Dear Tobin,

Has a wigglier, more energetic, more exciting little boy than you ever lived?  Maybe, but you’re certainly the most outrageous person in our household.  As your dad has noted, while the rest of us are winding down, feeling quiet and cuddly and reading bedtime stories, you’re doing headstands and climbing the walls like a little curly-headed Spider-man.

There’s just something in your nature that makes you run when other people walk, dance when other people stand still, and jump up and down when other people collapse onto the couch.  Sometimes the rest of us just put our hands in our heads and boggle at your energy.  You don’t even drink any caffeinated beverages (except the occasional sneaky airplane Coke).

One complicating issue is that you’ve missed so much school lately.  It isn’t your fault—this winter has been just awful, with blizzard after Polar Vortex after ice storm.  It seems like every week you have at least one late start or full cancellation.   Looking ahead to this school week, it seems like maybe you could have five whole days of school.  I sure hope so.  As much as I love having you guys at home, it’s a lot of work to keep you doing things that enrich rather than rot your brains.  You’ve become a bit of a YouTube addict, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but it’s hard as a parent to know exactly what you’re watching and the quality of the content.  I prefer that you stick to Odd Squad, which you do enjoy, but you really want a YouTube fix.  I’m concerned about the materialism some of the channels you like seem to promote.  You’ve gotten into talking about expensive items, how you want a Tesla and a Lamborghini and an iPhone.  Obviously those aren’t equally unrealistic, but in any case, I don’t want you spending your leisure time watching glorified commercials for things you don’t need.

Photo by Gary Clarke

You’re still doing well in taekwondo, and you’re also in the middle of basketball season right now.  I’ve gone to a couple of your games, and your dad is an assistant coach.  You’re not the flashiest player—there are bigger and more skilled kids on your team—but you do a good job passing, supporting your teammates, and (of course) hustling.

We haven’t gotten you signed up for any summer camps yet, but we need to do that.  It will be good to support some of your interests that are more academic or nature-based.  Last year you went to two classes that were about exploring nearby parks and streams and learning camping skills, and you enjoyed those a lot.  Your dad keeps talking about making a trip to Minnesota to go camping with Uncle Joe.  We don’t have any major travel plans in place for the summer, so maybe this will be the year it finally happens.  I myself do not enjoy sleeping outdoors, but I bet I can find a bed somewhere and maybe get in on some s’mores along the way.

Your parent/teacher conferences are coming up next week, and I’m looking forward to hearing about how things are going.  It’s been such a weird semester, I’m sure the teachers are feeling frazzled and frustrated.  I hope you’re learning three or four things.  Your reading skills are continuing to progress well.  Recently, your dad has been reading the Gregor the Overlander series to you and Miles at bedtime, and you were not patient enough to wait for evening to find out what happened.  Even though it’s a book intended for readers closer to Miles’s age, you read ahead and seemed to have no problem handling it.  You guys have finished the Gregor series now, so I need to help you get hooked on another series.  Around your age, Miles got into The Magic Treehouse, so maybe we could get you reading some of the ones we have on the shelves.

Your current favorites:  the trampoline park, pepperoni pizza, bottle flipping, curling up in the guest room, doing headstands, helping with household tasks (sometimes out of altruism and sometimes because you hope to get paid), and generally being a cheerful, silly guy.

You are exhausting and hilarious and resilient.  You test our patience and make us laugh every single day. You are noisy and quick with a smile and a joke.  You’re lots of fun, and I love that you always find a few minutes to snuggle with me on the couch before school in the morning.

Have a good month, my little weirdy.  I love you.

Love,

Mommy

My sweet Miles,

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had three separate people from three different parts of our lives rave about you.  One person said she noticed how happy you’ve seemed lately.  Another said you’re becoming one of her favorite people.  Another said she and her family talk about how much they like you.  Now, of course this doesn’t shock me, because I think you’re wonderful.  But I’m your mother, and you never now how much of my opinion is objective and how much is tied to the fact that the long-term success of my lineage depends on you.  It’s immensely satisfying to know that your kindness, your focus, and your sense of humor are being noticed by others.

I was at school the other day doing some volunteer work, and a teacher who also lives in our neighborhood mentioned that she saw you work on a snow fort all alone last weekend.  I felt the need to defend your choice—you are someone who is happy to work alone, who enjoys the satisfaction of doing a project for its own sake.  She said, “Yeah, that’s probably what I would have been doing at his age too.”  You’ve always been that way.  At your kindergarten parent-teacher conference, your teacher said that you often hung out alone at recess and that she encouraged you to join in with others.  That freaked me out a little—were you lonely?  Shunned?  Friendless?  She assured me that you got along well with your classmates.  I talked to you about it, and you said you just needed a break from people.  I get that.  That personality trait has continued.  Unlike Tobin, who needs constant stimulation, you’re happier when you have a balance of solitude and companionship.

You have friends, including some close ones.  You have hobbies you enjoy, you’re doing well in school, and you’ve been getting along pretty well with your brothers lately.  Those facts add up to a good current life stage, I’d say.

You had plenty of brotherly time with Tobin a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated your eleventh birthday in a big way:  a trip to Universal Orlando, mostly for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Callum is too little to appreciate it, and your dad wasn’t too interested, so we recruited Mubby and Aunt Suzy and made an adventure of it.  My favorite memory of the whole trip was when Ollivander selected you to be the focus of the wand-choosing ceremony in his shop.  It was dim and atmospheric in the little room, and the spooky music made it all the more exciting.  When Ollivander locked eyes with you and invited you to the center to let a wand choose you, Mubby and I grabbed hands and trembled with the thrill of it all.  I think I teared up a little. You tried a few different wands with varying results, but when the perfect one chose you, a spotlight shined down on your head and your hair fluffed up in a magical breeze.

Your hair might have been the reason Ollivander picked you.  A good hair fluffing doesn’t get more dramatic than a Miles hair fluffing.

You and Tobin had a lot of fun using your wands throughout the park to cast spells at the magical spell-points.  You also enjoyed some butterbeer, bought souvenirs, and of course went on the rides.  The two main rides at Harry Potter World are the Forbidden Journey (which we liked so much we rode twice) and Escape from Gringott’s.  We could have spent longer at Universal, since we barely did anything outside Harry Potter World, but it was a good time in any case.  There was even a Panda Express at Universal Citywalk, so you got to have your favorite food as part of your birthday trip.  You proudly wore your Ravenclaw robe (which was actually useful as outwear, since it was rather chilly) and had a fantastic time.  Just this morning over breakfast you talked about wanting to go again.

Your current favorites:  trombone, drawing comics, pasta, jumping at the trampoline park, sleeping in (which you’ve been able to do a lot, due to a spate of school cancellations and late starts due to winter weather), YouTube, and lemonade.

We’re starting to get your summer schedule planned out, and you say you only want to go to one camp:  FilmScene.  You’re already registered for that one, and I rather you didn’t sit on your butt all summer watching YouTube.  I don’t mind so much when you’re creating and editing videos, but we may need to set some goals and schedules about passive versus active screen time.  I may also need to look into season passes at the trampoline park, because I think you and your brothers would boing-boing-boing the whole summer long if it were fiscally sound.  I have to admit that I enjoy the trampoline park myself, so I don’t mind taking you.  It was a fun activity for a no-school day yesterday.  However, if we keep getting school cancellations at the rate we’ve had them lately, you won’t have any summer break left for us to schedule.

It’s been a really fun month, my sweet boy.  I’m proud to be your mom.  Keep up the great work.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

As excited as I was to take a long weekend trip with your brothers, I was worried about how you would do.  It wasn’t our first time being apart for a few days, but you’ve been in such a clingy stage lately that I was concerned it would do your dad in.  You had become so Mommy-centric that you wouldn’t even let anyone else help you go to the bathroom.  That strategy, while it caused you some discomfort while I was away for a couple of hours for meetings, had been basically working for you.  But three days is a long time to hold it.

Skittergramps came and spent the time with you and your dad while Mubby, Miles, Tobin, Aunt Suzy and I were in Florida.  That was very helpful—adding a special person to the mix helped assuage the “everybody left me” atmosphere.  You were the Three Adventure Guys, and you had pizza, fudge, barbecue, trips to the library, Tot Time, and the Natural History Museum, and probably a lot of other stuff.  You packed a lot of good excitement into the few days we were gone, and apart from some occasional sadness, your dad said you did well.

That’s good to know, since we’ve started talking about preschool.  We haven’t made a final decision on where you’ll be going, but it’s going to happen next fall one way or another.  It will just be half days, and I know you can do it, because both your brothers did.  You’re familiar with how school works, and while I don’t think you’ll be in the same building as your brothers, we’ll visit and let you see how it will happen.  One of the possibilities involves you packing a lunch that you eat at school, and you think that idea is pretty cool.  I’ll miss having a lunch buddy, but it will be good for you to get used to doing some things on your own.

Your dad and I high-fived at dinner last night over a trip he made to Goodwill, to which he donated a lot of stuff we no longer need.  We were happy to be past the little-potty life stage.  I also remarked on how nice it is that rough sleep nights are now the exception.  Most of the time you sleep well, which means that I usually do too.  Tobin seems to think you don’t like blankets, which I’m not sure sure about, because when you do occasionally yell for me in the night I often find you uncovered.  Tucking you in and making sure you’re warm helps.  You love your little stuffed deer Eddie (though you call it a dog) and your old favorite Curious George.

This winter started off mild, but the last few weeks have been brutal.  We experienced a Polar Vortex, which kept the big boys home from school for several days, then an ice storm and more snow that triggered late starts and early releases.  I’m very grateful to have a schedule that allows me to roll with these changes with minimal issues, and you’ve enjoyed having your brothers around.  We even took advantage of a school cancellation to take a trip to the trampoline park.  That has been a great addition to Iowa City.  You and your brothers all enjoy it, and they have different areas that appeal to different ages.  You mostly like boing-boing-boinging around in the open trampoline area and stacking up the foam blocks.

One curious thing that’s emerged in your personality lately is some anxiety about wasting things.  If one of your brothers is shaking some crackers out of a box into his bowl, you yell “That’s enough!” and tell him to stop to avoid wasting them.  I don’t know where this comes from, since we go to HyVee all the time, and surely you’ve seen that it’s pretty easy to replenish our supplies.  You have no qualms about non-food resources, though.  You’ve been really into using tape for a variety of purposes, and you do the full arm-stretch as you pull it off the roll.  You love wrapping and unwrapping and re-wrapping presents (even just items you find around the house), creating tape “webs” between pieces of furniture, and creating projects with boxes and duct tape.  I’m going to have to stock up on different varieties of tape next time I hit the dollar store, because this could become an expensive habit.

Your other hobbies mostly involve the things you do while you’re hanging around at your brothers’ activities.  You’ve made good friends with Julian, another kid who hangs around at taekwondo because his dad is the instructor.  You two love to chase each other around the rec center.  You also like shopping at the Co-op and Trader Joe’s when we’re in Coralville for your brothers’ piano lessons.  You like the samples.

Your current favorites:  doing projects with tape (lots and lots of tape), using your Silly String gun, spraying water with your various squirters, pepperoni pizza, Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad, and being right next to me.  You still enjoy art projects, though the paint doesn’t always end up on the paper.

Maybe by this time next month the brutal winter will have eased up a bit and we’ll be able to venture outside a little more.  In the meantime, we’ll stay cuddled up.  I’d better enjoy this snuggly mornings while we still have them.

Love,

Mommy