Dear Tobin,

I am reluctant to call this the weirdest month of our lives, because things could certainly get weirder, but they’re certainly unusual.  In case I look back on this in future decades and don’t know what I meant, we’re in the midst of the coronavirus global pandemic.  Many governors around the nation are issuing “shelter in place” mandates, and while ours has not seen fit to do so, we’re doing it on our own.  Our county has the highest incidence in the state (due mostly to a group who brought it home from a cruise), so we’re doing our very best to be careful.  We’re going out only at the absolute minimum, washing our hands like crazy, and wiping down artifacts from the outside world.

After much deliberation, we did end up going on our trip to the Florida Keys.  It was a tough decision, but the biggest factor was that we could shelter-in-place right there.  Our condo is in a quiet, peaceful town, and the private beach and pool are never crowded.  We didn’t have any trouble keeping to ourselves.  After seeing footage of spring break college students being reckless, though, we decided to drive home.  A plane from Fort Lauderdale full of those clowns seemed like a bad place to be.  The drive home was very long—each of our two major travel days was about 13 hours, including breaks, and then we had to drive home from Chicago after dropping off our rental car and picking up our personal vehicle.  There was also the stress of staying in hotels, using rest stop bathrooms, and avoiding restaurants.  I did a big grocery run before we left, and we packed up a cooler with lots of snacks and drinks and food items that might count as actual meals if you strain your imagination.  We brought a bottle of bleach and sanitized every surface in our hotel rooms, and we used a lot of hand sanitizer between rounds of vigorous handwashing.  We made it home, exhausted and ready for personal space, and we all seem healthy.

Healthy isn’t exactly the right word to describe you during the trip, though.  Unfortunately, you came down with a nasty ear infection on the third day of our stay.  We were very reluctant to take you into a clinic where we were more likely to encounter sick people, so we got an appointment through telemedicine.  That doctor prescribed you eardrops for swimmer’s ear, but sadly, they didn’t help much.  Your dad ended up taking you into a local clinic, and the PA who looked into your ear said it was so inflamed she couldn’t even see your eardrum.  A prescription for amoxicillin and stronger eardrops got you right back on track, though.  You were able to get past the pain and have fun.  We put on our wetsuits and jumped waves in the ocean, and you were even able to do some real swimming with the help of earplugs.  You were pretty miserable for a while, but consistent with your usual character, you bounced back.  You were excited to be your dad’s grilling assistant for some of our meals.  You were bummed that we didn’t get to do the dolphin swim we’d planned on, but it’s definitely on our list for next time.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Before everything went haywire, you finished up your basketball season.  I’m glad you got to get that done, since you’re such an active kid and really enjoy playing.  Since we’ve been home, you’ve been doing workout videos with me.  We also had a nice walk in the wooded park near our temporary home.

Speaking of that, our friends have been forced to come back from Germany, so we’re moving back to Homer (our regular house) soon.  It will be a bit difficult to live without a kitchen, but we have a few plug-in appliances, and I’m always up for a cooking-related challenge.  We may find ourselves taking advantage of the take-out and delivery options that are generally considered safe.  You’ve been begging for a pizza from the Wig & Pen, and that sounds pretty good to me too.

Your current favorites:  Chex Mix, the Cam Jansen book series, the Space Case audiobook we started in the car, Beyblades, the Netflix Show “Just Add Magic,” and generally keeping a positive and spunky attitude during trying times.  You’re exactly the ray of sunshine I need, Tobin, and I’m so happy we’re together.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

It’s almost spring break, and that means we’re nearing the end of preschool for you.  The school year always seems to accelerate in the spring, and it won’t be long before you’re moving toward kindergarten.  I don’t expect it to be too tough a transition for you.  You love preschool, and it’s in the classroom right next to the kindergarten room to which I hope you’re assigned.  Your brothers both had the teaching team that uses that room, and it would be great if you did too.  I was talking to you yesterday about how you’ll be able to be a helper for the kids who are brand new to your school.  You didn’t seem entirely convinced by that idea, but I remain certain that you’ll make the adjustment without much trouble.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Today Miles had his science fair, and I was there when you and your classmates came through to his and all the other projects.  You were excited to see him, and he was just as excited to see you.  It was really cute to see you and your friends all throw his paper airplanes at the same time.

We had your school conference a week or so ago, and your teacher had nothing but good things to say.  At your fall conference, she said that one issue is that sometimes you’re spacey and don’t seem engaged in what the class is doing.  By now, they teachers have gotten to know you better, and she said that often when she thinks you’re spacing out, she’ll ask you a question about what they’re doing and you always know the answer.  I think you sometimes look spacier than you really are; you’re actually listening and paying attention, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re actively involved.

You’ve done a good job adjusting to our temporary house.  Since you’re sharing a room with your brothers just like normal, you’ve been sleeping well and haven’t seem distressed.  You have all your favorite stuffed friends, your pajamas, and your usual bedtime stories.  We stopped by our old house (Homer, as we’ve been calling it), and it looked pretty different.  You were interested and went under the protective barrier between the under-construction area and the normal area lots of times.  The normal area is not even completely normal because a lot of the stuff from the under-construction area is moved in there.  You didn’t seem upset at all, though, just curious.  Before we started the project and moved we talked a lot about what was going to change and what wasn’t, and how the most important thing is that we’d always stick together.  You seem to have absorbed that well.  It will be nice when the project is over and we have a fancy new kitchen and dining room, but in the meantime, we’re all doing fine.

Our spring break trip is coming up next week, and we’ve decided to go for it despite the world-wide coronavirus problem.  Our destination has zero cases, notably fewer than our hometown, so as long as we keep our fingers out of our noses and mouths on the plane and wipe down all the armrests and touchscreens, it seems like a reasonable thing to do.  I know I need some ocean time to feel like a normal person again.  We’re going to keep things very low-key and avoid touristy spaces.  It’s going to be pool and beach, reading in the condo, pool and beach, cocktail hour, pool and beach, until it’s time to go.  Then we’ll wipe down all our surfaces again and head back to reality.  You might remember our last trip to the Keys when you had just turned three, but you’ll definitely remember this time.  I hope it’s all good memories.

Your current favorites:  “Skitter mix,” which is a lemonade and orange juice blend; bowls of shredded cheese; playing Candyland and Monopoly Junior (Super Mario version); the books The Gruffalo, Ollie Forgot, and If You Give a Moose a Muffin; cuddling; and playing Beyblades with Tobin.  You’ve been very interested in letters and words and are doing some good sounding-out.  Bedtime stories take longer now because you want to talk about a lot of the words, but I suppose it’s a good use of time in the long run.

I love your sweet smile, my special pup.  Thanks for being such a fun, good, cuddly little guy.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

This entire month has seemed like a tween:  full of ups and downs, stresses, worries about things that may or may not be reasonable, and some good laughs along the way as well.  Our normal house is partially gutted, and we’ve moved into our temporary house, which brings its own challenges.  We’ve mostly worked out a new routine now.  We know what time we have to leave to get places (earlier than usual to get to school and the grocery store, but we’re closer to our favorite Mexican restaurant).

You’ve handled it all pretty normally, which is to say you’ve been your usual self.  Sometimes you’re funny and friendly and sweet.  Other times you’re surly and sigh with great irritation at being asked to do the slightest thing to help anyone in the family.  You often feel the need to push back on any request or instruction.  Yesterday I told you to wash your hands after getting home from somewhere, and you said in a very put-up voice, “But why?”  I said, probably in an equally exasperated tone, “Coronavirus.”  I could see your brain churning, trying to come up with a response that would get you out of the onerous task of basic personal hygiene, but you didn’t manage it.

For the sake of posterity, I will optimistically assume that the coronavirus scare of 2020 will have come and gone by the time I am reading this fondly in the future.  At the moment, though, we’re feeling all kinds of different things.  On one hand, our personal demographic doesn’t usually suffer too badly.  Unlike many viruses, this one doesn’t seem to hit kids too hard, which is a relief for our family.  It’s elderly folks and people with compromised immune systems who are most at risk for serious illness, so we’re doing our very best to not be carriers and infect more vulnerable people.  People are cancelling events and trips, and that’s a concern with our Florida Keys vacation coming up next week.  We decided our sleepy Keys beach town isn’t any riskier than where we are right now.  In fact, as of this writing, there have been three seven cases in our home county and none in our vacation county.  The major concern is air travel, but we’ll just do our best to wipe down surfaces and try to keep our hands frequently washed and off our faces.

Photo by Gary Clarke

You’ve continued your academic and artistic progress.  You recently had the opportunity to be part of KidSing, a special day-long series of workshops culminating in a vocal music concert.  Only a few kids from each school were chosen to attend, and even though none of your close friends went, you didn’t seem nervous at all.  I really admire that about you, Miles.  In your situation, I probably would have felt intimidated without a buddy, but you don’t let that stop you.  As it happened, there were several kids there you knew from Family Folk Machine, but I truly don’t know if that was important to you or not.  You just do your thing, bravely and self-sufficiently.  You’ve made a nice friend group, especially in the last couple of years of elementary school, but you’re confident with or without them.

Mubby and Skitter were visiting last week, and they came to school and had lunch with you one day.  They said you and your friends were hilarious, and they weren’t sure how you managed to eat anything with all the time you spent laughing.  They were a little hesitant as to whether they should come have lunch with you, because maybe a twelve-year-old would think it was uncool to have his grandparents at lunch.  You said it was fine, in your nonchalant way, so they went ahead and did it.  Later that night at bedtime, we were talking about the best parts of our day, and you said it was when Mubby and Skitter came to lunch.

You’ve also been working hard on your school science fair project:  an analysis of different paper airplane configurations.  You did most of the background work at school:  you learned about and made a display poster describing the physics of flight.  Then we made five different paper airplanes that had different nose shapes, wing widths, and lengths.  You threw them each five times and we measured the distances, which you averaged and put into a spreadsheet.  You also noted things like a tendency to veer, nosedive, or fly straight.  Your teacher sent a video of your class presentation, which was great.  You have a science fair open to the whole school and parents tomorrow, so I am definitely going to come see you do that.  You do a good job with public speaking, and I’m looking forward to watching you in that setting.

Your current favorites:  embodying your Mister Whacky persona, sleeping in, pasta, Honey Nut Cheerios (it seems like maybe, just maybe, you’re moving out of your years-long Goldfish stage), making computer games on Code.org, cracking jokes, and having quiet time.  We should get plenty of that on our trip, since we’re going to skip any tourist-heavy activities.  We’ll get some much-needed sunshine, time in the water, and relaxation.

I love those genuine smiles, Miles.  I don’t catch them very often, but they sure make me happy when I do.

Love,

Mom