Dear Tobin,

We can always count on you to liven up any situation.  You remain high-energy, joyful, and always ready to dive into any activity.  It sometimes drives the rest of us crazy.  Your dad and I joke that the last time you sat through a meal was when you were strapped into your high chair.  The idea of sitting still and reflecting on any topic is not of interest to you.  We can barely even get you to sit in a traditional position on your chair at the table.  You’d prefer to be half-standing, shoveling your dinner into your face, ready to launch into a dance move or to go get a book you’ve been enjoying or to grab the iPad.  We’re working on it.

We had your school conference, and I asked your teacher if she has a similar issue with you in school.  I know you often finish your work before deadline, and it’s hard to imagine that you’d take that opportunity to double-check your work or sit quietly and rest.  Your teacher confirmed that you tend to be mobile, but that you’ll often get up and help a friend with his or her assignment.  That’s cool, as long as you’re not being a know-it-all.  There’s a fine line between supporting someone’s efforts and gloating, and as a little brother whose goal in life is to surpass his older brother’s accomplishments, you do tend toward gloating.

Being the middle sibling can be tough on you sometimes.  Miles and Callum have a closeness that you don’t really share with either.  Miles can be resentful of your talents, which are different from his, and your gloatiness doesn’t help.  Callum loves to play with you, but you often get too wild and someone ends up physically or emotionally injured.  I usually don’t worry about it too much, since you’re so good at making friends wherever you go that I know you won’t be alone in life.  It can be a little tough around here, though.  I’m not always sure about the best way to refill your metaphorical bucket, since what works with Miles (a one-on-one outing where we can talk and hang out without distraction) isn’t necessarily what works with you.  You live for distraction.  Your entire life is a series of distractions, and you thrive among them.

You enjoy outside play time, so during the last nice days of fall, I’ve taken you out to play a few times.  You’re perfectly capable of going out to our nearby park on your own or with your brothers, but you love to show off your monkey-bar moves and your ability to jump off tall things.  You haven’t broken a bone yet, and I do hope we maintain that streak.  Still, if I had to predict which of my kids would break a bone first, my money’s on Tobinio.  This is yet another reason you’re not allowed to play football.

You chose to be a spy for Halloween, inspired partly by the Spy School book series, which you’ve been enjoying both as reading material and as audiobooks.  We listened to one as a family on our drive to Colorado last summer, and that got you into a Spy School phase.  I think that one might be petering out, though, because you’ve read or listened to all the books.  We need to find you a new series.  One benefit to our temporary move (house-sitting for friends while our house is under construction) is that you’ll have access to a whole library of new reading material.  I bet you’ll get a kick out of raiding your friend Ben’s book supply, and he’s just enough older than you that he’ll probably have a lot you haven’t seen yet.

Ben is your best Family Folk Machine friend, and you’ve said that you don’t want to do if if he’s not going to be there.  Ben and his family are spending about half a year in Germany, so we’ll have to see if I can get you there without Ben as a lure.  Music is not a top interest of yours, but playing with friends definitely is.  I think you’ve gotten friendly with some other FFM kids who will still be around, so I hope you’ll remain a member.

We had a song in our recent Family Folk Machine concert with lyrics by Kahlil Gibran.  On the topic of one’s children, Gibran reminds us, “You can strive to be like them, but you cannot make them just like you.”  That’s something that can be very difficult to keep in mind.  I strive to be like you—to laugh off insults, truly enjoying the comedy of them rather than taking them personally, to share a big smile, to live with energy and enthusiasm.  I cannot make you just like me, and that’s okay.  I already exist, and it’s not your job to replace me.  When I look back on my life, I’m not going to remember all the times I wanted you to just sit down and eat a calm dinner with the family.  I’m going to remember your contagious laugh and your excitement about things that no one else finds exciting (I am simply not willing to invest the time it would require to understand Pokémon).   I’m going to remember your smile and your willingness to help.

I love you, you rascally little guy.  The world is sunnier with you in it.  Thanks for keeping me tired.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

Last week, we got your first official school pictures.  As I was telling your dad, I don’t know why I’m so emotionally attached to those.  They’re never great shots.  We have enough good photographers in our sphere that finding an objectively better photo of any one of you kids is an easy thing to do.  But there’s just something about the tradition of the portrait against the mottled blue background that makes me smile.  We had the option of choosing other backgrounds, but I went with the classic.  Besides, you blue-eyed boys of mine look nice against the original one.

When you saw your picture on the mantle next to your brothers’, you said, “I’m a Lucas Mighty Hawk!”  I’m glad you’re proud of your school affiliation, and preschool at Lucas has been going great for you.  Your teachers are about the kindest, warmest people we could hope for.  I was chatting with the dad of one of your classmates, and he mentioned that his son had previously attended a different preschool in town.  He said “I think I’m the only person who doesn’t like [redacted].”  I said to him, “No, you’re not.”  That was a school that has a solid reputation, but I think they’re resting on the laurels of some high-quality former staff.  What I really want in a preschool teacher is someone who truly cherishes little kids, who takes joy in their successes and supports them through challenges.  I want teachers who hug kids who are having a hard time at drop-off or when they get a bonk.  That’s what you have now, and we’re all happy about it.

We’ve had an early start to winter around here, with two significant snowfalls already, before mid-November.  You, of course, think it’s great.  You weren’t too crazy about putting on snow boots for school today, but you really wanted to go outside and play.  You did get some outside time during recess today, and your teacher said you had fun making snow angels.

When I picked you up today, you refused to put on your mittens.  That was pretty dumb, because we always have to wait outside for Tobin for a while, and today he took longer than usual.  Dumber still, you copied Tobin (who was wearing gloves) when he swiped a big swath of snow off a bench.  You howled and screamed about your cold hand, and I admit I didn’t have much sympathy for you, since both your teacher and I had tried to get you to put on your mittens.  In an effort to get you to the car faster, I picked you up to carry you, and your boot fell off.

This snowy weather transition is a learning experience, I guess.  Maybe we’ll get our act together by February.

Halloween was fun, though the weather was awful, and you didn’t last very long for neighborhood trick-or-treating.  Fortunately we had enough other Halloween-related activities that you got plenty of candy and fun without having to be outdoors too much.  For the last three years, you’ve wanted to be a witch, which was easy but kind of boring for me.  This year you told me you wanted to be Thor from the Avengers, so we (I) spent hours making a really cool Thor helmet with attached flowing locks.  You wore that to the first Halloween event, which luckily was the most crowded one, so lots of people got to see it.  By the time the second event came around, you decided you wanted to wear Tobin’s Thanos costume from last year, which I had also worked hard on but was looking a little ratty after a year in our dress-up pile.  For the third, you ditched the homemade costumes altogether and were Superman.  I’m glad you had fun, but next year, I might need you to commit to a single costume.

Most of the time you’ve been sweet and fun lately, though your dad and I have noticed that certain tasks (e.g., washing your hands and brushing your teeth) often result in meltdowns.  You really, really want to do things by yourself, so we let you as much as is reasonable, but we can’t compromise on hand hygiene during cold and flu season.  Similarly, we need to make sure your teeth are clean and you’re not just sucking the bubble gum-flavored toothpaste off your toothbrush.  We noticed this in your brothers, and it’s backed up by evidence, that the second half of a kid’s year (for you, August to January) is a period of disequilibrium.  Your dad calls it a period of discombobulation, which also makes sense.  It’s a stage of development when you’re learning and growing a lot, and your body and brain haven’t quite sorted out how to work together and how to find their place in the family and community.  I was just reading up about it a little, and a website said it’s a bad idea to introduce big changes during periods of equilibrium.

One thing that seems like a medium-sized change to the rest of us but might seem like a big change to you is that we’re going to be temporarily moving.  We’re having renovations done on our house, and some friends are conveniently going to be out of the country during the same time period, so we’re going to borrow their house while ours is a construction zone.  It seems like it will be minimally disruptive in most ways—we won’t have to live amid the noises, smells, and dust of construction, we’ll have a kitchen to use, and you and your brothers will stay at your normal school.  It’s only a few minutes’ drive from our house, so we’ll be able to come back often and check on the progress.  Still, it might throw you off.  This is the only house you’ve ever lived in, and when we get back, it’s going to look rather different.  Fortunately, by that time, you’ll be back onto the equilibrium side of the year, and maybe the transition back will be easy.

You’ll have your fifth birthday in another house, which will be a little strange, but I promise we’ll keep as many traditions in place as we can.  We’ll still have whatever cake you want, whatever dinner you want, and we’ll sing happy birthday into the camera and add “And Mubby more!” to the end of the song.  It will be a good adventure, and we’re definitely going to stick together.  I can’t wait to raise a glass together on our new balcony and celebrate the big things that will have happened.

Love,

Mommy

Happy month-birthday, Miles.

I was just doing the math to figure out how old you actually are, and my pre-calculation approximation was about eleven and a half or eleven and two-thirds.  I was wrong; you only have two months left as an eleven-year-old.  Twelve seems like a big jump, and I guess we only have sixty more days to get used to the idea.  I was looking at possible activities for our Florida Keys trip this spring, thinking about whether Callum qualifies for free admission to any attractions.  It turns out I also need to be thinking about whether you still qualify for kid prices or if we have to start counting you as an adult.

To be clear, you don’t actually have a mustache.  That was part of your English Gentleman Halloween costume, which I thought was pretty inspired.  You got a lot of compliments on it during our Halloween-related events.  You chose to do neighborhood trick-or-treating this year, which might be your last.  Your best friend was supposed to go with our group, most of which was Tobin and his friends, but Jacob bailed on you at the last minute.  You were the oldest in the group, which didn’t seem to bother you, though you didn’t enjoy the unseasonably cold weather.

The thing I worry about most with you is your shyness and unwillingness to take social risks.  You have friends, but unless a situation is perfectly within your comfort zone, you are very reluctant to make any social moves.  At the school Halloween dance party, you stood alone by yourself in the corner most of the time.  Several times different friends tried to engage you and drag you out onto the dance floor, but you refused.  It wasn’t creepy slow-dancing or anything, just kids jumping around, but you didn’t want to give it a try.  I know for a fact I haven’t failed in my role as home dance party instigator, so I guess the issue must just be shyness.  The same thing happened at a recent gathering we attended.  It was an election results watch party, and your friend (the son of the campaign manager) specifically invited you.  I was already planning to go, since the candidate is a family friend and someone whose election I supported, but when your friend said he was going and that you should go too, it seemed like a logical choice.  It was a busy and crowded situation, and you kind of sunk into a corner booth and avoided everyone.  I got busy talking to adults and didn’t focus a lot on drawing you out, but it might not have worked anyway.  Big, loud situations are hard on you.

Maybe it’s not even a problem, and I’m overly pathologizing the situation.  Every time you have school conferences, I ask your teacher about how you work with others and your social development.  Not once has a teacher said you’re struggling in that area, and I’ve often heard that you get along with everyone and that you’re someone the teacher can trust to work even with more challenging classmates.  Some people do better in small groups or one-on-one, and that seems to be your style.  I took you out for a mom-Miles Java House date a while ago, and we had a really nice time.  A quiet coffee shop with hot chocolate, pastries, and many rounds of Bananagrams made for a fun outing.  We got a little wild and loosened the rules of Bananagrams, first allowing for proper nouns (I got “Parton” and you got “Taipei”) and then, shockingly, allowing for swear words.  One thing that made me proud was that you suggested that a certain category should be off the table:  racist, sexist, or homophobic words.  We stuck to the scatological and both got a good giggle out of it.

This has been a month of serious weather shift.  Looking through my pictures from the month, I see evidence of days when we played outside in lightweight clothes.  The forecast for next Wednesday calls for a high of eight.  Eight Fahrenheit.  Unfortunately, the transition happened before your fall Let Me Run 5k, which made for a pretty chilly day out at the track.  Since your dad was the head coach, he had to arrive early, and it’s a good thing you wore heavy layers.  Uncle Mark joined your group, and it’s always fun to spend some time with him.  You did really well in your running this year.  For the first time in my memory, you put some effort into improving your times, and it paid off.  I think you felt the satisfaction of seeing a smaller number at the end of your training runs, and it was even better when you finished the race with a good time.  You still insist that you hate running, but you like other aspects of the experience, like being part of a team and doing the activities intended to build friendship, healthy emotional expression, and teammate support.

Your current favorites:  Minecraft, watching YouTube videos on the topic of Minecraft, playing trombone, pasta, Goldfish crackers, and playing with Callum.  I love how much effort you put into being creative with him.  Last night you were proud to show off a magic trick the two of you perform together.  I won’t spill the details here, because I’m hoping you’ll show it off at Thanksgiving to certain people who may be reading this now.  It might not fool the most sophisticated of audiences, but what I love the most is how proud and excited Callum is to be a part of your act.

You’re going to turn out just fine, my dear.  I hope moving to a big new school isn’t too tough next year, but I guess I still have months and months to fret about that.  In the meantime, I’ll fret for two more months about your upcoming twelfth birthday.  We will probably be in a different house when we celebrate that, due to the confluence of our home renovation project and a house-sitting opportunity for friends.  We’ll have to make sure to maintain birthday traditions as well as we can to keep things consistent for you.

But really, it’s okay to grow and change.  We can’t just keep playing Bananagrams with non-swear words forever, can we?

Love,

Mom

November 1, 2019

Callum has a cold and complained that his head hurt, so I gave him a dose of ibuprofen right before dinner. He took a bite of his pasta and said:

C: This tastes odd.

We told him it might be because he just took medicine or because his nose is stuffed up. He took a couple more bites and had some water.

Miles and Callum were playing some video game together and faced a tough opponent.

C: That guy is a poopy-doopy.
M: Most definitively.