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