Dear Tobin,

You are the sunshiniest part of the gloomiest time of year.  You and your brothers missed another day of school today due to inclement weather (though it really wasn’t very bad—I’m not quite sure what the motivation for the full cancellation was).  Miles slept in late, and you and Callum had so much fun together this morning.  It’s really sweet to see you guys developing your own special relationship.  Lest anyone think it’s all about cozy cuddles and reading enlightening books under a hand-crocheted blanket, you were probably playing Pokémon Attack or something equally violent.  Still, I’m glad you two have fun together.

We had our predictably travel-heavy holiday season, darting back and forth to different parts of the state to celebrate with different family groups.  We’re home now, mostly relaxing as we wait for the construction on our house to start.  We still don’t have a definite date, but hopefully it will be soon, and we’ll be able to move into our friends’ house.  You’ve been looking forward to that, mostly because it will mean a whole new set of toys to play with.  It will be interesting to be cooking and sleeping in a new place, but we’ll still be able to go back to our house for anything we might need, since it’s only a couple of miles away.  I guess we’ll just pretend we’re in an AirBnB on vacation, only everybody will still have to go to work and school.

Second grade has been going well for you.  You’re going to be doing a Language Arts ELP class, and you seem to have lots of good friends.  Basketball just started, and you were happy to see that one of your school friends is on your team.  You never have a problem finding friends in any situation, though.  Last night when you got home from taekwondo you mentioned that one of your classmates’ dads was going to contact us to set up a playdate.  It’s hard to guess what your future will hold career-wise, because no single academic area has pulled ahead of any other, but I’m sure you’ll do something that uses your strength in friendship-building.

Sometimes your need for socialization can be straining on other members of the family.  The rest of us, even Callum, find alone time rejuvenating and necessary for our mental health.  You would be doing something with someone every minute of the day if you could.  When Miles had a birthday party earlier this month, he was gracious about letting you hang out with his friends to some extent, but eventually he wanted you to go away.  It was a reasonable request, and your dad and I tried hard to find special things for you to do (e.g., a trip to Planet 3 and reserving chocolate fountain supplies for you to enjoy), but you still found it heartbreakingly unjust that you couldn’t be a full participant in the party.  Wherever the action is, that’s where you want to be.

An area that is still tough for you is learning to keep your mouth shut.  As your dad and I often note, you’ve never met a silence you didn’t want to fill.  That can be funny and cute, when you’re singing or rattling off witty rejoinders, but it can also be very irritating.  As I’ve mentioned in this space before, you’re a pot-stirrer.  You can’t ever leave anything alone, and you prod and comment and goad people (mostly Miles).  You are resilient and good at laughing off Miles’s insults, but he’s not as much, and we just can’t get you to understand that sometimes backing off is the better choice.  I know it’s hard to be the middle brother, and you need to make your presence known.  Trust me, Tobin:  nobody is going to forget about you.  You are very memorable, and you don’t need to be antagonistic to keep your spot in our consciousness.

Your current favorites:  hanging out with friends, Beyblades, Pokémon cards, frequent wardrobe changes, pepperoni pizza, Hawaiian Punch, and having really poofy hair.  You love to talk about our vacation plans, and you got really interested in airlines and flying after we ended up getting tickets on an airline we’ve never used before.  You are highly interested in flying first class (not gonna happen; sorry), and you have all kinds of plans for flying the whole family first class to Rome after you win the lottery.  I think you have Mubby to blame for that, as she’s the only person in our family who ever buys lottery tickets, and she likes to fantasize about how she’d spend our winnings.  You’re excited and enthusiastic about almost everything, and I love how your laugh rings through the whole house.

You’re a bright spot in a dismal season, my sweet boy.  I can’t wait to see your fluffy curls bouncing in the sunshine.  We’ll get there–maybe not first class, but we’ll find our way.

Love,

Mom

Happy birthday, sweet Callum!

Your dad and I have both noticed big gains in your intellectual development lately.  Part of it is school—you’ve been doing so well and learning so many things.  You know all your letters now and write many of them very well, and you’re starting to sound out words and recognize them on the page when we read books.  You’re finally not skipping the number fifteen when you count.  You enjoy quizzing your dad and me on math problems and subitizing.  I’m glad you’re still happy to give hugs and kisses, though, and we have some nice cuddle time every morning.  It’s going to be a big adjustment (probably bigger for me than for you) when you start school full-time next year, but I’m sure you’ll do well.

You were very proud to be the Star of the Week at school during your birthday week.  You got a special crown, shared family photos and your favorite book (The Monster at the End of This Book) with your class, and even brought birthday treats.  Your teachers, who are about the best we could hope for, shouted “Happy birthday, Callum!” as we approached the line-up area on your special day.  You were so excited, you jumped and skipped all the way from the car to the school building.

You are definitely losing your baby fat.  Your cheeks are still soft and kissable, but they’ve lost the bouncing quality they used to have when you ran.  Now your skinny little bottom barely hold up your pants.  Much like your brothers, it looks like you’re going to be outgrowing the length in your pants long before you outgrow the waistband.  We’ve had some pretty silly-looking situations when I put a pair of pants on you that end up being high-water.  It’s a paradigm shift for me that outgrown Callum clothes now go to the Goodwill bag rather than into basement storage for when the next kid is ready for them, which is what I always did when your big brothers outgrew clothes.

We had a good holiday season filled with the usual jaunts around the state.  The weather was cooperative this year, and we were able to get to all the family events.  As usual, we ate lots of treats and got lots of presents.  Your favorites from this year have probably been your stuffed panda, Stuffle, your Busytown board game, and the What Should Danny Do books.  Those books are choose-your-own-adventure-style stories geared toward young kids.  The premise is that a little boy named Danny is faced with various moral or behavioral conundrums throughout his day, such as whether he should throw a fit because he didn’t get his favorite plate at breakfast or whether he should just deal with it and enjoy his pancakes.  The first time we read it, you made all the good-behavior choices.  I was glad to know that you’re at least aware of the decision you can make to help everyone’s day run more smoothly.  After that, you got braver and started making some of the “stinker” choices.  You got the follow-up book about Danny’s choices during the school day for your birthday, and you’ve been enjoying a mix of reasonable and stinker choices in that one too.

You’re getting excited for our home remodeling project.  Your dad was so tickled when you spent a long time on his lap this weekend looking at and talking about the 3D rendering on the iPad.  You were very interested in it and enjoyed explaining to me what the different changes will be.  You know all about the mudroom and the balcony and the new positions for kitchen appliances.  I’m glad you’re getting enthusiastic, because when we talked about the project before, you seemed to feel some trepidation.  It will definitely be a bit of a transition, especially when we move out of our house so the workers can knock down walls and make big changes.  But we’ll stick together and let you come see the work as it happens.  As of this time next month, we plan to have vacated and for the work to have begun, so watch this space for an update on how you and your brothers handle the transition.

We got our plane tickets for our spring break trip to the Florida Keys.  I’m not sure how much you remember from our last trip there two years ago, but now you’re certainly at an age now where it will making a lasting impression.  I love our Keys trips because of what a great combination of activity and relaxation they are.  We can visit historical sites and wildlife preservation organizations, or we can just chill out by the beach and pool.  I think your brothers prefer the pool, which irritates me a little since we could do that in Iowa, but at least they’re close together so we can easily do both multiple times a day.  We have lots of slushy beverages and other treats.

Sometimes, if you want a particularly junky snack or screen time or something, I say, “All it costs is…” and you fill in a number of hugs or kisses you’d like to give me.  Lately you’ve been offering one hundred hugs, which would take a very long time if you could actually count to one hundred.  It usually ends up being closer to ten or twenty, which is a pretty good compromise.

I love you so much, my big boy.  You’ve learned so much and grown so much, I know you’re on the path to big adventures.  I’m just happy that you’ll give me a hundred hugs along the way.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

Happy birthday, my enormous baby.  You’re twelve years old, also known as one hundred forty-four months, or a gross of months.  I must say, your early months were much grosser than your recent ones.  You are fully potty-trained, you can manage your own oral and body hygiene (though you’d probably never brush your hair if I didn’t remind you), and you can usually eat without smearing it all over yourself.  You’re funny and smart and witty.  One classmate wrote “You’re halarios” on the card they made for you.  Your original videos, while not always to my personal taste, demonstrate your strength in writing and delivery.  You have a very creative brain, and I truly enjoy seeing what you produce.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Music remains one of your biggest interests.  The other night we were driving home, and your dad and I started singing the Friendship Street song.  That was a silly song we made up when you were a baby that basically just counts down the blocks until we arrive at our house.  Tobin and Callum had no idea what we were doing, and maybe you didn’t either, because we hadn’t sung it in years and years.  Upon reflection, we realized why:  we sang it to stop Baby Miles from freaking out in the car.  You weren’t a big fan of being stuck in your car seat, but you did enjoy music a lot, so we spent a lot of time in the car singing at the top of our lungs to calm you down.  Neither of the other kids were as easily cheered up by music as you, which is why we fell out of the habit of singing it.

It’s funny how some things are such a big part of our lives at one point, and it seems like they always will be, but they naturally fade away.  You don’t use a car seat at all anymore, and I don’t remember your last transport-related freakout.  You still definitely like music, though.  You are advanced for your grade level in trombone, you take piano lessons, you’re a member of Orff Club (your school’s barred instrument group) and Mighty Hawk Singers.  Of course Family Folk Machine is still a big part of our lives, and you were recently selected for KidSing.  That’s a day-long workshop which only three kids from your grade were invited to attend.  You were really happy when I told you you’d been accepted.

The first thing that crossed my mind was whether any of your friends was among the three.  You’re still shy and slow to warm up in social situations, and unless you know the people around you well, you can tend to be a loner.  An important thing for me to remember is that it’s not necessarily a problem.  You didn’t seem to care at all whether any of your friends would also be in Kid Sing.  You were just happy about the whole thing.  If you end up sitting alone at lunch, it really won’t bother you.  I’m the same way—I’m much happier to eat alone rather than make awkward small talk with strangers, so I guess it makes sense that you’d feel that way too.

You do have good friends, though.  You had a fun sleepover party with three of your good friends from school, and even though nobody got much sleep that night, you were pleased with the outcome.  The main attraction was the chocolate fountain we borrowed from Mubby.  We got the chocolate all melted and went to turn it on so it could be a dramatic visual when your friends arrived…and the power light stayed off.  I was really, really proud of how you handled it.  Not too long ago, a disappointment like that would have thrown you off in a big way.  We had talked about what we’d do if the fountain didn’t work, because the reviews of that particular model weren’t very positive and we knew it was a possibility.  You were bummed but accepted the alternative plan (serving melted chocolate in bowls for your friends to use for dipping) without losing your cool.

As a last-ditch effort, we tried the equivalent of the old IT hack, “Have you tried turning it off and back on?”  I unscrewed the base and screwed it back on again, and lo and behold, the light went on.  The heating element began heating the device, and before long, the chocolate was flowing through the fountain like something straight out of Willy Wonka.  You were happy, your friends thought it was cool, and you all got hopped up on chocolate-covered cookies, strawberries, pretzels, graham crackers, and Rice Krispie Treats.

I’m not going to say you never lose control of your emotions.  It still happens sometimes, but it happens to everyone.  I understand that your dad and I should expect that even more as you enter the junior-high years.  But overall, you’re stronger and better able to manage yourself under pressure.  I’m really happy to see that level of growth in you.

Today I got an email from your teacher informing me about upcoming junior high-related events:  choosing your class schedule, registration, and a parent meeting.  That made the whole upcoming transition startlingly real to me.  I hope junior high goes well for you.  It’s a tough life stage for anyone, but I hope the skills you’ve honed in recent years support you.  I’m looking forward to watching you develop new friendships as well as keeping your old ones.  You’re going to meet tons of new people, and I bet there are some others who love music and Minecraft and weird YouTubers who talk about Minecraft.  Maybe you’ll even recruit some new members to the GSI.  That stands for “Glue Stick Investigators,” which started as a small problem with a missing gluestick and has evolved into something much more elaborate for you.  I don’t know for sure if any of your fellow GSI members care about it as much as you do, but you are very invested in it.  You hope to make a custom GSI t-shirt (“merch”) to outwardly signal your allegiance.

I have my frustrations with you—I don’t like it when you pick on Tobin, and I wish you took more initiative about completing your school work without reminders, and your instrument practicing is pretty much the minimum you need to get by.  Still, when I look at how far you’ve come, when I realize that I never have to sing the Friendship Street song so loudly anymore that people in other cars can probably hear me even with the windows open, I know that every challenge passes.  That’s something I thought about when you were a tiny newborn and we picked your name:  you will go Miles and Miles and Miles.  You already have.

Love,

Mom