Dear Callum,

It’s summer break now!  You finished up your preschool year online, with lots of great Zoom sessions run by your teacher.  She did an excellent job planning fun, interactive, informative classes, and you had a good time checking in with your favorite teachers and friends.  I am disappointed that this year got cut short, because you had a really good preschool experience.  The good news is that your school is going to keep its preschool next year, so you’ll get to keep seeing your special teachers sometimes during your kindergarten year.  I’m sure you’ll be nervous to start kindergarten, especially after this extended break from school that we’ve had since March, but it will help that you’ll be going back to the same school with some familiar faces.

Miles will be off to junior high (assuming anyone goes back to school), but Tobin will still be at the same school as you.  He’ll be big enough that you two can walk home together, although I doubt that will happen very often.  It’s nice to know it’s a possibility in case I have a work assignment or something that prevents me from picking you up, though.

You and Tobin have been having a lot of fun together lately.  Sometimes you two get each other riled up—he brings out your active side, and sometimes that can lead to aggression.  Most of the time, though, you play well.  You get along nicely with Miles, too.  Most of your time with him involves sitting next to him in front of the Wii U or the computer and watching what he’s doing.  It’s nice how you have a calm side and an active side so you can fit into the rhythms of both of your brothers.

All the running around and playing in Mubby and Skitter’s cement driveway has led to some bumps and scrapes, and you are not one to suffer quietly.  You will howl like a banshee at the slightest injury, which is alarming to someone not used to you.  You scraped your knee the other night, and based on your response, Skitter was afraid you had done serious damage to your kneecap.  It was fine.  It barely even bled.  I know that skinned knees hurt, but you’re really going to have to get a grip one of these years.

Your vocabulary is growing all the time, and it’s funny to hear you try out new words, sometimes in not quite the right context.  You were complaining about some pain or another, and I asked you whether you’d gotten a bump.  You said, “It happened eventually.”  I (eventually) figured out that you meant it happened gradually, not acutely.  Our first night at Mubby and Skitter’s house, Mubby offered to help you get started on your bath, and you were seized by shyness and said you wanted me to do it.  As I was helping you, you matter-of-factly explained that “Mubby gets alarmed when she sees me nude.”  Mubby has seen plenty of child- and grandchild-based nudity in her day, and I’m pretty sure she’s not alarmed by it, but you were concerned for her emotional health.

You’re tender-hearted and concerned about the well-being of others.  We watched the movie The Sandlot a few days ago, and you were very worried about the dog when the big fence fell on him.  The dog ended up being fine, but later that night in the bathtub, you got a little tearful and said, “When the fence fell on the dog, it broke my heart.”

You don’t seem too upset that we’re away from home for a while.  Our home renovation project may be almost done the next time you go to our house, unless you join your dad on one of his occasional trips back home to check on things.  I hope the changes don’t freak you out too much.  You appreciate routine, but I also think you’ll appreciate the improvements.  We’d been living in a semi-gutted house for a while, and you didn’t like it too much.  You haven’t developed the close friendships that your brothers have, so you don’t miss the social scene as much as they do.  You seem happy hanging out here, getting more treats and screentime than usual, and helping Skitter feed the fish and catch raccoons.  You’ve caught two so far in the live trap.  The first took the bait of leftover marshmallows from a s’mores project.  Skitter named that one Sylvia.  The second fell for the old watermelon trap.  That one seemed more nervous than Sylvia, so you named it Scaredy.  You decided that Sylvia was Scaredy’s mom, so you were happy to take Scaredy to the same remote location where we took Sylvia and let it go there.  You were sure they’d find each other and have a vegetation-eating party.

Your current favorites:  meat (you ate five helpings of grilled flank steak the other night and a whole bunch of chicken stir-fry tonight), watching other people play video games on YouTube, Mubby Ice on the patio, helping Skitter rid the neighborhood of raccoons, Wild Kratts videos, reading stories with your cousins for Skype storytime, and roasting marshmallows in Skitter’s firepit.

Even though it’s an unusual summer, we’re having a lot of fun together.  Your tender body and tender heart are hanging in there.  As we’ve been saying from the beginning, we don’t always know what’s going to happen, but we know we’ll stick together.

Love,

Mommy