Dear Tobin,

We are mired in the very busiest month of the year, when all the activities seem to happen all at once.  Things will start to slow down when June comes, though really it’s July when we can finally catch our breath.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Speaking of breath, you did very well once again in the Let Me Run 5k.  Since you’re not  old enough to be part of the official team, so we signed you up as a community runner and did a few training runs on our own time.  You were one of the youngest runners at the race, and you did great.  It’s a good thing Miles doesn’t care much about your relative speeds, because you beat him by a fair margin (again).  Once you reach the minimum age for team membership and start doing more structured training, you’re going to be unstoppable.

Baseball is the biggest time-consumer for our family right now.  It’s been a tumultuous season, weather-wise, with a good number of rain-outs and much fluctuation in temperature.  Some nights you need a winter coat and other nights you need multiple refills of your water bottle to keep from turning into a raisin.  You’re in the pitching machine league this year, which you seem to enjoy, and this year someone keeps score at your games.  You’ve had a mix of wins and losses, but you are having fun.  Honestly I think what you like the most is ballpark food.  I keep trying to feed you before you leave for a game, but you’d rather spend your savings on tepid pizza slices.

Today Callum and I had the opportunity to visit your music class and stay afterward to join you for lunch and recess.  You were so proud to have your little brother there to play with you.  During music class, you did an activity that involved choosing a partner, and you went straight to Callum.  He was too shy to participate much, but you still did a good job including him to the degree that you could.  At lunch, you declined to sit with your usual friend group, deciding instead to find a spot big enough for Callum and me to sit with you.  At recess, you and your friends scrambled around the playground with him.  I was especially impressed with your friend Barack, who was kind and patient and always ready to hold Callum’s hand to keep him safe.  He was very disappointed when the bell rang and you had to go back to class, and he wants to do it again some time.

We celebrated Mother’s Day a bit off-schedule, since true Mother’s Day weekend was packed full of other commitments.  The following Friday night, you presented me with a menu for the special breakfast you planned to make me.  I made my selections, and after you expressed interest in making coffee for me, I got the coffee maker partially set up and wrote out instructions for the remaining steps.  The next morning, you brewed the coffee for me, then set out with your dad  to the Farmer’s Market.  You got me an almond croissant, just like I requested, as well as some other ingredients for a delicious dinner.  You presented it attractively on a special plate and tray, and it was so big that I was very happy to share a few bites with you.  You were also very proud to give me a present you made at school, a customized coaster with a lovely picture you drew of us.

It’s part of your nature to be excited about helping people, and your enthusiasm for making my day special was overwhelming.  I felt so loved.  You are a truly kind and generous little boy.

Your current favorites:  cubing (you can solve a Rubik’s type cube in about one minute now), watching YouTube videos on the topic of cubing, ice cream, and freestyle dancing.

Sometimes your dad and I feel exhausted by your enthusiasm, when the quiet people of the family just want to sit in silence and you’re telling jokes and making weird noises and talking in strange voices.  You are extremely energetic, both physically and mentally, but you bring such joy and electricity to our family.  We’ve got a lot of togetherness coming up this summer, but I’m guessing it won’t be dull.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Callum,

Here we are, once again in the month of May.  This is probably the worst month of the year for you.  First of all, you have terrible allergies.  Every May, you get red, itchy eyes and itchy skin.  Right now you have a stuffy nose, too, but that might be a cold on top of your allergies.  Compounding those issues is the fact that this is a ridiculously busy time for your brothers’ activities.  By now you’re probably used to being shuffled around from one of their commitments to another, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time to do special things just for you.  I hope once the activities settle down a little bit in July or so, we can do more things where you’re a more active participant.  I understand the Ped Mall fountain is going to be up and running again, and I bet you’ll enjoy that.

At your request, we did make cookies the other day.  The impetus behind that project was a trip to JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts for some supplies I needed.  Your dad gets annoyed that every time we go somewhere, it seems like you come back with a treat of some kind.  Little does he know how many errands we run where you don’t get a treat.  It’s most of them.  But JoAnn’s is full of enticing things.  This time you talked me into a squeeze bottle of frosting, so of course we had to make cookies so you could decorate them.

You did a very good job—in fact you were a lot more careful than I expected you to be.  I wasted more paper towels than I should have in preemptive drip collection.  You were very, very proud to show the cookies to your brothers and share them, and they were very happy to taste your creations.

Your brothers’ love and attention is what you want most in the whole world, and sometimes you don’t go about getting it in very productive ways.  During one of our many seemingly interminable car rides to Coralville, you are as likely to hit or kick Tobin as you are to interact nicely with him.  I think you just get overwhelmed by how much you missed him during the school day, and when he doesn’t immediately pay attention to you, you make poor choices demanding his focus.  You’ve also had some negative behaviors around the house lately, like throwing the bag that contained the pieces of Tobin’s precious not-Rubik’s cube.  He was pretty upset until we tracked down all the pieces.

Oh, and you bit him once, hard enough to leave a full circle of teeth marks.  Not cool.  You caught some hell for that one, and I really hope it sank in (into your brain, that is, not your brother’s flesh).  You’ll be starting preschool in the fall, and that is absolutely not going to fly in the classroom.

The good news in that scenario is that you’ll get to go to preschool at Lucas, the same schools your brothers attend.  When I registered you for the district’s public preschool program, it was mostly as a back-up.  Tobin went to the district preschool and had a good experience, and it’s nice how it’s free, so that was our original plan for you.  Then I realized that between the time Tobin went and now, the schedule changed so that it either starts (for morning preschool) or ends (for afternoon preschool) at the same time as all the other students in the school.  When Tobin went, preschool started somewhat later, so we were able to get Miles to Lucas and Tobin to Hoover fairly conveniently.  Since there has never been a preschool at Lucas, I figured you would be assigned to either Longfellow or New Hoover.  There’s no reasonable way for us to get to two different schools at the same time, so I looked into other options and had mostly settled on another local private preschool that had a more convenient schedule.

When the time came for the district preschool registration, I looked at the form and saw that Lucas was listed as one of the options.  That surprised me deeply, and I asked the secretary, Tobin’s teacher, and the principal.  They all assured me that no, Lucas wasn’t going to have a preschool.  I shrugged my shoulders and selected it as my first choice, figuring it was probably an error and we’d end up sending you to the private preschool.  I was equally surprised when I got an email confirming your registration at Lucas.  Again, I asked the secretary and some teachers, and nobody had heard a thing.

A while later, I was at Lucas doing some volunteer work, and three different staff members excitedly approached me and told me there would, in fact, be preschool at Lucas.  It’s kind of weird that even the principal didn’t know until after the district had confirmed your registration with me, but I guess it will all work out.

I asked my friend who works in another district preschool about your future teacher, Mrs. Weis, and while she doesn’t know her personally, she said she’s heard Mrs. Weis is great.  I was a little nervous about how you’d handle the big change that is going to preschool, but I think it will be the best possible scenario to go to the school you’ve visited many, many times.  You already know where the drinking fountains are.

Better yet, I’ll have all my boys in the same school for one year.  I never expected that to happen.  I’ll even have a yearbook with all your pictures in it, I think.  As the person in charge of the yearbook, I bet I can make that happen.

It will be good to get you out with other kids your age, since most of your interactions are with Miles and Tobin and their friends.  I hope you learn some positive strategies for having fun with other kids.  I don’t mean to sell you short, as you and your brothers often have a great time together.  I just want to make sure you don’t get expelled from Lucas for biting and dash my dream of having everyone together.

You’ve probably been having a hard time lately because you’ve been feeling crummy.  It would be hard to be a kind and patient person when your eyes are puffy and itchy all the time.  Maybe some day we’ll find an effective allergy treatment for you (we’ve tried, and the allergist pretty much just tells us that you’re not old enough for allergy shots, which are his only recourse).

We don’t get outside much, due to trying to keep you de-pollinated, but we have fun when we do.  You got to play outside in the rain the other day, and we’ve had a few nice trips to the park to play with bubbles and Silly String.  Soon the May flowers will die and you can go out and enjoy the June blossoms.  I know we’ll find lots of ways to enjoy our last summer before you start school.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

It’s your last month as a fifth-grader.  Now is the time when I do my periodic description of how mind-blowing it is that you’re this old—nearly a sixth-grader.  You’ve moved into some advanced tasks in school and your extracurricular activities, you’re (mostly) patient with your brothers, and you have an outrageous head of hair.  You’re confident, have some good friends, and have a good sense of humor.  You still won’t eat more than about four things, but I’ve mostly given up on that one.  If that’s your worst quality, I don’t have much to complain about.

Something I didn’t realize until recently was that your teacher, Mr. Moore, is famous for the big social studies project he assigns.  It’s something his former students still remember years later, and you were really excited to do yours.  True to your usual interests, you chose to make a short film about a pioneer family and the challenges they face as they head westward.  There was drama (maybe melodrama), comedy, and you included some cool filmmaking techniques.  During your school conference, Mr. Moore advised us that it’s important for the kid, not the parents, to do the bulk of the work on the project.  Maybe he sniffed out the notion that I live for projects like this.

In accordance with his instructions and in the spirit that I should always be following of letting you do your own work, you did the great majority of it.  I helped some with constructing your covered wagon setpiece, but you did a lot of it.  You also wrote the whole script, made a shot list with required props, directed your actors, and did all the editing.  You picked up some new editing techniques (like the lightning simulator) that you’d never tried before.  Overall, you were very proud of your project, and you got an excellent grade.

Two other big events happened recently, too.  You competed in your fifth team spelling bee and you got your fourth consecutive win.  You’re developing quite a reputation for success in that arena.  It’s partly because you like to read and are a naturally good speller, but it’s also because you work hard.  You dedicated many hours to studying for the spelling bee, and your efforts paid off.  Mubby and Skitter came to watch, and they both noticed and appreciated how relaxed and confident you seemed among your classmates.

I thought about discouraging you from entering, because it does take a lot of time, and also it might be nice to let someone else have a chance to win.  I decided not to, though, because it’s not just glory for you; your teammate(s) also get to bask in the glory of victory.  Also, baseball has been a little frustrating for you this season.  Athletics don’t come as naturally to you as academics do, and now that you’re in Senior League in baseball, the level of competition has risen.  I think you’ll stick it out for this season, but maybe this will be your last year.  In any case, I think the confidence and study skills you’ve gained from the spelling bee are more valuable in the long term.  You’re more likely to go pro as a speller than a baseball player.

Photo by Gary Clarke

You recently had your spring band concert, and you had the special situation of playing in both the fifth and sixth grade bands.  The sixth grade band was running short on low brass, so the instructor invited you and another fifth grader to play your trombone and baritone horns, respectively, with the sixth graders.  She even mentioned you and Chris as she introduced the sixth grade band, thanking you for your dedication in attending double the rehearsals and putting in extra practice time.  I got quite a few compliments from other parents, and I know you were happy with the event.  You got to be good friends with Chris, too.  He goes to another elementary school, so it will be nice to have an extra buddy when you start junior high together.

You also got to join in on the sixth grade band tour, in which you visited various east-side elementary schools to perform.  That was a pretty cool thing for you.  The current band instructor is retiring this year, so if whoever takes the position next year doesn’t continue the band tour tradition, at least you will have gotten in on it once.

We’ve had some beautiful days lately (when it’s not raining), so we’ve tried to find some outside time.  Your allergies have been bothering you lately, not as badly as Callum’s bother him, but enough that you wore sunglasses while you ate lunch the other day because you were worried I’d freak out about your red eyes.  Claritin seems to help, and you’re on the adult dose now.  I’ve got to say, the ability to swallow pills is a major life milestone.

I guess you’re growing up in a lot of ways.  Nice work.

Love,

Mom