My dear Tobin,

This is coming a bit late, because we’ve been very busy with all kinds of different things these days.  One activity that has taken up a lot of our time is taekwondo.  You have loved it so far, and even though you’ve only been a student for a few weeks, you really, really wanted to test for your yellow belt when a testing opportunity recently arose.  I discouraged you, because once you’re a yellow belt you are supposed to move to the advanced class (which is all the non-white belts together), and that seemed a little intense for someone with your amount of experience.  I’m sure future testing opportunities will arise, and you’ll do great.  You probably could have passed the test this time, there’s no rush.  You did earn a yellow stripe on your belt for knowing your first form though I’m not convinced you always turn the right direction.  It’s hard for me to focus on the details of your taekwondo work because I usually take Callum into another room so he doesn’t disturb your class.  Still, you did a good job practicing at home.  You’ve also been working on learning the tenets of taekwondo and counting in Korean.

One of the tenets is “indomitable spirit,” and you’ve really taken to that one.  I think it’s partly because you like the word indomitable.  Last night you asked me to help you write a song—we have an open mic party for our choir coming up, and you want to do an original composition.  So far it goes:

Sometimes things are hard.
We don’t always win.
But you can’t give up
Because…because….you are…
INDOMITABLE.

It’s very cute, and you like playing the piano part along with it.  Your piano work has been going well, and you’re excited to play in your first recital next month.  Your teacher tells me you plan to sing along as you play, so we’ll see how that goes.  I could see you backing out on that element at the last minute, but who knows?

First grade is going well for you.  Your teacher tells us she enjoys your sense of humor.  You seem to be getting along with your classmates and forging some good friendships.  Your teacher does assign homework, but she doesn’t require that you turn it in, so it’s nice to be able to do it at our family’s own pace.  Some nights are so busy that you barely have time for any relaxation or play time, both of which I think are important.  I don’t want you to sacrifice those just to do a math worksheet.  Another important part of your daily routine is when your dad reads to you and Miles at night.  At your request/demand, you’ve gotten through a good number of books in the Harry Potter series.  I believe you just finished The Half-Blood Prince, which means the final book is up next.  It’s a long one, so you may or may not finish before our Universal trip in January.  In any case, you’ve seen all the movies, so I’m not worried about you being insufficiently Harry Pottered before we get there.

If you don’t recognize yourself in the picture above, it’s because you asked me to straighten your hair.  I did it with a flat-iron, and you liked it, but you were still happy when your curls bounced back.  I think you look about thirteen in this picture (though I hope you’re still rocking the boingy curls when you’re actually thirteen).

I am proud that you’re always willing to try new things, even (sometimes) food.  You set a goal of planning and preparing dinner for the family one night, and you served us tortillas, cream cheese, lettuce, rice, and pineapple.  I may have sneaked a few other food items onto the table to balance the meal a bit, but you did most of the work, including cutting vegetables and setting the table.  You can be a bit myopic when it comes to things Miles receives and does; you can’t understand why he got a trombone and you didn’t.  Surely on an intellectual level you understand that he’s a fifth grader, the official starting-of-band year in our school system, and that you can also play an instrument when you reach that age.  You also conveniently forget that you got a taekwondo uniform and he didn’t.  It can be a struggle sometimes, but I like to encourage you to take on responsibility, such as your dinner experiment, when it’s reasonable.

Not all your attempts yield equal levels of success, but you’re good at a lot of things and you have a good general attitude.  During the first couple of weeks of school, your dad and I were feeling concerned because your usually-sunny disposition seemed to have dimmed.  You were displaying more negative attitudes and behaviors, which was out of character for your usually pleasant and resilient self.  Maybe you were just in a period of adjustment, because I feel like things are going better now.  You take good care of Callum now that he’s sleeping in the bunk bed with you, and I can usually trust you to make good choices.  You are not so good at putting your dirty clothes in the hamper, but it took me a good thirty years to get the hang of that, so I won’t judge.

You’re doing great, and I know you’ll continue to do so, because…because…you are…

Indomitable (also cute).

Love,

Mommy

Dear Callum,

This month we resumed our normal school-year schedule, which for you mostly involves riding along to your brothers’ activities.  You definitely miss them when they’re at school, but you’ve adjusted pretty well, and we have fun on our own adventures.  You have lots of friends at Hy-Vee, especially the bakery ladies, whom you charm by always saying “thank you” after you raid the free cookie tray.  You like examining the wares at the Co-op during Miles and Tobin’s piano lessons, playing with the renewable energy display at the Rec Center during Tobin’s taekwondo classes, and hanging around in front of school to wait for them on days we go pick them up.

The weather has been mostly dismal lately, so we haven’t gotten as much outside time as you prefer.  We’ve had so much rain that many of the tomatoes in our garden have burst unpleasantly.  I can save some of them but not all of them, which is a bummer because harvesting garden produce is one of our favorite things to do together.  The cucumbers are still growing, though, so I know you’ll be happy to pick those with me. The forecast for the next week or so is good, so we’ll have to make sure to get out.

You had your stage debut last weekend, when you and your brothers and I did a performance at an art opening of our original song, “The Exploring Baby.”  Since you were the inspiration for that song, it was only natural that you participate.  You held your ukulele and bellied right up to the mic.  Technically it was an instrumental mic, but since you’re about the same height as the average guitar, it worked fine for you.  I couldn’t see you well from my vantage point at the piano, but a friend told me later that you really had the timing down well.  He said you stepped up at all the right moments, and while he couldn’t tell if you were singing or not, you had clearly been part of the rehearsal process.  We also performed “Pop Fly,” and we worked on it a lot at home.  This morning I was playing something else on the piano, and you said to me, “It’s time to stop that.  We should do ‘Pop Fly.'”

You’re definitely three, smack dab in that stage of wanting control over everything in your world and getting very frustrated when your wishes cannot be.  I try to let you assert your will when it’s reasonable (e.g., building enough travel time into our schedule that you can climb in and out of your car seat on your own), but sometimes you want to do things that are unsafe or infeasible under the circumstances.  Those are not your best moments.  Luckily I can still overpower you.

The biggest change in your life this month has been your transition to the bunk bed.  You don’t stay in there all night every night—pretty often I see you at the foot of my bed at some point during the night, and you come in to join your dad and me.  I know you won’t do that forever, so I don’t mind too much, although I definitely sleep better when you’re in the bunk bed.  As Miles noted in the bridge section of “The Exploring Baby” that he wrote just for our recent performance, “[You] like to kick Mom in the night.  [You] really like to do it.  It just feels right.”  Many nights, though, you do stay in there with Tobin, and you do fine despite the weird gymnastics you two do.  The position in which you go to sleep has very little relationship to how I find you in the morning.

Your potty training has been going mostly well.  You have a problem with delaying a bathroom visit too long and ending up with a leak.  We’ve talked and talked about how you have to listen to your body and go before it’s an emergency, but it remains an issue.  Still, I know you’re on track to full bathroom competence.  We’re down to our last couple of Pull-ups that we use overnight, and I don’t see any reason to buy another pack.  I’m not sure if Tobin agrees that it’s a low-risk proposition, but I think you’re ready to sleep in underpants.  In any case, we have a waterproof mattress protector on every bed in the house (my number one tip to all new parents, by the way).

Your current favorites:  card-boiled (hard-boiled) eggs, Silly String, pushing the little shopping carts at Trader Joe’s, cinnamon toast, taking showers with whichever brother will have you, and your bedtime hug ritual.  No matter how much you and your brothers irritate each other during the day and evening, you never begrudge them a big hug before we turn out the lights.  You don’t always agree with my “final pee” suggestion, but you never want to eliminate the hug part of the last minutes of the day.

I love you, my sweet boy.  Thank you for all the hugs.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

Fifth grade has begun, and with it all the hustle and bustle of the new school year.  I’ve run into your teacher a couple of times when I’ve been doing volunteer work at school, and he said that you’re doing well.  We have your school open house this week, which you won’t be able to attend due to a band conflict (see next paragraph), but I plan to go and learn more about what fifth grade will bring.  You’ve said that your teacher is really into social studies, so maybe you can parlay your Hamilton obsession into some kind of coursework.  Your lunches remain consistent and unimaginative:  crackers, chips, fruit, and juice.  I don’t know how you operate on so little protein—we haven’t even been to Panda Express lately for orange chicken.  Asian preparations remain pretty much the only way you eat much variety, so our wok gets a good workout.  Fortunately our garden garlic harvest was pretty abundant this year, so I was able to freeze a large amount of garlic-ginger paste, a key ingredient in the many stir-fries I make for dinner.

You do enjoy apples, especially ones picked at our favorite local orchard.  We took our annual family trip to Wilson’s last weekend, and despite the mud that has resulted from the copious recent rain, we had fun and picked tons of apples.

The main thing keeping you busy this fall will be music:  Orff club will be starting up again soon, plus you’ve gone back to piano, and Family Folk Machine, and the trombone.  The trombone is brand new to you.  Over the summer, we discussed what activities you’d be doing and how to manage them without going crazy.  I asked you to pick either piano or band, and after some contemplation, you chose piano.  Then the school band director came to your class to give her pitch.  You got so excited about playing the trombone that I couldn’t say no.  We were able to borrow one from a friend for the time being, so we haven’t invested a lot, but if it turns out you’re serious about it we’ll look into a purchase.  It turns out two of your friends are also going to play trombone, so it will be fun for you to be part of the brass section in the school band.  I hope you enjoy it and find fulfillment in it.  I also hope you mostly practice downstairs.

You’ve been doing a lot of reading, including books by one of my favorite children’s authors, John Bellairs.  There’s a movie coming out later this month based on his book The House with a Clock in Its Walls, so I’m looking forward to seeing that with you.  It’s honestly not my favorite of his books, but maybe if it’s a big hit, they’ll make more movie adaptations.  I really like it when we can both read a book and then see the movie together.  We did it with A Wrinkle in Time as well, and it’s fun to talk to you about our favorite elements, what was left out from the book and what was changed, and whether characters and key scenes were how we imagined them or not.

Photo by Gary Clarke

One cool thing we got to do recently was perform music at the opening reception for an art exhibition.  The exhibition showcased mother and child artists, so for the musical entertainment, the organizers invited local mothers and kids such as ourselves.  We performed two songs:  “Pop Fly” by Justin Roberts and our original composition, “The Exploring Baby.”  I asked you before we began whether you were nervous, and you looked at my like I was nuts.  You weren’t nervous at all.  You just got up there and belted out your tunes, including the rap you wrote as a bridge in “The Exploring Baby.”  Our performance was well-received, and I hope you were as proud of yourself as I was of you.

It was apropos to sing a song that was about our life with Callum, because you’ve been an especially good big brother to him lately.  You’ve been mostly patient and kind, including him in your games and finding ways he can participate without destroying anything.  Sometimes you get frustrated and I have to intervene, but mostly you’ve very tolerant and nice about engaging with him.  He loves you so much.  The first few days after school started, Callum would wake up in the morning and say, “Where’s Miles?”  I explain to him that you’re at school, which he begrudgingly accepts, and he’s always happy to see you when he sees you through the front window as you approach the house.

Your current favorites:  linguine with homemade tomato sauce (you make the linguine and I make the sauce), Minecraft, puns, playing airplane with Callum, everything Hamilton, drawing comics, and watching weird YouTube videos made by Danish people.

I’m so glad that your fifth grade year is off to a great start, sweet Miles.  May this stage of kindness and general pleasantness last all year.

Love,

Mom