thoughts and ideas. I’m really glad to have you in my family, and I hope you continue to hone your interests and find areas you can explore further.

Your current favorites: hanging out in your room, playing poker with your siblings and grandparents, wearing comfortable clothing, watching movies on your laptop, pasta, ice cream, Goldfish crackers, lemonade, being silly and goofy (sometimes), and being irritated with how uncool I am (only now and then). You help me with teen slang I wouldn’t have known otherwise, though I’m not sure I will ever get the nuances well enough to satisfy you. Maybe I’m getting closer.

I love you, my dear Artemis. You’re a treasure, and I know you have so much to offer.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artie,

Fall is here, and it’s as busy as usual. Marching band has been taking up a lot of your time lately, with football games, competitions, showcases, and parties keeping us all busy. You’re not a huge fan of the marching component of marching band. You said to me, “I wish there was a kind of band where you just there and play music.” I don’t know if you were being deliberately obtuse or not, but when I replied, “You mean like a band concert?”, you agreed that that was a good idea.

Sophomore year seems to be going well so far. You’re taking challenging classes, including the honors versions of English and French, as well as AP World History. It seems like you’re more challenged this year. When I poke my head into your room each night to say goodnight to you, you’re often doing homework. Last year you didn’t have to do homework very often, so I’m glad you are getting things done of your own volition. I’m also glad you have access to thought-provoking coursework and good teachers. When your dad and I went to your school’s Parents’ Night earlier in the fall, we were impressed with your teachers and the content you’ll be learning.

While you do still spend a lot of time in your room, you’ve been getting out and doing things (besides marching band) too. You went to the Homecoming Dance with friends (and foiled my efforts to get pictures), you joined us on a trip to the ice skating rink on a recent no-school day, and you’ve been a pleasant and entertaining member of the family cocktail hour squad. I’m often impressed with what a funny, intelligent person you’re becoming. We’re coming up on a school board election in our community, and there are a handful of candidates who are using the dog-whistle of “parental involvement” to push for things like removing LGBTQ issues, the discussion of slavery and the Civil Rights movement, and other foolhardy efforts. I take such joy in hearing your thoughts and ideas, even when I don’t fully agree with them or hadn’t considered them. Why would parents want their children to only be exposed to concepts they, the parents, already know? One of the greatest pleasures of my life is learning from you. What a loss it would be to only hear you spout things I taught you. Plus we’d be SOL on the France portion of our Europe trip. I’m counting on you for that.

You took the PSAT recently. You have a while yet before college, but taking that kind of step in the collegiate direction felt a little wild. You said the first three sections were surprisingly easy and the last section was surprisingly hard, so I guess we’ll see how it all sorts out. You haven’t yet expressed any particular opinions on where you’d like to attend college or what you’d like to study, but I’m not too concerned about that. I hadn’t thought any of that through too much at your age either.

We’re all up to date on our Covid vaccines now, which eases my mind a bit as you attend school unmasked this year. Of course, you managed to catch it last year even wearing  mask most of the time. There’s no really effective way to mask during band and at lunch, and I want you to be able to enjoy your school experience. You got over it pretty easily then, and now that our vaccines are re-upped, there’s no reason to think we wouldn’t all do okay if it hits our house again. Callum is the wildcard, due to his immunosuppression, but we’ll just have to do our best and take comfort in knowing that his doctors said most patients in his position do fine with Covid. It’s funny to think that it’s in all likelihood a permanent part of our lives now. Since I plan to live to 100, I’ll live over half my life in a Covid world. You’ll live the great majority of yours in one. Fortunately we have access to vaccines, good hospitals, and other valuable advantages. It’s hard for me, because my instinct is to do anything and everything I can to protect you and your siblings, but I guess I need to relax my grip a bit in order to let you develop into interesting people.

Perhaps I should take some of my own advice from above: I can’t expect to hold you as tightly as I want to and still have you grow, learn, and explore. It’s a matter of balance. You’re a smart and trustworthy person, and there’s nothing I want more than for you to grow into your own self-determined future.

Your current favorites: the French singer/songwriter Zaz, cream soda, Goldfish crackers and Honey Nut Cheerios, pasta in many shapes, the shows Breaking Bad and Lost, exclusively wearing comfy clothes, using the Scratch programming language to build games, schooling me on the subtleties of modern slang, and sleeping late.

Every conversation I have with you makes me think, and a lot of them make me laugh, too. I love you, you’re important to me, and I’m so glad to know you.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artemis,

It doesn’t help that I’m a week late in posting this, but I was surprised to see your first day of school pictures among my possible photos to include this month. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been a sophomore for less than a month, because you’ve slipped back into your routine without a struggle. Actually, that’s not completely true; waking up early for school is a minor struggle, and it’s only going to get strugglier once jazz band starts later in the fall. Nonetheless, even that issue isn’t too serious. You always make it to school on time, even if it sometimes requires a few jostles to get you out of bed. You’ve even been a reasonably enthusiastic participant in the post-Hawkeye game stadium cleanup the marching band does as a program fundraiser. That requires getting up very early on a Sunday morning and picking up the trash left the previous day by sports fans. It’s not something I expected you to do willingly, but I think you have fun hanging out with friends and eating the doughnut holes provided by the band teachers.

I enjoyed attending your back-to-school night a week or so ago. Your dad and I walked through your schedule, met your teachers, and got some insight into what a typical day is like for you. You’re taking several advanced classes this year, and your teachers indicate that many students find this is the time they have to start putting in some real effort. I have, more than once, seen you doing homework, so I guess you’re on the right track.

The time is coming soon to sign up for PSATs and AP tests. It’s funny to imagine that you are already taking tests that will affect your college admissions and credits, and it’s even funnier to think about how recently it feels like I was doing those same tasks. You haven’t yet expressed any particular area of study or university you hope to attend, but I hope as you continue to take a variety of classes you’ll discover what speaks to you the most. For now, you’ve chosen to take Honors English and French, as well as AP World History. It seems like the humanities are the areas that you enjoy the most, but you said you’re really enjoying biology this year. You also said it was because you have a lot of friends in that class, but I had a good impression of the course from what the teacher described. I think your school has a lot of good teachers and interesting classmates who will challenge you.

It can sometimes be difficult to pry you out of your room, but now and then you surprise me and want to be included in an adventure. We went to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game, and while it was not successful for the baseball players (“The Kernels got popped,” you quipped), we still had a nice night. It was a beautiful evening, and we ate a lot of snacks and saw fireworks. You also joined us on a trip to the swimming pool on a particularly hot Labor Day. I hear you were pretty daring on your several trips to the pool during Mubby-Skitter week, but I had never personally seen you jump off a high dive before. It was good to see you plunge in and even better to see you bob up. We always do a lot of swimming on our Florida Keys trips, but this is the first year Tobin has gotten really into going to the pool in town during the summer. It was nice to have you along for one final trip before the pool season ended.

You recently spearheaded an effort among your siblings to pool your money to replace a video game you lost at some point. Among the three of you, you got the money together and ordered Super Mario Brothers Odyssey. You’ve all been playing it a lot lately, and you encouraged me to give it a try too. I don’t think it’s even the most recent game in the Mario series, but it’s certainly worlds ahead of the Mario games I played as a kid.

It’s notable that the games you most enjoy range from the super visually realistic (such as the games you play on the Oculus VR headset) or stylistic (such as the meticulously-crafted Mario and Zelda games) to the very visually simple (Minecraft and online chess). I appreciate that you can see the value in both. There’s a place for simplicity and strategy along with enjoying the labor of many talented artists and programmers. It’s useful to be able to enjoy and understand multiple approaches to the world.

Your current favorites: Minecraft, Super Mario Odyssey, online chess, pasta, Knoppers, ice cream, walking to school with your friend Jacob, wearing sweatpants, and sleeping late. You don’t love marching band, but you like the fact that it’s going to count as a PE credit in school. That seems fair.

You’re funny and witty and have interesting things to say. You’re not really very sophomoric. One of my favorite things is when you linger over family cocktail hour and don’t run off to your room as soon as you finish your cream soda. You always have interesting thoughts and opinions to share. You are developing into a person I’m genuinely interested in knowing better, and not just because you were once my sweet baby.

You still my sweet baby, even if you’re way taller than me. One day you’ll admit it.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artemis,

As I write this, we’ve just picked you up from Mubby and Skitter Week. You and your siblings stayed for a whole week at your grandparents’ house, and from the sound of it, you were extremely busy and had a lot of fun. That all technically occurred after your month birthday, so I’ll include photos from it next month, but I must say it was very strange not having any kids in the house. We weren’t sure if you’d want to go, being a mature high schooler and all, but you chose to. I’m really glad you did, partly because it’s good for you to get out of your room and do some different activities, and partly because I know Mubby and Skitter really appreciate the extra time with you.

After an overall lazy summer, these last few weeks before school starts have been extra busy. You had band camp a couple of weeks ago, which you claimed was torture, but you always seemed to be in a good mood at the end of the day. At your school, sophomores and up in the marching band take a more active and involved role than the freshmen, so this is your first year as a full-fledged member. The rest of the family got to attend a showcase of your band camp efforts, and the marching band sounds spectacular as ever. The music program at your school is truly impressive, and I’m very glad you’re a part of it. The band directors also highly prize creating a supportive and inclusive atmosphere, and I think you’ve found it a comfortable place to be. As your dad pointed out, sometimes it seems like the band directors get a little overly excited about the more esoteric elements of their jobs. I got excited when I heard you start to play the Brubeck classic “Take Five,” and you played it well. However, at the showcase, you and your bandmates just stood in a semicircle and played. Things could get a lot trickier when you try to march and play a song in five-four time. Having never been a marching band member, I can’t say for sure that it will be a disaster. Nonetheless, I’ve been in enough dance environments where people are accustomed to counting to four or eight that throwing a five in the mix seems like it could mess people up. I’m intrigued to watch the halftime show this year, that’s for sure.

With band camp and Mubby and Skitter Week done, you have one more week of activities before the school year begins. Your longtime favorite camp, the FilmScene Animation Camp, runs a special class about building (and maybe filming) miniature sets. It’s your first time doing it, but the advanced animation camp conflicted with band camp, so you decided to give this one a try. You’re also taking a sculpture class in school next year, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you do in the 3D visual arts.

This is still a long way in the distance, but I recently figured out that you and your little brothers will all graduate from various levels of school at the same time. The year you graduate from high school, Tobin will finish junior high and Callum will finish elementary school. We’ve been throwing around the idea of a great Clarke-Crall Europe trip for some time, and that might be just the year to do it. You seem to be doing very well in your French studies, so hopefully after having finished four years of study, you’ll be competent to handle a France leg of the trip. I feel confident in Spain and passable in Italy, so between our skillsets, I think we could have a pretty good time.

I also think it would be a good learning and leadership opportunity for you to be in charge of some of the trip. Presumably after taking multiple years of French, you’ll have some insight into where would be good places to visit, and you can be part of the planning process. Once we’re there, you can handle our interactions with shopkeepers and waiters and hotel clerks. It sounds far off in the future, especially because it will mean you’re almost ready for college, but I know it won’t take long to arrive. Having a really great vacation to look forward to will help me not sob every day about you growing up and going off to college.

You say that people keep asking you where you want to go to college and what you want to study, but you don’t seem to have much of an answer just yet. Based on the electives you choose in school and the areas in which you excel, I would anticipate something in the humanities. You are taking Honors English, Honors French, and AP World History, as well as music and art classes, but you’re going the standard route in math and science. I feel like you would enjoy computer programming, because you enjoy video games that have a design component to them. You’ve made countless games using the Scratch programming language, and you were in a big Mario Maker phase for a while there. That’s a game that allows you to create different games in the various styles of the Super Mario Brothers universe. You were planning to take a computer programming class some time ago, but the teacher left and the school was unable to replace him.

I could get into the sorry situation our public schools are facing, but that frustration so far hasn’t touched you too directly (except possibly the elimination of the computer programming class). I hope you are still allowed to read whatever books your teachers think would be valuable for your personal edification, but just ones they are sure won’t be on a banned list. Several schools in our state, and not just small-town schools who fit book-burner stereotypes, are facing challenges from groups who want books banned. Our state elected officials have put teachers in the terrible position of policing their students’ names, pronouns, bathroom use, and book access. I hope you know that in our home, you can be whoever feels right to you and read whatever you find interesting. I ache for the kids who don’t feel comfortable in their own homes and hoped to find safe haven with an understanding teacher who will now be unable to provide the kind of support they need.

We have your back one hundred percent, always.

Your current favorites: playing chess, online and in real life; swimming; telling jokes and making witty rejoinders; bingeing TV series like Breaking Bad and Lost; mini-golf; pasta; French fries; poker; and not brushing your hair. I think you do wear deodorant, though. The band uniform room has a sign that says “Wear deodorant! Don’t be a stinky Little Hawk!” As far as I can sniff, you’ve followed that advice. It’s good for everyone.

Your hair is a little outrageous. But you know what? It’s your head, and while I can make suggestions that brushing it would be a good idea, in the end I have to trust you. You’ve proven yourself to be a thoughtful and interesting person, and I am honored to be part of your growing-up process. May your sophomore year be full of intriguing ideas, friendship, music, and good jokes.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artie-heartie,

You’re on your final dwindling weeks of lazy summer. In just a couple of weeks, the busy time will begin, with band camp, Mubby/Skitter week, and Miniatures Camp on the horizon. After that, you’ll barely have time to catch your breath before school starts in the end of August. Fortunately, you’ve been doing a lot of solid resting up to this point in the summer. I hope you’re thoroughly recharged.

We recently got home from our big family summer vacation, a road trip to Ithaca, New York. The primary purpose of the trip was to reunite with some of my extended family. That was lots of fun for me but slightly less so for you, as you’re not the most social of people. I think it was also hard because it was a big group of mostly strangers, and you felt awkward and uncomfortable with the cousins who were around your age. After a while you warmed up a bit, especially after getting acquainted with my aunt and uncle’s dogs. You were also a sweet caretaker to some of the littler kids. I understand that it’s hard to find common ground with people when you feel like an outsider. I’ve felt that way many, many times before. It’s also hard when you’re an introvert and have to spend so much of your energy trying to make conversation with strangers. I hope, as you grow, that you find ways to address those feelings of discomfort and power through them. I’m sure a lot of your cousins would have enjoyed getting to know you better.

You seemed to have fun in the parts of the trip that required less intense socialization. We visited a beautiful natural area called First Dam that had a couple of waterfalls and swimming hole. I wished we’d brought water shoes, because the bottom was pretty rocky. You were brave, though, and you made it all the way across to the far side and stood under the waterfall.

After we finished up the family togetherness in Ithaca, we took a couple of side trips to the Corning Museum of Glass and Niagara Falls. I think you had a lot of fun at those locations. The Corning Museum of Glass excursion was your dad’s idea, but we all ended up enjoying it. We saw a lot of interesting modern and ancient glasswork, and you especially liked a glass chess set you saw displayed. You and your siblings also did an ornament-making project, in which you designed and helped make a blown-glass holiday ornament. They were too hot to take home the same day, so we had them shipped to our house. They arrived a few days ago, and I was so impressed with how they turned out. They’re very beautiful, and I know we’ll enjoy getting them out to hang on the Christmas tree every year. They’re quite heavy and substantial, so we’ll have to be extra careful to hang them on a strong branch.

Niagara Falls was fun, and everyone really got a kick out of the ride on the Maid of the Mist. I didn’t get any pictures from the most dramatic moments, because we were getting sprayed way too much by the giant waterfalls to risk taking out my phone. We all had a good time, though the Canadian wildfire smoke was most noticeable there. From what I understand, it drifted to our home city in a really bad way while we were gone, and we were fortunate to be elsewhere.

The only bad part of the trip was that right around Niagara Falls, the air conditioning in Skitter’s van stopped working. We had been enjoying the spacious luxury of the van for most of the trip, and aside from a few periods of heavy rain, it was an easy drive to Ithaca. Those two hours between Niagara Falls and Erie, Pennsylvania, were pretty challenging. The sun was beating down on my through the windshield as we headed west into the sunset, and we didn’t want the windows open too much due to the poor air quality. Once we arrived in Erie, your dad did some calling around to see if anyone could fix it for us, but no one could get us in. Luckily, the rest of the drive featured more cloud cover and less smoke in the air, so it was easier to find moderate comfort. Also luckily, the fix for the air conditioning wasn’t too complicated or expensive. You and your siblings did remarkably well. I credit the extra space provided by the van. You didn’t bicker or squabble at all. We listened to audiobooks and made frequent stops for cold beverages and snacks, and we all survived.

Your current favorites: cream soda, pasta, Chex Mix, online chess, the TV show Lost (which I enjoy discussing with you, but you’re way ahead of me in the rewatch schedule), making and playing Scratch games, ice cream, stay up late and sleeping in late.

I hope you enjoy your last couple of weeks of relaxation before things start getting busy again. I like having you around, though I also acknowledge that it’s good for you to be out doing things. You are not exactly excited about the outdoorsiness and physical challenge that come with band camp, but I know you’ll be glad you did them (eventually, maybe many years in the future).

Love,

Mom

Dear Artemis,

Your ninth grade school year is now complete. You had an excellent year, with near-perfect grades, new activities, and a generally pleasant disposition. When I can get you to hang out longer than the time it takes to finish a cream soda at family cocktail hour, I always enjoy chatting with you. You have funny and interesting observations about the world, and you’re teaching me some French. You spend a lot of time holed up in your room, but you seem happy and interested in engaging with us when you do emerge. You recently finished up the driving portion of your Drivers’ Ed class and are making progress through the online portion. While you didn’t pass your instructor’s rigorous final exam, all that really means is that you’ll have to take it again at the DOT when you turn sixteen. That will give you a lot more time to practice. I think the main issue was that you got your permit very shortly before starting the class, and you just don’t have enough driving hours under your (seat)belt yet to feel confident and smooth behind the wheel. Your teacher told us that you made great progress during the class, and in fact the DOT test is easier than his. I was hoping you could avoid doing a driving test around your birthday in January, but that’s the way it goes.

This year’s marching band experience will be more intense than last year’s. They take it easier on freshmen, but sophomores and beyond attend the whole week. It’s a lot of intensive work, much of it outside in the August heat. You say you’re dreading it, and knowing your personal threshold for physical discomfort, that doesn’t surprise me. However, during your last band concert, each senior got to contribute his or her favorite memory from the band years. Many students cited marching band camp memories, so I hope you find the same kind of positivity in it that those kids did. Sometimes great friendships can be forged in challenging times. I think you already know and get along with a lot of band kids, but going through the band experience with them may solidify your bonds.

You’ll definitely need to be fitted for a new band uniform. You’ve grown a lot this year. It wasn’t super evident to me in your first and last day of school photos, but you got invited to go swimming with a friend yesterday with about twenty minutes’ notice, and last year’s swimsuit didn’t fit. You ended up wearing a pair my cover-up swim shorts, which looked slightly goofy, but fit you better than your old suit. I’m glad we noticed that now, because we’ve got a trip coming up that will require swimsuits. This way I had time to order a couple of new pairs in bigger sizes. I’m not sure what your official height is these days. You have an appointment coming up with the orthopedist to check on your scoliosis, and I imagine we’ll see then. I am hopeful that your curve has held steady throughout this period of growth. You are probably close to reaching your full height, by which time we’ll be out of the danger zone for curve change. As long as it’s not significantly worse, you can avoid surgery and maybe even stop wearing your brace or reduce your bracing hours.

I’m very proud of you for wearing your brace as well as you have. It can’t be comfortable, but you don’t ever complain. It’s probably getting too small, too. Maybe you’ll get a new one fitted at your next appointment. Your dad says he had two braces over his bracing period, although that was a long time ago, and his case ended up in surgery. His was a lot more severe than yours, so I’m optimistic that your great bracing habits and the improvements in bracing technology in the past few decades will set you on a straight-spined path.

You went back to your former elementary school to be a judge for the spelling bee. This is the first time since 2020 that the spelling bee has occurred. It was probably a bit strange for you to be sitting on the other side of the judges’ table, but you did a great job. You had the privilege of awarding a victory to Callum’s team. Over in the media center, Tobin’s team also won. It will be very exciting to see our family so prominently displayed on the winners’ plaque. I was really happy that you agreed to be a judge, since it’s an event that was so important to you during your elementary school years. You were fair and accurate, and I hope you come back and do it again next year.

Your current favorites: playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, cream soda, late night snacks of Goldfish and Honey Nut Cheerios, sleeping in late, avoiding showers until I pester you into taking one, online chess, pasta, driving me around to do errands, the TV shows Lost, Breaking Bad, and The Simpsons, and changing your socks more often than I expect a person to change socks. I do a lot of sock laundry.

But that’s okay. I’m just glad you’re usually wearing fresh clothes.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artemis,

As I write this, you’re in your final weeks of your first year of high school. As far as I know, all is going well. I was chatting with the mom of another freshman after your band concert, and I asked how her kid was doing. She replied, “Fine…I think.” She said she doesn’t get much information from her kid, which certainly sounded familiar to me. In your ideal world, you would only leave your room for food. We’ve been short on family meals lately due to the very busy extracurricular schedules of your little brothers, as well as a class you’ve been taking (more on that later), so I haven’t even been getting my precious family dinner check-ins as often as I’d like.

I’m glad you’re enjoying your French class so much, because that’s rich fodder for discussion. When we do sit down together, a frequent topic is whatever verb tense or phrase or construction you’ve recently learned. It’s a nice way to get a feel for your general outlook on your life. I’m learning some French out of the deal, too.

Your biggest recent accomplishment is the acquisition of your learner’s permit. You had to have it before I could register you for Drivers’ Ed, and the only summer session that worked in our schedule started in May. It was a good task to check off the list, and now you’re ready to drive. Your dad and I have both taken you out on the road several times, and you’ve had a couple of driving lessons with your instructor so far. Drivers’ Ed works a little differently here and now than it did when I was a teen. Rather than being offered through the school, a variety of private companies offer the class. Also, there is no classroom component. You do all the classroom-type work online, and you set up appointments to drive with the instructor. You also got to pick your own driving partner, and luckily your good friend Jacob was taking the same session. Also luckily, the instructor is your former elementary school P.E. teacher. I call him Mr. O’Rourke, which is not his name at all, but that’s another story. He was happy to see you and Jacob again, and he was totally open and respectful about calling you Artemis. You said he’s a good teacher and very patient.

That’s good, because you haven’t clocked a lot of hours behind the wheel yet. We’ll continue to work on it. I noticed on our last outing you seemed a lot more confident. You were no longer making some of the mistakes you made on your earlier driving experiences, like driving toward the curb and misjudging appropriate stopping distance. We also did some work on parallel parking. We went out to a quiet residential street in our neighborhood, and I put a couple of boxes (one from a pair of Nikes, one from a twelve pack of A&W cream soda) along the curb. Using my favorite method, you successfully parallel parked several times. After your first success, a person yelled “Good job!” out the window of a house. That made us laugh. I’m glad you didn’t know she was watching, though, because it might have made you nervous. The A&W box did not make it out entirely unscathed, but we did, and I hope you’re feeling more comfortable.

You’re creative, smart, and interesting. As of a moment ago when I last checked your grades, you’re doing excellent work at school. Later this summer, you’re going to take a variation on the animation camp you’ve done several times. It’s intended for older or more experienced animators, and it focuses on creating miniatures that could be used in filmmaking. I’m looking forward to seeing the work you do. You often have interesting an innovative ideas. You made a card game for Callum, and the two of you had a good time playing it together. You’ve been playing a lot of chess lately, both online and physically, and Callum was feeling a little defeated because he could never beat you or Tobin. I think the card game was a way of doing something fun for him that let him feel successful. You may seem a little surly on the outside, but your kind heart shows up in your actions.

You’ve had a couple of big band concerts lately. Mubby and Skitter joined us for both of them. First was the Jazz Showcase, in which you and the other jazz band instrumentalists showed off your skills. You and I attended that last year as spectators, before you were a participant, and that may have been what piqued your interest about joining jazz band. It’s a wonderful event, the best concert of the year in my opinion. Rather than holding it in the auditorium, where we typically see concerts, it’s held in the school cafeteria. The music department (and many parent volunteers) do a really nice job setting it up to give it a jazz club feeling, with round tables, snacks and drinks, and nice lighting and decorations. The music is excellent as well. A guest artist is usually invited, and that person gives workshops to the students and joins in on a few songs. This year it was a trumpet player, and it sounds like you had a good time learning from him and playing with the Jazz Workshop. Your school’s music program is exemplary, and I’m so glad you have the opportunity to be a part of it.

Photo by Gary Clarke

The traditional band concert was a couple of weeks later. The musical performances were also outstanding in that one. It went on pretty long, because there was much recognition of graduating seniors and speeches of gratitude for the band leaders. I appreciated their heartfelt words and acknowledge the value of celebrating their accomplishments, but it seems like a lot of that could have taken place at a banquet just for seniors. I will probably be much less grumpy about it when you’re a senior and I know a lot of the kids involved. In any case, it’s a good thing your little brothers stayed home for that one. They really enjoyed the jazz concert, but probably more for the popcorn, chocolates, and lemonade than the music. The traditional concert didn’t have any of those, so it would have been hard for young kids to sit through it. I didn’t mind, though, especially when I saw your beaming smile at the end. Thanks to Skitter for capturing a photo of it.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: playing chess, pasta, sleeping late, the upcoming new Zelda video game, not hitting pedestrians with the car you’re driving, Honey Nut Cheerios, and Breaking Bad. Sometimes you watch Lost and we talk about it, but you haven’t done that in a while. That’s okay, because I haven’t had a lot of spare time for TV lately, and I don’t like it when you get too far ahead of me. I’m never going to catch up in height or in French, but I have a chance on decades-old television shows.

Thanks for the wit and music you bring to our family, Artie. I love you.

Mom

Dear Artie,

Though you don’t have it in hand yet, I expect that you’ll soon have your driver’s permit. You passed the online test, and we have an appointment at the DMV today after school to do that in-person tasks like presenting documents to prove your residency and identity and to take the eye test. It’s good you’re finally getting that done. It works better in our family’s schedule for you to take the driver’s ed session that starts May 1, and you can’t register for that without a permit. The last time I checked, there were still a few seats available in that session, but it’s filling up. It would also be good to have driven a handful of times before the class starts, so your first time behind the wheel isn’t with a judgmental teacher in the passenger seat.

I have no idea if the teacher will actually be judgmental. In fact, one of the reasons we’re going with the driver’s ed outfit we are is that one of the teachers if your former elementary school P.E. teacher, who is a nice guy. I just have some residual stress from my own driver’s ed experience, when the teacher used one of those clicker things people use to train dogs to point out my driving errors. Hopefully your teacher will use techniques designed for humans.

We’ve had some wild fluctuations in weather lately, including a tornado warning, a brief power outage, and some very warm days. It’s been nice having extra outside time, including our first cocktail hour on the balcony of the season. We’re expecting a downshift in temperatures next week, which will hopefully hold allergens at bay a little. You’re the member of the family who suffers least from seasonal allergies, so it’s not too big an issue for you, but it affects everybody’s lifestyle when others (especially Callum) are miserable.

You and Callum continue to have a special bond. You have similar dispositions and enjoy a lot of the same things, like video games and Scratch programming. I love watching you two work together on a programming project. Last weekend, you designed a board game and played it with him. Skitter has remarked many times that you’d be a good teacher, because you’re so patient and generous with Callum. I agree, though you’d probably have to move to another state to have a career that’s more fulfilling than frustrating. I really feel for Iowa teachers right now. They’re being forced into such awful positions in terms of enforcing state laws about LGBTQ+ issues, book banning, and other tantrums coming from the state government and a few whiny parents. I would not choose to be an Iowa teacher at this time in history.

This weekend marks your first jazz band concert. The music department holds an annual event called Jazz Showcase, and they work hard to turn the school cafeteria into more of a jazz club setting. Last year, before you were a participant, we attended, and it was so cool. It was one of the main reasons I really wanted you to try out for jazz band this year. I’ve sat through so many school band concerts, and even the ones at City that are clearly played by talented musicians can get a little boring. The Jazz Showcase is a lot livelier, and I’m excited to watch and listen to you and your bandmates perform. You had to miss your last concert due to having COVID, so this will be your first show in a while. I hope your band concert clothes still fit. Your dad noted recently that he thinks you’re taller than he is now. You have a doctor’s appointment coming up where you’ll get officially measured, so I’ll be interested to see the hard data, but from my perspective it looks like you’ve surpassed your dad. You’ve both surpassed me a long time ago, so it’s difficult to get a good read from down below, but it sure seems like you’re way up there.

The school year is now in its final trimester. You seem to be having a good experience so far. Your dad and I are hoping that you can get a little more actively involved in things next year, though. Right now your only outside activity is jazz band, and you spend a lot of time in front of a screen in your room. You were planning to work on crews for the school musical, but you either never got the message about where to go and what to do, or you didn’t do the necessary work to find out. That’s disappointing, because I know you’d have a good time being involved in a theater production. We’re going to attend the musical next weekend, and maybe that will motivate you to be more proactive next time around.

You have some activities planned for the summer, including driver’s ed, our family vacation, band camp, and Filmscene camp. Relaxation is a fine thing, but I also want you to stay engaged and excited about the world. We live in a community that offers thousands of interesting things to do, and it’s a shame not to take advantage. Plus, with your siblings so busy with sports, it’s nice to have arts activities to attend sometimes. I’m counting on you to give me something to cheer for besides baseball, basketball, and soccer. Of course I don’t mind cheering at those events, but a little variety is good too.

Your current favorites: pasta with homemade tomato sauce, the show Lost, hanging out in your room, Goldfish crackers, Honey Nut Cheerios (or the store-brand equivalent), French language and culture (including cinema), Doritos, sleeping late, and quoting The Simpsons. Your memory is better than mine, so I don’t always catch on, but it’s very satisfying when I can join in on a Simpsons reference with you at the dinner table. “Yes, Lisa. One magical animal.”

I hope the spring and summer bring you renewed energy and enthusiasm for the world. I can’t wait to see you jazzing it up on the stage this weekend. You have a lot of creativity and brightness to offer.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artie,

This month marked a notable milestone in our family life: our first (known) COVID infection. A couple of Mondays ago, your dad and I both noticed that you seemed extra lethargic. I chalked it up to the usual Monday blahs that can follow staying up too late on Sunday night, but you were still low-energy and had a low appetite on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, you had a stuffy nose in the morning, so I had you do a PCR test before I sent you off to school. I was expecting it to come back negative, because you really didn’t seem very sick. However, Mubby and Skitter were planning visit the next day for your band concert and some other family events, so I wanted to be on the safe side.

While we waited for the results to come back, your dad and I went to your school to see the art show. You had two pieces on display that you made in your graphic design class. You’ve really enjoyed that class, and you signed up for advanced graphic design next year. We got to chat with you and your art teacher for a bit at the art show, after which time you took off to participate in a protest against proposed (and now passed) legislation that will undoubtedly be hurtful to LGBTQ+ people in our state. You had my full support to protest, and I was proud when I saw you in some media coverage for the event.

Around 2:00 that afternoon, as you were exercising your rights, your test results came back: positive. I was startled but not truly shocked, as we knew it was probably going to happen at some point. Our fall booster shots have probably waned in effectiveness by now, and though you do mask at school, it’s impossible to mask all the time, especially considering your involvement in band. The fact that you weren’t very sick also eased my mind, at least for you. I was also relieved that we caught your status before Mubby and Skitter came, because they’re at higher risk for serious complications. I was worried for your dad and me, since I know quite a few folks our age who’ve had a rough time with it. Teens and kids usually breeze through it, but especially with your dad’s asthma, I didn’t want to take chances. We all masked in common areas of the house, ran our Corsi-Rosenthal fan filter all the time, and kept the windows cracked for airflow. You retired to your room and stayed there for days, except for brief trips to the bathroom and to accept the tray of food I left in front of your door.

Of course, we had all been hanging out together unmasked during the early days before we knew you had COVID, so we knew our efforts didn’t guarantee success. So far, though, we’ve all tested negative. We’ll probably do one more round of PCR tests next week, mostly because our tests are expiring, but also because it would be nice to have final confirmation that we escaped (for now).

Now, though, we’re considering you no longer infectious, since you’ve had two negative rapid antigen tests. We’ve certainly plowed through our stash of tests. I’m working on replenishing our supply before insurance stops paying for them in May. I also understand that the Test Iowa free PCR testing program is going to end at some point, possibly in December. That will be a bummer, as we’ve relied on that service for accurate and painless tests throughout this whole pandemic.

In any case, it’s wonderful to have you back with the family. I missed you so much that I had to FaceTime with you once during your quarantine. Even though I knew you were right across the hall, it just wasn’t right not to have you at the dinner table. It did give us good evidence that our strategies were effective, though. It helped that you’re a naturally hermity person. It would/will be a lot harder to contain an infection if Tobin or Callum brings it home, since they’re both a lot more inclined to social interaction. I’m glad to be done with it for the time being, though. You said you never even felt bad after the first few days, and even then it wasn’t too much. You said it wasn’t even as unpleasant as a bad cold. I hope that’s the case if and when others in the family get it

Unfortunately, due to your quarantine, you had to miss both your school band concert and a jazz band trip to a music festival in Davenport. Another jazz band trip to Cedar Falls got cancelled earlier in the winter due to a blizzard. All in all, you’ve had fewer musical opportunities than we’d hoped. Still, you did well in your classes this trimester. You got all As and a couple of A+s, along with one B+ borne of failing to turn in a couple of assignments. We’ve talked about how an earned B+ is fine, if you’re doing your best, but just slacking off and not doing the work isn’t cool. I don’t like to nag you about school work, but I want you to build productive study habits and not coast on smarts. Intelligence is valuable, but getting the work done is just as important.

Your current favorites: discussing the show Breaking Bad with me, which you watched a long time ago but I’m just starting; playing Zelda, Breath of the Wild; pasta; cream soda; playing with Callum; bantering with Tobin; and hanging out in your room. You were truly the ideal quarantine patient, never complaining. Sometimes when you weren’t with us at the dinner table, I imagined that you’d gone to college, but that made me even sadder so I stopped going it. I’m so glad you’re back with us now. I really missed you.

The music department at your school leads a trip to Great Britain every spring break, and I could see you wanting to do that at some point down the road (even sooner than college). I’m girding my loins already. I am glad you are learning and growing, but I sure am fond of you. You’ll always have a spot at my table.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artemis,

You’ve been fifteen for a full month now, and it seems like you’re settling into it pretty well. We’ve been talking about getting you signed up for Drivers’ Ed in the summer in anticipation of your sixteenth birthday. That doesn’t seem possible, and of course you still have almost a year before that particular milestone hits, but this summer is the best time to get the class done. It’s time to start getting our summer schedule sorted out, so we have to figure out how that will work. You have some activities in August—band camp and miniatures camp (a special session of the same animation camp you’ve gone to many times before, this one with a focus on building miniature sets for films). We have a family vacation planned for June, so I guess we’ll try to get Drivers’ Ed done in the July timeframe. It’s nice that we don’t, as far as I know, need to think about any big medical events for you. Last July we were gearing up for your parotid gland surgery, and I’m grateful to have that off our radar now.

You mentioned that you have feeling in your ear again. The surgeon warned us that you could have nerve damage to your ear on the side where they removed the parotid tumor. A greater risk was damage to major nerve that provides movement to your face, so we were very grateful to know that you had no problems in that area. A little ear numbness was an acceptable hazard, and it seems that it was temporary.

Next week you have a big event: a trip to the Tallgrass Jazz Festival at the University of Northern Iowa. You get to miss a day of school for it, which of course is exciting, and I hope you have a good time. Those kind of events were always a lot of fun for me as a kid. You’ve also started planning your schedule for the next school year. It’s strange that parents have no input in the process; you just came home from school one day and said you had picked out your schedule. Apparently each subject area teacher gives guidance on which course to choose for the upcoming year. I know your American Studies teacher suggested that you take the honors/AP offering for a sophomore social studies course, and I hope your English teacher did the same. You plan to continue with band and French, as well as an advanced graphic design class and some kind of sculpture class. It’s great how many opportunities you have to explore different subjects, and you’ve found some teachers who really inspire and challenge you.

Despite the predictable winter doldrums, you’ve been a good sport about walking to and from school. In fact, you would probably never ask for a ride. If you have jazz band before school I drive you, but you do the walking unless the weather is truly awful. In fact, even then I have to suggest giving you a ride, and it’s a bit of an effort to talk you into it. I think the walk is important social time for you, as you usually do it with a friend or two. That’s valuable, but it’s also valuable to have feeling in your legs, since you never want to wear anything heavier than sweatpants. At least you wear a coat. A lot of kids your age don’t. One curious thing is that you never use your locker. You have one assigned, but I’m not sure you’ve ever visited it. That would absolutely not have been an option for me at your age, as all my classes required enormous textbooks. Now, I think you do most of your coursework on your Chromebook. It’s no larger than any one of my school textbooks, so most kids just carry a backpack (and coat, for those smart enough to wear one) to all their classes.

One benefit to this is that you haven’t lost your lunchbag all year. I don’t know how many times we had to replace your lunchbag during elementary school, because something about the process of putting it away after lunch eluded you. I don’t know if they ended up in the school lost and found (we looked there many times), in someone else’s hands, or in the school dumpster. In any case, now that you always have your backpack with you, you always bring home your lunch bag. You haven’t lost your phone yet, either. Let’s cross our fingers that your responsible streak is a personality trait and not a phase.

We had a nice family outing last weekend. There’s a big art installation in the Ped Mall right now with inflated rabbits, and the little kids were really excited to check those out. I needed to go to the library and the Co-op, so we decided to make a partial day of it. You were a good sport and not too cool to climb around a bit on the new playground by the library. I can feel the years rushing by, especially knowing that your status as a licensed driver will surely take you away from me more than I like. I’m trying to appreciate the time we have together while still encouraging you to grow, develop, and explore your interests. You decided against auditioning for the school musical, but you signed up to work on the crew. I hope that’s a fun experience for you. I know a few of your friends are doing that as well, and that can be a very meaningful effort and community.

Your current favorites: creating Scratch games with and for Callum and your friends, discussing Romance languages with me, pasta, Doritos, sleeping late, avoiding your hairbrush, root beer, cream soda, Minecraft, chatting with your friends, and being funny in your acerbic way.

I had a memory recently come up from your preschool days. I said that my favorite time of the day was when I lifted you up onto the kitchen counter to take off your boots, because I could hug you without you running away. I guess it’s not necessarily your age that makes you a minimal snuggler, just how you’ve always been. Still, I enjoy exchanging glances with you at the dinner table when one of us makes a joke that most of the rest of the family doesn’t get. Those are brain hugs, and I know we still have plenty of those ahead of us.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artemis,

A few days ago, we celebrated your fifteenth birthday. It’s getting harder and harder to buy gifts for you, because you’re in that life stage where you’re too old for most toys and too young for household items. You asked for a green screen for video making, and I hope you’re able to come up with some creative uses for it. We had a good time having cocktail hour, your favorite home-cooked dinner (linguine with homemade tomato sauce), and ice cream cake. The next day, we all went to the trampoline park to celebrate both you and Callum. I’m still a little sore, but it was fun for all of us to be boing-boinging together. You beat Tobin at jousting, and his birthday present to you was not throwing a fit about it.

While your grades in school are still excellent, you seem to be in a bit of slump in terms of interests and ambitions. A couple of opportunities have recently come up to audition for arts endeavors, and you haven’t seemed very interested. Your dad and I were prodding you to audition for Wind Ensemble, the highest concert band at your school, and you got rather defensive about it. I tried to frame it with the understanding that it was totally okay not to get in, that there are only two trombone slots available, and auditions are open to all grades in the high school. Your dad and I talked about how the audition process itself is good for growth and how it would show the band directors that you’re someone to consider down the road. You were not interested. You said the music is hard enough in the non-auditioned band and that you didn’t want to do it.

That was a frustrating attitude to encounter, because I want you to challenge yourself and try things that will push you. You have natural musical talent, but so do a lot of other kids at your school, and you’re not going to get far coasting on talent alone. It doesn’t seem like you’ve always been this way. We were talking about the elementary school spelling bee that we’re hoping to revive this spring, and it made me think about how hard you worked to prepare for that in past years. You always went in well-prepared, and while you’re a strong speller naturally, your studying made a clear difference. I was hoping your success in that arena would send the message that you can find fulfillment through challenge and hard work. I get that it’s scary to face difficult tasks and that it’s much easier to just hang out in your room, but I want more for you than that.

Photo by Gary Clarke

The other audition opportunity is for the spring musical. The school is putting on Mamma Mia, and I think it would be great for you to be involved in any capacity. Being in the cast of a play is exciting, but it’s just as important and valuable for community-building to work on sets, costumes, lighting, or any other behind-the-scenes task. You’ve expressed interest in being involved in theater in the past, so I really hope you give this a try. The excuse you gave me when I mentioned that was that you’d never seen Mamma Mia. Well, lo and behold, the movie version is on Hulu. I see a family movie night in our future.

I feel conflicted about how hard to push this topic, because I don’t believe in forcing kids to do or be things that are more about the parents’ identities than their own. On the other hand, I want you to get involved in something beyond the bare minimum. You’re doing jazz band, which is great, but branching out into some other extracurriculars is a great way to explore other interests and build friendships. Since theater seems to be something you enjoy, I hope you will take this challenge.

I am thrilled to update any readers of this blog (hi, close relatives) that your latest scoliosis appointment indicated that your curve is holding steady. Because your pediatrician caught it at only 21 degrees, our great hope was that bracing would prevent the curve from increasing. Growth spurts are a common time when curves worsen, and you’ve certainly gone through a spurt in the last year. Our biggest wish is to avoid surgery, because it’s a pretty major procedure to rearrange a person’s spine. You might not hate lying in bed for three months straight, but you wouldn’t enjoy the pain or the indignity of needing a parent to help you go to the bathroom. Thanks to your diligent brace-wearing, your spine is still firmly in the reasonable category. I hope it stays that way as you continue your growth.

Your current favorites: Minecraft, pasta, Panda Express orange chicken, the music of Quadeca, hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream, board and card games, and highly spirited dinner table conversations. I don’t know how you and Tobin don’t get upset, considering all the verbal sparring you do, but it’s usually only the adults in the room who get annoyed.

You are smart, thoughtful, and use words well. Your teachers comment on your wittiness, and I see evidence of that all the time. I know that when you find your niche, you will do exciting and fulfilling things. I encourage you to use the next year to explore, take risks, and rebound from life’s inevitable setbacks. It is my great honor to be your mom, and I am so happy for all the steps I’ve taken with you. I can’t wait to see your next ones.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artie,

We’ve come to the last month of your fourteenth year. With all the hustle and bustle that come with the holiday season, it’s easy to get busy with all the family’s activities and forget to take stock of all that’s happened. You’re nearly halfway done with your freshman year, and I couldn’t be prouder of you. You seem to have found your place in a big, new school. You’ve made some new friends, continued old friendships, and enjoyed life as an active member of the marching and jazz bands. Your grades were excellent first trimester. You did great in all your core subject areas and really enjoyed your electives, filmmaking and French. This trimester, you’re continuing with French and adding graphic design in place of filmmaking. It’s been such a joy to listen to you tell me the things you’re learning in French. While my French isn’t very advanced, I know other Romance languages well enough to have interesting conversations with you about the nuances of the languages we have studied.

Last night during family cocktail hour, we got into a conversation about the verb have and all the different ways it can be used, from indicating possession to the “have to” construction to the helping-verb half of a present perfect construction. We discussed how English and Spanish use the same verb for the first two examples, while Italian and French use a different one. Likewise, French and Italian and Spanish all use equivalent verbs, a different type of have, for perfect constructions (e.g., “I have eaten”), while English uses the same as the have that indicates possession. Your dad laughed at our nerdiness, but I for one am glad to have someone else at the table who finds this stuff interesting.

Later this week you’ll have your biannual appointment at the Orthopedics clinic, at which time you’ll get X-rays and an assessment of your scoliosis. You’ve grown so much in the last year that it may be a telling appointment. I don’t know how close you are to your full growth; that’s something the doctor will be able to approximate based on the status of your growth plates. We’re hoping that your very reliable brace-wearing has held your curve steady throughout this growth spurt. As long as it is close to the same, you won’t need the very big-deal surgery your dad had at around your age. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and our spines straight as the appointment draws nearer.

I am truly impressed by your adherence to your doctor’s recommendation for brace-wearing. You have a regular schedule that allows you to meet your 14-15 hours per day goal. On occasions like band performances or other away-from-home events, you use an app to figure out how long you need to wear it to make up for missed hours. I’m really proud of how well you’ve done, and I dearly hope your hard work pays off.

You seem pretty happy and relaxed these days. You’re usually quick to leave the table after a meal or when you finish your cocktail hour beverage, but while you choose to hang out with us, you’re a contributing family member. You don’t complain when your dad asks you to help with yard work or vacuum the basement. You’ve also maintained a good attitude with recent family events, like picking out a Christmas tree, the annual shopping trip to choose siblings’ presents, and the occasional family game night. Overall, the impression I get is that while you would probably prefer to be alone in your room, spending time with us isn’t the worst thing you can imagine doing.

I understand. I like to be alone in my room too.

Most mornings before you head to school, your dad and I give you a little pep talk. We encourage you to take some chances, talk to some new people, seek out new knowledge, and have good adventures. Sometimes we add in a little song or dance if the mood strikes. A few days ago, I reminded you to brush your hair and teeth before you left.

“Well, I brushed my teeth.”

“Ooooooooh, you’re half way there. Ooooooooh, brushin’ on the hair!”

You did not get the reference and didn’t seem impressed after I explained it. To be fair, I don’t know any of the music you like, either. You were into the music and performance art of Bo Burnham for a while, though I’m not sure if you still are. Now I think you like Quadeca. I couldn’t name a single song, because you listen on headphones in your room. Music consumption is a different experience than it was when I was your age, with no purchasing required. I remembering buying tapes and later CDs with my pocket money and playing them over and over in my room, and I bet my parents learned those songs almost as well as I did. I watched Bo Burnham’s Netflix special in order to better understand your tastes, and it was pretty enjoyable. One of these days I’ll gather the strength to listen to Quadeca.

Your current favorites: Minecraft, making goofy faces when I try to take your picture, hanging out in your room on your devices, French class, penne or linguine with homemade tomato sauce, Doritos, Honey Nut Cheerios, hot chocolate after a chilly walk home from school, and walking around draped in a sleeping bag.

I love you so much, my sweetheart. I hope you continue to find fulfillment and challenge in the things you do, and I look forward to discussing more verbs with you.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artie-heartie,

A frequent sight this month has been you and Callum working together on computer programming. You introduced him to a simple coding language called Scratch, and you two have been having a lot of fun together. He really feels excited and special to do something like that with you, and you seem to enjoy it as well. He’s made quite a few different games with your guidance. My favorite one was a maze. I thought I had it solved, but then it turned that finding the treasure chest was not enough—I had to find the key as well. You both got a kick out of my dismay at the false success.

You’re nearing the end of the first trimester of school, and you seem to be doing very well. Your grades are solid, you’ve been accepted into Honors English for the coming trimester, and marching band was a mostly good experience. You claim to be relieved it’s over, and I can understand why the actual football game parts wouldn’t be so fun. We had a pretty mild fall, and I don’t think you had any game nights that were too miserable, but it wouldn’t be my choice for a Friday night activity either. We did attend a couple of games to watch you play, and that part was fun, but I prefer a nice auditorium. You start jazz band this month, and that will probably be more your speed. I’m looking forward to hearing your jazz trombone stylings. As you get further into the high school band trajectory, you’ll have more opportunities to go on small- and large-scale trips for band contests and events. I bet you’ll enjoy that. Trips were always the most fun part of school activities for me, and I hope you continue to develop friendships with fellow band members.

You also seem to be really enjoying your French class. You usually walk home from school, but now and then I pick you up. French class is your last period of the day, so you always have a tête plein de français at those moments. The other day, you were really excited to tell me that you’re learning to conjugate -er verbs. I told you that I’d never met anyone else who gets worked up about verb conjugations. I don’t know if that’s strictly true, as there are a lot of language nerds in my milieu, but it’s the first time it’s come up in my immediate family. I enjoy hearing about the French you’re learning. It’s fun to share an area of interest. I compare it to analogous Spanish, you call me une espèce d’andouille, and we both chuckle. I’ve decided that you’ll be in charge of the France segment of the Great Clarke-Crall European Vacation, which for the moment exists only in our dreams.

Next month you’ll have your biannual x-ray and appointment with orthopaedics to address your scoliosis. It will be interesting to see whether our cessation of physical therapy has made any difference in your progress. You’ve certainly been growing, and I’m very proud to say that you’re vigilant about wearing your brace. I never have to nag you about wearing it, and you never complain. You do a good job making up any hours that you miss due to band or other schedule irregularities. I hope we get the news that you’re still on track to developing a fully-grown spine that sits within the normal range.

I got a call from the office that did your parotid gland surgery over the summer checking on your progress and recovery. The fact of your surgery had almost completely disappeared from my radar. It was a pretty big deal for our family at the time, but the whole thing went so well that I had almost forgotten about it. You never had any trouble playing trombone afterward, and your scar is only visible if you really look for it.

This was the first year you didn’t do anything for Halloween. In past years, you went trick-or-treating, but this time you stayed home with me and passed out candy to the neighborhood kids. You were so sweet to them, asking about their costumes and encouraging them to grab another mini Twix. You still had fun carving your pumpkin, anyway. It’s nice that you’re old enough to wield a knife responsibly.

You currently hold the position that you don’t want kids, but considering how good you are with Callum and how well you interacted with the trick-or-treaters, I hope you change your mind. Of course, you haven’t had a haircut since third grade, so you’ve been known to cling to ideas past their expiration date. On the other hand, your wild head of hair is part of what makes your surgery scar less detectable. I suppose that supports your case for haircut evasion.

Overall, you’ve seemed pretty happy and pleasant to be around this month. Your dad and I give you pep talks most mornings before school, encouraging you to take risks, explore, reach out to new people, and work toward success. They’re goofy and self-effacing, but I hope you take a little something from them. I appreciate the few minutes I get with you in the morning after the younger kids have gone to school. I hope laughing at our silly pep talks sets your day in a positive direction.

Your current favorites: wearing comfortable pants (sweatpants or pajama pants), pasta with tomato sauce, root beer and cream soda, Minecraft, Dungeons & Dragons, escaping from family cocktail hour as soon as you’ve finished your beverage, Doritos, Honey Nut Cheerios, and hanging out in your room.

Your smile makes me smile.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artie-heart,

Fall chugs along, and we’re at the midterm point of your first trimester of high school. As far as I can tell, things seem to be going well at school. Your grades are excellent, you seem to have friends who care about you, and you’ve been enjoying the band community. A couple of weeks ago, you marched with your fellow marching band members in the homecoming parade. I was half a parade away, helping wrangle kids from your little brothers’ elementary school as they marched in the parade, but I smiled every time I heard you playing “Eye of the Tiger” in the distance. It seems like a generationally irrelevant song choice, since I’m barely old enough to remember the movie Rocky, but it remains a hit with the marching band.

You’ll start jazz band in a few weeks. I hope you find that enjoyable and fulfilling. I was hoping you’d get involved in some other activities, like speech or maybe robotics club, but for the time being you seem happy as a band geek. You even said that the stadium cleanups aren’t so bad. Your school band gets a big donation from the university in exchange for showing up on the morning after a Hawkeye football game and cleaning up the mess left in the stadium parking lots by attendees. I thought I’d have to drag you against your will to those sessions, but the prospect of hanging out with friends and doughnut holes afterward seems to be motivation enough.

Our school district gives students a short fall break, which took place last week. We took advantage of the days off to go to St. Louis. It was technically Tobin’s Eleven trip. We have established a family tradition of taking a special trip when a kid turns eleven. It started with you, when we went to Universal Orlando shortly after your eleventh birthday. We picked that because Universal features Harry Potter World, and Harry Potter got his invitation to Hogwarts on his eleventh birthday. Tobin is quick to point out that St. Louis is much less exotic than Universal Orlando, and I am quick to point out that he didn’t really suffer any disadvantage, since he got to go on both trips.

Anyway, we all had fun in St. Louis. It’s a reasonable drive from our house, and we rented a townhouse in our favorite St. Louis neighborhood. It was near a nice park, restaurants with outdoor seating, and a good ice cream place. It was also less than a ten-minute drive from the attractions we wanted to visit, including the City Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, and the Gateway Arch.  You said the City Museum was your favorite of the places we went. You declined to go up into the arch with the rest of the family. You’re both old enough and trustworthy enough to handle chilling in the museum while we did the arch ascent and descent, so it worked out fine.

Your general attitude has been pretty good lately. I frequently find myself heart-warmed by watching you interact with Callum. He’s been in a big badminton phase lately, and even though your default position is sprawled on your bed, I often look out the window and see you batting the birdie around with him. The other night, you spent multiple hours teaching him how to code a computer game on a simple gaming platform. You and your dad have been watching a show together, and he was going to invite you to watch an episode, but you and Callum were so immersed in your coding project that he held off. You and Callum finished it last night, and he was so, so proud to show it off to your dad and me. I could tell you were proud of him and tickled about how excited he was. The game is pretty fun. The player has to deflect arrows and make them pop a big balloon before the arrows land on the game characters. I enjoyed playing it, but most of all I enjoyed seeing your two smiling faces as you displayed your work.

We had assumed you would be getting braces soon, because your dentist referred you to an local private orthodontist. We later learned that we could get free orthodontic care for you through the College of Dentistry due to your dad’s job, so we switched you to that clinic. You had a few evaluative appointments, and at the last one, they basically said that braces are optional for you. You don’t have any serious dental alignment issues, so the treatment would be mostly cosmetic. Frankly, your teeth are pretty nice-looking. The orthodontist also said that one reason Invisalign is so popular with adults is that very few people wear their retainers long enough or consistently enough to maintain their results long-term. We know your brothers are both going to need braces, so right now we’re leaning toward skipping it with you. You do such a good job wearing your scoliosis brace as prescribed, it seems like it would be nice to let you not do mouth braces. You have a lovely smile.

Your current favorites: pasta, cream soda, sleeping late, making witty rejoinders, being a goofball, watching YouTube videos, and wearing exclusively comfortable clothing. You’ve taken a stand against jeans, preferring sweatpants or pajama pants. I think your least favorite part of marching band is the uniform. I don’t know yet what you’ll wear for jazz band performances, but I suspect the lower half might be something that does not have an elastic waistband.

I’ve had a fun fall with you so far, my sweet pup. Enjoy the few remaining beautiful days we have left.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artemis,

As I look through the pictures from this month, it’s hard to believe that your first day of high school was just a few weeks ago. Maybe it’s because marching band has given you early access to the space, but it seems like you’re well- and fully-integrated into City High. I attended your Back to School night last week, which involved going through your entire schedule and meeting each of your teachers. My largest impression was that the school is huge and crowded. I could barely bust through the congestion in the halls to get to the next classroom on time. I don’t think there were as many parents in attendance as their are kids present on a typical day, because none of your classrooms was full. Maybe the parents were not moving with purpose (this is a phrase your dad often uses to try to get you and your brothers to not dink around and get to where you need to be efficiently). It’s also quite a haul to get from your video production class, down in the dank bowels of the building where the arts wing is, all the way up to French class on the third floor. I need to start packing you bigger lunches to fuel all your intra-school energy expenditure.

As far as I can tell, you’re enjoying being a high schooler. You seem to really like a lot of your teachers. I was impressed by them as well—they seem to really care about their students and are invested in your success. You’ve also jumped into band life, not only by being part of marching band, but by joining jazz band as well. Previously you said you didn’t want to do it because it required getting up early, but once two of your good friends decided to join, you changed your literal and metaphorical tunes. I’m happy you made that choice. The City High music program is excellent, and I had so much fun going to the jazz band showcase with you last spring. It’s going to be even more fun when I see you there jazzing away on your trombone. The music program offers a variety of performances and trips, including a UK trip you could go on when you’re a little older. It’s funny to think that you might have an international trip over spring break, since I’m so used to planning our family’s vacations around our every-other-year trips to the Keys. I guess we’ll have to find a way to work them both into our lives.

Another requirement of marching band is participating in the clean-up efforts after a Hawkeye football game. You have to walk through an assigned section of a parking lot near the stadium and pick up game attendees’ garbage. The upside is that if you find anything good, you get to keep it. It’s not an easy job, and it requires getting up even earlier than you’ll have to for jazz band, but it’s a major fundraiser for the band program. I guess those fluffy feathers on your marching band hat don’t come cheap.

While COVID is by no means over, we seem to have transitioned back into a more-or-less normal way of life. All the kids are in school in-person now. You do wear a mask at school, which puts you in the minority, but I appreciate it. I don’t really understand why so many people are in such a hurry to toss masks aside. I get that they’re somewhat annoying to wear, but with high-quality masks, they offer a good amount of protection for a relatively small inconvenience. I really appreciate that you continue to do your best to protect our family. There are a whole lot of things in this world I can’t control at all, like the nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is in danger of getting blown apart. Every time I turn on NPR, they’re talking about that. Sometimes I have to switch to the classic rock station for a little mental health break.

You and your dad and I all got updated boosters recently, so that will give us some peace of mind as we move through the next months. It’s hard to know what the future will bring. Will the next variant cause relatively mild illness like the omicron variants? Will it be something more dangerous? Will vaccine technology move at a quick enough pace to continue to protect us? It’s hard to imagine that this huge part of our lives wasn’t even on our radar a few years ago, but we’re learning and adapting. We are back to most of our regular activities, often with some adjustments. Overall I’d say our gang is doing pretty well.

You’re a dedicated big sibling. You attended events for Tobin and Callum last weekend that I’m sure you would have preferred to skip, but you were kind and supportive. Callum completely idolizes you. You’re the first person he wants to impress at any opportunity. Just tonight at dinner, he was very proud that he ate a tomato, and he was hoping you saw him do it. You did not; it’s hard to get you to stick around the dinner table any longer than your food remains on your plate. Sometimes you flee so quickly I hardly notice you’re doing it until I hear a “Thanks for dinner, Mom” as you duck into the hallway. It’s nice that you thank me anyway. I like it when you linger, though. Tonight you told me some unusual things you learned in French class about how the numerical system works, and it was interesting to compare and contrast with Spanish and English. You’re always welcome to hang out after dinner and teach me things.

Your current favorites: Cheerios, root beer, pasta, Minecraft, holing up in your room, watching some Lord of the Rings-adjacent show with your dad, trading pop culture references with your American Studies teacher (she is also a fan of Psych and The Simpsons), and being the final word on the seasoning levels of my homemade tomato sauce. Tomato season is wrapping up around here, but I’ve got plenty of sauce in the freezer to keep your lycopene levels up for the rest of the year.

I’m so proud of you and glad that you’re finding your way in the high school scene. I know you face challenges, though you mostly decline to share them with me. I remind you frequently that I love you and that you’re important to me, so at least you have that behind you when things get difficult. When life’s hallways get crowded and no one seems to be moving with purpose, know that I’ll always elbow my way to you.

Love,

Mom