Dear Tobin,

Finally, finally, you get to go to baseball practice tonight.  The weather this baseball season has been just horrible, but now it seems like spring has arrived.  The forecast looks good, so I hope you get to hit the field consistently from now on.  Every practice so far has been rained- or snowed-out, or else the field conditions were too soggy from recent rain or snow to play.  Dad and Miles will be busy tonight, so I’m looking forward to taking you out to the ballpark and enjoying exactly the kind of beautiful evening a person should have for baseball.

I don’t think you know any kids on your team, but that doesn’t bother you.  You’ll make friends and do great.  You’re a very social little guy—in fact, that’s your primary motivation for going to Family Folk Machine.  You’re not hugely interested in music (though you did tell me last night that you want to take violin lessons, which terrifies me a little because I can’t help you with that at all).  You love hanging out with your FFM friends, though, especially because Ben is just as Rubik’s Cube-obsessed as you are.  You even got Miles into it, and you absolutely relish the fact that you’re more advanced at it than he is.  He sometimes comes to you for help, and something you need to work on is not gloating or going too far in your aid.  I can understand why it’s tempting—it’s not often that a little brother gets to lord his expertise over his big brother.  Still, we work on kindness every day, and that’s another opportunity.

We’ve gotten you signed up for some summer classes.  You chose mostly outdoorsy ones, about which your dad commented, “So we’re paying for him to play in the creek behind our house?”  He has a point, but there’s no way I could take you out without bringing Callum.  While I’m sure he would love it, it would be stressful for me to keep him from causing havoc or endangering his life in the creek.  It’ll be more fun for you to do it on someone else’s watch.  You love playing outside, and as long as you have on enough sunscreen, you’ll have a blast.

Your reading skills have really grown lately.  It won’t be long until you can sit down with a book and read for pleasure.  We’ll have to take some library trips this summer and find some good materials for you.  I’m sure we’ll do the library’s Summer Reading Program, so that will be good incentive.  I got some suggestions from a friend who has a son a little older than you, so I’m excited to watch you take off in that area.  For now, your favorite reading material is the manual you use to guide you through solving your Rubik’s Cube.  You still love for your dad to read Harry Potter to you at bedtime, though.

Your general nature remains the same:  cheerful, wiggly, quick to laugh and quick to recover from your occasional bad moods, tolerant of Miles’s moodiness, and high energy.  You expressed interest in running along with Miles and your dad in the Let Me Run 5K, and I warned you that you’d need to train for it, building up slowly.  We went out for a run last weekend, and I was prepared to take plenty of walk breaks and probably only get a mile or two done.  You ran for 3.6 miles without stopping, including some hills.  You were a little sore that night, but I think you were really proud of yourself.  You talked the whole time, too, shouting motivations to the rest of the family, saying hi to people we passed, and updating me on your status (“My body says stop, but my mind says go!”)  I think you’ll do fine in the 5K.  I’ll just have to remind you that you can stop when you cross the finish line.

You’re a good friend to your classmates and love social interaction.  You’d have a playdate every day if you controlled the schedule.  I don’t usually pick you up from school, since you and Miles typically walk home together, but when I do it’s fun to hear you say goodbye to your classmates.  You address each one by name.  I’d say you were a little politician, but your interactions all seem borne of genuine friendship.

Your current favorites:  Zelda and YouTube videos on the topic of Zelda, Rubik’s Cube, baseball, playing outside, pepperoni pizza, and adding to the stick collection you’re building on our front porch.  Now that the weather’s warming up, I’m planning to enlist you in some gardening, too.  You might be old enough now to be a more-helpful-than-destructive weed-puller.

Have a good month, sweetheart.  At this time next month, your kindergarten year will almost be over, and we’ll have a whole summer of adventure stretching before us.  Enjoy these last weeks of school, and keep being my favorite little dodo.

Love,

Mommy