Dear Tobin,

It finally happened:  you lost your two front teeth.  You took your time losing them—it’s almost the end of your first grade year, and you’re closer to eight than seven.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look cuter.  To be frank, you’ve been in kind of an irritating stage lately.  You’ve been instigating trouble with Callum, dragging your feet when your dad and I ask you to do reasonable tasks, and doing this annoying baby talk thing.  Still, I have a hard time staying mad at you when your smile looks like this.

Childhood is the one time in life when missing teeth look good, so you’d better soak it up.

The school year is almost done, which means some fun class activities, like a picnic and a trip to our favorite neighborhood ice cream shop.  You’ve had a really good year.  You’ve developed and strengthened some good friendships, learned a lot, and mostly managed to get out of bed in the morning.  It’s funny, because on weekends, you’re usually the first kid up.  On school days, though, you can be a real bear in the morning.  It’s very common for you to fall back asleep sitting at the breakfast table.  You’ve been that way ever since you were a baby—involuntary wake-ups make you very, very crabby.  I used to have to budget extra time in the schedule when I woke you up from an afternoon nap to go pick up Miles.  You needed to sit there and be angry for ten minutes before you’d even let me touch you or talk to you.  It’s not quite that bad anymore, but you would still much prefer to wake up on your own schedule.

Just this morning, I handed you your dot book (a reading assignment you bring home every day, which you usually have no problem getting done before school) and went about doing my other morning tasks.  Ten or fifteen minutes later, I came back to let you know it was time to get dressed and brush your teeth, and you were fast asleep, sitting straight up in your chair, your book open to the first page.  We probably need to get you to bed earlier, but these evenings have been so busy with all the activities you guys do that it’s hard to make that happen.

You and your dad have started a weekend tradition of going out for breakfast together.  You started doing it during the winter before or after your Saturday basketball games, and you both enjoy it so much you’ve continued the habit.  Usually it’s just somewhere for a quick bagel, but sometimes you get fancier.  You’ve even tried some new breakfast foods (thumbs down to scrambled eggs and sausage, but thumbs up to French toast).

Over the weekend, we had one of the first truly warm days of the season, and at your suggestion, I got out the sprinkler and the splort balls.  You and Miles and Callum played outside together for a long time, which brought out your freckles.  We also had cocktail hour and dinner out on the porch, which you love doing.  We can’t do it too often, because it’s hell on Callum’s allergies, but you enjoy doing it when we can.

Your biggest recent accomplishment was testing for your orange belt in taekwondo.  Your forms, kicks, and punches looked great, and you broke your first board.  It took you a while to do it, and I think you were getting frustrated, but then one of your teachers suggested a different kick.  You did a front snap kick and broke the board on the first try.  You seemed startled by the loud noise, but then you were proud of yourself.  We won’t know for another week or so whether you passed the test, but three of the judges told me how well you did.  I see orange in your future.

Next month at this time the school year will be nearly finished, and our family’s activities will have slowed down a bit.  You only have one camp this summer, a multi-sports extravaganza that you’re going to do with your friend Ben.  Ben’s a little older than you, but you two share a lot of interests that have mostly run parallel in your lives.  In fact, we used to refer to him as “Digger Ben” to differentiate him from other Bens you knew and because you guys enjoyed playing with toy diggers together.  Now you share a Rubik’s Cube obsession, and we’ll see if your sporting interests overlap as well.

Your current favorites:  vanilla ice cream, dice stacking, Rubik’s Cube (which you have now mastered solving), watching YouTube videos on the topic of Rubik’s Cubes, playing outside with your friends, and pepperoni pizza.  If the trend continues, I can see you serving pepperoni pizza at your wedding one day.

Enjoy the rest of first grade, my dear.  I look forward to pushing through this crazy-busy time and having a little more of a relaxing summer.  We’ll touch base in July.

Love,

Mommy