Dear Miles,

Summer has begun, and you’re keen to call yourself a fifth-grader now.  Predictably, I cringe at how big you’re getting, but I also appreciate how trustworthy and (mostly) reasonable you’ve become as you mature.  It’s no big deal to leave you at home while I run a couple of errands, let you play out in the park on your own or with Tobin, or have you walk home from school.  That is a big help when I have to deal with your little brothers.  You’ve also gotten more mature emotionally.  You still sometimes get impatient with Tobin and Callum, but most of the time you respond to reason, and you’ve been doing a good job managing your emotions and avoiding meltdowns.

You haven’t started any of your summer camps yet, but I can tell already that you’re itching to get going.  You were disappointed today when I told you that your first one doesn’t start next week but rather the following week.  In your ideal world, you would probably watch YouTube videos all day, so it’s nice to see that you’re recognizing the limitations of YouTube’s appeal.  Earlier this afternoon I cut you off from screen time, and rather than complaining about being bored, you finished a book you’d been reading and invited Tobin to work on a stop-motion animation project with you.  I give the stop-motion software a pass because it’s a creative screen time activity.

The animation camp you’ll be attending later this month is the first all-day camp you will have ever done.  You’re super psyched about the camp—you did it last year and placed it as your highest priority among this summer’s activities.  Last year, though, it was just half-day, which meant you came home for lunch.  During the school year, I pack you a lunch every day.  This camp provides lunch.  Whenever I attend an event that provides lunch, it’s the part of the whole day I’m most excited about.  For some reason, even bland conference center food is delicious when it’s free (or included in the price, which gives the illusion that it’s free).  I get the feeling you are not so excited about that.  I hope you’re brave and try some new things.  It would be great to add some local restaurants to our family’s options.

The school year wrapped up nicely with an Orff Club concert and your final conference report.  On the ascending 1-3 scale your school uses, you got 3s on everything except materials organization (aka messy desk).  To your credit, you moved up from your beginning-of-the-year score of 1 to a 2.  I can’t fault you too much for that, given the state of my dresser right now.  The key is to just have less stuff, and that’s hard to do when your teacher keeps giving you worksheets.  Your amassed items are still sitting in your 50-pound backpack, because I am avoiding sorting through them.

Your classmates awarded you “Weirdest Student of the Year,” which you accepted as a great honor.  You also told me that your class put on an informal talent show, and you participated by singing a song from Hamilton.  Nana got our family tickets to Hamilton in Des Moines for later this summer, and you and Tobin are outrageously excited about it.  You’ve been listening to the soundtrack whenever you’re in the car with your dad, and considering how long it takes to get to baseball these days with road construction having shut down a main thoroughfare, I think you know most of it by heart.

Photo by Gary Clarke

You did a good job in the Let Me Run 5k, running the whole distance with no walking.  You don’t seem to have much interest in continuing a running program this summer, but I hope you’ll rejoin in the fall.  You had a very busy spring, and it’s still busy with the baseball schedule.  By next month at this time, that will have wrapped up, and we’ll also be back from our trip to the Missouri lake house with Mubby, Skitter, and Uncle Tyler’s family.  We have plenty to cover on our summer activity list, and we keep thinking of new things to add to it (for example, another trip out to the fossil gorge, a visit to Backbone State Park, and seeing the Putnam Museum).  We’ll see how the schedule works out.

Your current favorites:  sleeping in, those squeezy popsicles in plastic tubes, frozen yogurt, going to the library, inane YouTube videos, stop-motion animation (especially using green-screen technology), and reading comics.

I’m having fun with you so far this summer, my sweet Miles.  I can’t wait to see what creative work you complete by the end of the season.

Love,

Mom