Dear Tobin,

Congratulations, Mr. Yellow Belt.  You survived your first taekwondo testing and did very well, earning not only the next belt but two stripes, one for “good snap” on your forms, and the other for commitment and dedication.  Several times after class, one of the instructors or advanced students has come up to me and remarked on how well you’re doing.  Just last night, a black belt said that you looked great, and “I can tell he’s loving it.”  He got that right—you’ve decided that taekwondo is your top priority, and all other activities must work within that schedule.  The winter basketball schedule hasn’t been published yet, but I really hope it works for you to do both.  Coach Dad would be pretty sad without basketball.

We had our fall Family Folk Machine concert over the last couple of weekends.  We were happy to have both sets of grandparents attend.  I’m not sure vocal music will always be something you want to pursue.  You pretty much just put up with FFM because you like to play with your friends there and you like performing on the big stage at the Englert Theater (though we didn’t do that this season).  You have been very excited about piano lately, though.  You did great in your recital, and you often sit down and play without any prompting from me.  Your competitive spirit contributes to that—you hate it when Miles can do anything you can’t do, so sometimes you even attempt his piano assignments.  You also can’t keep your hands off his trombone.  I knew he’d been giving you trombone lessons, but I only recently learned that it was something you negotiated as payment for “letting” him sleep in your room.

Our house can be a very loud place.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Halloween was a fun time around here.  In keeping with your interest in  blasting the trombone and banging on the piano, you weren’t fazed a bit by the loud craziness of the school Halloween dance.  You also had fun trick-or-treating at your dad’s office and around the neighborhood with Miles and a group of friends that you accumulated along the way.  This year you wanted to be Thanos, a character from the Avengers, which you’ve never seen but seems to have crept into other pop culture channels.  When I looked up a picture of Thanos to guide the costume making process, I said, “Maybe this would be a good year to buy a costume.”  You did not like that idea, though.  I enjoy making your Halloween costumes, so that part didn’t bother me, but I was afraid I wouldn’t do a good enough job to satisfy you.  Nonetheless, you seemed happy with the outcome, and I was too.

We had your school conferences last week, and your teacher had lots of good things to say about you.  You’re doing great academically and socially, and you just started ELP.  The only somewhat negative thing your teacher had to say was that sometimes you and your classmate Danielle get to talking so much that it gets loud.  I’ve met Danielle, and I can see that happening.  Soon you will have exhausted your school library’s supply of books about ocean creatures.  That’s all you want to read about these days.  You even bought two books about sharks from the book fair with your own money.  You say you want to be an ocean scientist when you grow up, and I said that was fine with me as long as you’d let me move to whatever oceanic location you choose as a base (maybe nowhere polar, though).

Your current favorites:  pepperoni pizza, Gatorade, Ethan and Cole’s YouTube channel (mostly on the topic of Nerf gun battles), playing with your friend Kit, videos about sharks, board games, jumping from the couch to the futon and back, and playing on the new iPad.  We got a good deal on a nearly-new iPad from a friend who was upgrading, and we couldn’t wait until Christmas to give it to you and Miles.  That had been at the top of your wish list, so now I’m left with a bunch of Nerf guns.  I do not want to buy you Nerf guns.  Maybe I’m just being oversensitive and underestimating your ability to separate fantasy from reality, but I just don’t like them.  With the disgrace that is the firearms situation in our country, and with a new mass shooting in the news every day, I can’t see what good can come of playing with toy guns.

On the other hand, I had tons of Barbies as a kid.  I understand the criticism many people have about Barbies, about the unrealistic beauty standard they reinforce.  But I never felt demeaned in any way because I didn’t have proportions that would have made it physically impossible for me to walk if extended to actual human size.  I just thought they were fun and had sparkly outfits and cool cars.  Maybe I’m allowing too much of my own prejudices behind my distaste toward Nerf guns.  I can’t insulate you from them forever, obviously, since we already have one, and lots of kids you know have entire arsenals.

You’re definitely getting safety goggles, though.  Your dad knows someone who has possibly permanent eye damage from taking a Nerf dart to the eye.  Your beautiful blue eyes are too important to risk.

I love you, my sweet Tobin.  Maybe in the next month I’ll figure out a compromise on what shows up under the tree.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Callum,

The other night at the dinner table, you made the most complex joke I’ve heard you do so far.  We were having pasta, and some members of the family wanted it with tomato sauce and some wanted it without.  For your first helping, you decided you wanted it “nude,” which was not remarkable, since that’s our usual term for anything uncovered.  Probably ten or fifteen minutes later, you wanted a second helping of pasta, and you said, “I want it dressed.”  I was a little confused, since we were also having salad and there was salad dressing on the table, but soon I figured out that you were engaging in wordplay.  You didn’t want your pasta nude, you wanted it dressed (with tomato sauce).

You had a fantastic Halloween.  We were lucky to have a nice evening for trick-or-treating, and you went along with the big boys like a champ.  I expected to take you home after just a few houses, since you’d already spent quite a while at your dad’s office trick-or-treat event earlier that day and I thought you’d be tired.  You chugged right along, though, hitting house after house and mostly remembering your manners.  At one house, after you received your treat, I prompted you:  “What do you say?”  You looked up at the lady and said, “Thank—Trick-or—Happy Halloween!”  The only reason we went home any earlier than the other boys was because you had to go to the bathroom.  When a kid is in his first half-year of being potty trained, we don’t mess around.

You’ve mostly done a good job on that front.  You decided you want to be like your brothers and pee standing up, which is difficult since you’re so short and can barely reach the edge of the toilet.  Standing on the bathroom stool makes you too tall with too much potential for a wide spray.  You’re getting the hang of it, and in the meantime, I’ve got a container of disinfectant wipes in the bathroom cabinet.

You’ve also been doing a good job staying in the bunk bed with Tobin.  You haven’t come into your dad’s and my bed in quite a while, though last night you did wake up.  After I went into your room and cuddled with you for a bit, you went back to sleep there.  I can just hear you starting to wake up now, and I know you’re going to be excited to see the first snow of the season on the ground.

[Brief interlude for cuddling, a bathroom trip, and waffles.]

You were, in fact, excited to see the snow.  You wanted to go out and play in it immediately, though I think I’ve convinced you to wait a bit and we can go out after lunch.  Your dad did an inventory of snowpants and boots, and he said you didn’t need any new gear this winter.  I’m not sure whether the 2T or the 4T snowpants will fit you better—you’re almost four, but you’re kind of a little guy and still wear some 2s.  I don’t know why we don’t own any size 3 snowpants, but I’m sure for the limited amount of time you spend in them, you’ll do okay.  It will be cute to see you bundled up, and it’s not too cold out yet, so I think we’ll have some fun play time this afternoon.

[Update:  you couldn’t handle waiting till afternoon, so we took a morning trip outside.  I’m actually glad we did, because now it’s after lunch and most of the snow has melted.  Also, the size 4T snowpants fit perfectly.]

Later today we’ll go to the library, because Miles has a class there.  You always enjoy a good library visit, mostly for the computers, but maybe today I can convince you to read some books.  You’ve been so into our Robert Munsch anthology lately that I’ll have to grab a few that aren’t in that collection.  You’re kind of like Miles in that you get attached to a specific set of stories and want the same ones every night for a long time.  That’s one thing I like about the anthology:  at least there’s a large enough selection in there that you switch around a little.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Robert Munsch’s stories, but you can only read Purple, Green, and Yellow and say “super indelible never come off till you’re dead and maybe even later coloring markers” so many times before you’re longing for the days of Curious George.

I’m sure the rest of 2018 will fly by.  These last couple of months are so packed with activity and travel (and crummy weather, which adds to the stress) that we’ll barely have time to catch our breath.  This is our last year of full-time togetherness, so even when it gets tiring, I’m trying to appreciate the time I have with you.  As much easier as it is to go grocery shopping alone, I do enjoy having you with me when I do errands.  You are friends with half the employees at HyVee, and making the rounds to visit them is always fun.  I know when you start preschool next year and I don’t always have you with me, I’ll have to field a lot of “Where’s Callum?” questions.  The bakery ladies will miss you the most, I think.

Your current favorites:  anything you can spray from a spray bottle, your color-changing bath tablets, waffles, Halloween candy, pizza, Robert Munsch stories and videos, building guns out of any toys you can (this is my current least-favorite), playing with your stuffed animals and making them talk, and being included in whatever your brothers are doing.  You’re also into determining people’s eye color, including characters in books who are illustrated in such a style that their eyes are just black dots.

I hope you enjoy the rest of November, my sweet pup.  Maybe you’ll come up with a good nude turkey joke for Thanksgiving.  I feel like you could work the dressing into that one pretty well.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

Fall always seems like a busy time, and this one has followed the pattern.  As disappointed as I was that your Let Me Run team wasn’t able to form, it’s actually a bit of a relief to have one fewer activity to manage.  It seems like every day we’re off doing something, and when you’re not at Orff Club, trombone practices, piano lessons, or Family Folk Machine, you’re working on your personal projects.  You’re still into drawing comics, and while perhaps you’re not gifted in the technical elements of drawing, I’ve noticed some cool techniques you employ.  When I look through your (epic-length) comics—or maybe they qualify as graphic novels by this point—I see interesting framing, close-ups to show characters’ emotional responses, and thoughtful changes in setting.  This tells me that you’re thinking at a level beyond straightforward storytelling and are grasping the cinematic aspects of the art form.

Halloween was mostly fun.  You didn’t get too excited about the school party.  The madhouse atmosphere has never been your thing (though Tobin enjoyed it), and most of your good friends didn’t go.  However, you still found enjoyable Halloween activities.  We went to a party the weekend before actual Halloween, and on the official day, we joined up with your friend Jacob and his mom for a neighborhood trick-or-treat outing.  Along the way, we ran into other groups of school friends, so it ended up being a mobile party (a moveable feast, maybe).  I stayed out almost the whole time, too.  I was expecting to take Callum to a few houses then return home to pass out candy, but he loved being with you and the big kids so much that he lasted a long time.  We have candy in the freezer once again.  I hope it can survive another freeze/thaw cycle.

We have parent-teacher conferences next week, and I’m interested to hear what your teacher has to say.  I run into him at school events now and then, and he’s reassured me that you’re doing well, though he did mention that you’re forgetful and sometimes get tearful.  He’s right; you can be a bit absent-minded, which is something you’re going to have to learn to manage.  We should work on some list-making strategies or other tools for making sure you have all your tasks organized and completed.  Right now your main strategy is having me remind you, but I’ve got three kids and my own task list.  It would be great (and will eventually be necessary) for you to start checking off your own boxes.  You have a lot of math worksheets, music folders, library books, and instruments to keep track of.  To your credit, I think you’ve only forgotten to bring home your lunch bag twice so far this school year, which is a personal best.

Your current favorites:  making, editing, and publishing YouTube videos (Mister Whacky, for anyone reading this inclined to check out your channel); teaching yourself new notes on the trombone; Minecraft; Goldfish crackers; sleeping late; and eating Halloween candy.  You and Jacob filmed a YouTube video of a blind taste test of assorted Halloween treats, and you’ve been working on editing that.  You’re quite interested in achieving YouTube stardom, which would be exciting, but you’re going to need to find a photographer who doesn’t put his finger over the lens so much (Tobin considered it a stylistic choice, but you’re not convinced).

The busiest time of year is coming, with music concerts and holidays and the tedious management of cold weather outerwear.  Winter brings so many opportunities for disorganization.  Let’s see if we can get through the whole season on a single pair of gloves.

On the plus side, you barely need a hat with that head of hair.

Love,

Mom