I often need not a lot of cake.  Whether it’s for a half birthday or for a family treat when I don’t want a lot of leftovers, sometimes a small-to-medium quantity of cake is perfect.  This makes 1 8-inch layer, 1 slightly thinner 8-inch square, or 12 cupcakes.

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup oil

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup cake flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

a generous 1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350.  Cream butter, oil, and sugar for several minutes until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla.  In a separate container, whisk together flours, baking powder, and salt.  Add dry mixture to butter mixture in batches, alternating with buttermilk.

Bake in lined/sprayed pan or muffin tin (28-30 min for round or square pan, 18-20 min for muffin tin).  Top however you like.  Callum recommends whipped cream from a spray can.

Dear Tobin,

I was looking through old pictures on Facebook a few days ago, and I saw one of you as a baby, probably 6 months old, that Mubby had posted.  One of her friends commented on it, saying how cute you are, and Mubby responded that you’re sweet, happy, and a little bit of a stinker.  Those qualities are still alive in you:  you remain a cheerful, optimistic little guy, but you still have a mischievous streak.

One thing that’s been bringing you down the last couple of days is your loose tooth.  It’s your first one, and while you were excited at first, you’re now in that limbo zone where it gets stuck in awkward positions and is painful.  It’s been hard for you to eat, but you’re not interested in yanking it out.  I’m sure it won’t be much longer, but it’s tough to see your usually-smiling face so sad.

Photo by Gary Clarke

One thing that made you happy last weekend was your stellar performance in the Let Me Run 5K.  You’re not technically a member of the team, as it’s only open to fourth through sixth graders.  Community members are allowed to register for the race, though, and you were excited to do it.  Skitter tells me this is called running unattached.  We didn’t train as long as Miles and his teammates did, but we went on a few training runs.  I think the race-day adrenaline was really surging through your system, because you blew your previous time away.  You ran the entire 5k (3.1 miles) in 30:30, when previously you’d been running twelve- to thirteen-minutes miles.  You were very proud of yourself, and I was very proud of you too.  You were also pretty proud to have beaten a lot of big kids, including your brother.  I asked you not to rub it in his face, a request with which you’ve mostly complied.

The Cedar Rapids paper ran a story on the event, and the accompanying slide show featured a great picture of you.  I was loading it up to show you, and I said, “Tobin, you’re famous.”  Miles said, “AGAIN?”  It’s true, the media love you.  I think it’s your hair.  You’re very photogenic.

It’s nice that Let Me Run has come to a close, because we’re still busy with baseball.  You’re on the Royals this year, and you predictably made friends right away and settled into team life.  You’re one of the bigger kids on the team this time around, and you’ve been able to do a lot of good hitting and fielding.  Due to scheduling issues, I’ve taken you to quite a few of your games.  When I’m not trying to keep Callum from doing dangerous things on the bleachers, I’ve enjoyed watching you play.  I don’t know a whole lot about baseball, but I know you’re a high-energy and enthusiastic player, much as you’re a high-energy and enthusiastic human being.

You only have about a week left of kindergarten. and even more shockingly, only a few months left of being six.  Sometimes people ask me if I’m still happy with the decision to wait a year and have you be old for your class rather than young, and honestly I feel pretty much neutral about it.  You’ve done great this year, and you’ve made good friends and learned a lot.  You probably would have done just as well last year.  I stopped by your classroom the other day, and the Behavioral Specialist was just leaving.  She told me that you’re smart and a good leader.  Maybe the leadership skills have to do with being one of the older kids in your grade.  In any case, I can’t complain about your kindergarten experience.  Your reading and writing skills have really taken off, and you’ve entered a stage I remember Miles going through of preferring to write notes to us rather than talking.  This only happens now and then—never fear, you’re still a chatterbox.

You’re excited for the summer classes you’ll be starting shortly after school gets out.  You chose mostly outdoorsy ones, and we have lots of good stuff on our summer activity list, too.  I like having more time with you in the summer, and now that Miles is old enough to stay home by himself for short stints, we can do some of the things he doesn’t enjoy as much as you and Callum.  I’m thinking splash pad, picnics in the park, and stomping around in the creek.

Your current favorites:  the baby chicks that just hatched in your kindergarten class, baseball (both with your team and with Miles in the park), reading and writing, cuddling up with your dad at night to read Harry Potter, and after-school ice cream.

Congratulations on a really excellent school year, my Tobin.  We’re going to have so much fun this summer, your hair will stand on end.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Callum,

My poor little boy.  It happened a little later than in past years due to the long winter, but the tree pollen has hit you square in the face.  I won’t post a picture here, because I have so many adorable pictures of you that I’d rather use to remember this month.  It’s a pretty sad sight to see your sweet blue eyes all red and puffy.  A couple of mornings ago you woke up and said, “My poor little eyes!”

You absolutely love playing outside, but I’ve been trying to limit your outdoor time to reduce your allergen exposure.  Sometimes we can’t avoid it—our schedule has been crazy busy lately, and you have no choice but to go to Tobin’s baseball games on Mondays while your dad and Miles are at Let Me Run.  You don’t mind a bit; you love scrambling around on the bleachers and getting snacks from the concession stand and rolling around on the grass.  We’ve had some beautiful nights, too, so the temptation is great.  Last night was so rough, though.  You were up from midnight to one a.m. crying and rubbing your eyes and scratching your legs. I finally gave you Benadryl on top of the Claritin you were already on, which might not have done much more in terms of physical relief, but at least it knocked you out.  You were still restless in the remaining hours of the night, but not like that hour.

We’ve tried all the basic tactics:  baths every night to get the pollen off you, keeping the windows shut, antihistamines and hydrocortisone, frequent washing of the sheets.  So far the only thing that really works is waiting for the passage of time.  We have an appointment at the pediatrician’s on Friday.  I don’t know if that will result in a referral to an allergist or what.  From what I understand, allergy shots are the most effective treatment, but you won’t be eligible for those until you’re five or six anyway.

Tonight would normally have been a night at the ballpark for you, but we changed the plan so I could keep you inside.  We made popcorn and watched Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas.  I just didn’t want to risk another night like last night.  We had fun.  You’re in the bathtub now, which is one of your favorite places to be.  Normally we don’t require nightly baths, but we do them during allergy season to get the pollen out of your hair before bed.  You have no complaints about that.  You’d happily splash around in there for an hour if the water didn’t get cold.

Photo by Gary Clarke

You love water in all forms.  You really, really enjoy playing at the bathroom and kitchen sinks, which often results in a big mess.  You like to whip out your mad scientist skills and mix up really gross and wasteful soap, water, and toothpaste concoctions.  You seem to reserve those sessions for when I’m in the shower and can’t monitor you as closely.  I bought the big boys a new tube of toothpaste that I’ve hidden from you on a high shelf.  I don’t want them blaming you if they can’t brush their teeth and need a bunch of fillings.

You also have been really into shapes.  There’s a video series you’ve been watching lately that talks about all kinds of different shapes, and you’re good at naming them and knowing how many sides each one has.  You love cinnamon toast (and often help make it), and every time you have it for breakfast I ask you if you want triangles or rectangles.  You’re about fifty-fifty between the two shapes, maybe with a slice preference for triangles, except for the time you asked for a rhombus.  You like pentagons and hexagons quite a bit too, but fortunately you haven’t demanded anything with sides greater than four in toast form.

Itchy eyes aside, you really are a sweet-natured and fun little boy.  Today Miles had a school event, a poster session of sorts where we visited his classroom and he and his classmates talked about the different U.S. states they’d been studying.  Many kids (including Miles) chose to bring in foods representative of their states, and boy did those fourth graders have fun filling you up with treats.  You had Chicago-mix popcorn, Ohio buckeyes, Pennsylvania Hershey kisses, fudge from somewhere I can’t remember, Florida orange juice, a perfunctory bite of a Washington apple, and probably more that they sneaked to you when I wasn’t looking.  You were pretty crazy for about an hour after that.  I’m glad it was at 2:30 p.m. and not bedtime.  It would have taken a double dose of Benadryl to bring you down from that.  (I personally enjoyed the New York cheesecake.)

Photo by Denny

Your current favorites:  making shapes with the magnet toys, discussing (but not attempting) the potty topic, pushing the little cart around Trader Joe’s, helping me in the garden (predictably, the watering is your favorite part), helping with cooking projects, and spray bottles of all kinds.  I’ve had to replace almost-empty beauty products with water to make them safe for you to spray on yourself, because your eyes are irritated enough without getting hairspray in them.

May is the cruelest month for you, my sweetheart, but I know we can get through it.  Maybe a couple of good rainstorms will knock out some of the pollen and you can play outside again without paying such a hefty price.

Let’s hope you have a good sleep tonight.

Love,

Mommy

Hello, Miles.

You seem tired.  We knew it would be challenging for everyone to have you in two sports at the same time—Let Me Run and baseball—and it has, in fact, been pretty exhausting.  Last night after running a couple of miles with Let Me Run, coming home for a quick wardrobe change, and heading out to the ballpark for a game, your dad said you were moving pretty slowing.  I asked him whether you seemed sick, tired from running, or were just a lethargic baseball player.  He said it was probably a combination of the second two.

We might have to drop one of them next year.  It’s been a lot for all of us to handle, especially with your dad coaching Let Me Run and me having Callum and Tobin to deal with.  Tobin has his own baseball schedule that I mostly handle (or at least I will until Let Me Run is over, which is in a couple of weeks), and many nights we hardly see each other as a family unit at all.  I don’t like that, and I think it’s hard on you too.  You are a person who needs downtime (I deeply relate), and we haven’t had much of that lately.  Things will slow down somewhat when you’re out of school at the end of the month, and they’ll slow down further at the end of June.  I’m sure July and August will go by fast, because we have a lot we hope to accomplish then, but at least our schedule will be more flexible.

By this time next month, you’ll be all done with fourth grade.  I’m sure I say this every year about every kid, but fifth grade seems awfully old.  At least you’re not going to middle school or junior high yet.  I don’t think I could take it.

Your interest in piano has been waning lately.  You’ve decided to take the summer off, which I think is fine.  I always cherished having the summer off from piano too.  It’s not going to change my life a whole lot, since Tobin is going to take your slot in your teacher’s schedule, but you seem very excited to be done with it for the time being.  I hope you want to start again in the fall, but you have been putting in the very minimum practice time and generally don’t seem too enthused about it.  I’m not sure how hard to push it.  On one hand, you already have plenty of music in your life.  You do Orff Club and Family Folk Machine, and you’ll have the opportunity to start a band instrument next year.  It might be asking too much for you to do all those things.  On the other hand, I took piano for years longer than I actually enjoyed it, but now I’m grateful for my basic skills.  I’m no virtuoso, but I’m competent enough to serve my own limited needs.  It would be nice if you had that too.  I guess we’ll talk about it come fall.

We had a small performance with Family Folk Machine last weekend, when we sang at the Take a Kid Outdoors event.  Besides our performance, there were many other fun things to do.  You and your dad and Tobin paddled around in a canoe, and you tried out a rudimentary arrow slinging tool (without great success, but you had fun).  We’ve got our fifth anniversary Family Folk Machine concert coming up next weekend, and I’m looking forward to sharing that with you.  We’ve grown a lot as an ensemble in the last five years, and you of course have really grown, both physically and in terms of confidence and musical skill.  You’re going to sound great on your solo in “Wabash Cannonball.”

This is one reason I’d like you to stick with piano for a few more years.  I think you have the natural aptitude for some musical success, and I want you to find satisfaction in pushing yourself and seeing results.  Your dad gets frustrated with you in sports because you’re very reluctant to push yourself, which leads to some very sluggish runs and lackadaisical outfielding.  I know you felt proud of your improvements in the fall Let Me Run season, but it seems like you haven’t been trying too hard to make the same kinds of strides this spring.  I don’t need you to demand perfection of yourself, but it would be nice if you cared a little more.

To your credit, you are pretty brave about trying new (non-food) things.  You’ve gotten into the Rubik’s Cube and made some good progress on solving it.  You don’t seem to mind a bit that you’ll be taking summer classes with kids you don’t know.  You can belt out a choir solo like it’s no big deal.  Maybe your relaxed attitude toward objective success has its advantages.

Through it all, my dear Miles, I love you.  I’m looking forward to having more time with you this summer.

Love,

Mom