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