Dear Tobin,

Happy ninth birthday, my sweet boy!  This is the first year in a long time that this hasn’t been a very busy week.  Typically your birthday falls right around a lot of back-to-school events, and it’s even fallen on the first day of school once or twice.  This year, with the school year starting after Labor Day and no meet-and-greets scheduled, it’s a little anticlimactic.  You’ll be doing all-online school for at least a trimester, and I’m so grateful we have that choice.  The New York Times published a list of the cities in the US with the fastest-growing COVID-19 positivity rates, and our community was number 3.  This is surely related to the influx of university students who have come into town in the last week, and the photos I’ve seen of them crammed together in bars is truly disturbing.  I realize the brains of most 18-22-year-olds are in a state of development that prioritizes social and romantic bonds over safety, so I can’t truly blame them (although it’s hard not to be angry).  What I do wish is that our leadership had taken the bold step of shutting down bars, because there is really no safe way to behave in the bar environment.

Fortunately, our family can continue our strategy of staying home.  We can get grocery deliveries and restaurant take-out for a treat, play poker, video games, and watch Netflix for entertainment, squirt each other with water-squirters, and learn online.  We are okay.  You, my eternal optimist, are okay.  Also, you are nine.  Wow.

I call you an eternal optimist because you’ve had a sunshiney nature since you were a tiny baby.  Getting smiles out of you has always been an easy task.  You do tend to worry, though.  Every night before I leave your bed, you make me promise not to leave you.  I thought it had gotten to the point where it was just a formality and a cute ritual, but a couple of nights ago, you fell asleep before I left.  I still kissed you goodnight and said my usual, “I love you and I promise never to leave you,” but you didn’t hear me.  I went downstairs and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed myself.  When I opened the bathroom door, you startled the crap out of me by standing right in the doorway.  “Do you promise never to leave me?” you asked.  I said yes and sent you back upstairs to bed.

It’s kind of weird because really, you’re the kid of mine I think is most likely to venture far.  You’re the one I can see traveling the world or setting up a research station on a remote coastline. I’m not sure where this fear of abandonment came from, but you lose your mind if you can’t track where you dad and I are every minute.  I hope when, in the mythical future, you start doing things out of the house again, you are able to readjust.  You and your brothers have your squabbles, and sometimes your dad and I get frustrated with your constant need to be moving and commenting on everything, but mostly we’ve been getting along well.  It will be nice when you get your school-issued Chromebook and we can set up individual learning spaces for you and your brothers in the house.

We’ll have more space soon, since our house addition and renovation are getting close to finished.  We’re anticipating the interior work to be done (minus flooring in the lower level—I’m not sure how we’ll structure our days when people are working on that) within the next week, and then we can head home to reestablish our routine before school starts.  Your dad and sometimes I have been making trips home every week or two, so we’ve been seeing the progress in increments, but you and your brothers haven’t been there in a long time.  It’s going to be a shock to see all the changes, but I hope you love it.  I can see you really enjoying the balcony bar area that overlooks the park.  You are really pushing for bold color choices, while your dad and I lean more toward neutrals.  An exception is the tile backsplash in the kitchen, which is a vibrant blue.  You appreciated that when you saw it in a picture.

You lost another tooth, which has been useful for corn-on-the-cob season.  You were having a hard time with it when your tooth was loose, but now you’re ready to chomp again. We’ve been eating well here at Mubby and Skitter’s, and while you aren’t the bravest guy ever about trying new things, you’ve done a good job with a variety of fruits and vegetables.  You appreciate a good salad, and you also get excited about bell peppers, carrots, and pineapple.

Skitter has noted that you are a person who is always ready to help.  You enjoy a good project, and he’s enlisted your help on a few different things around the house and yard.  One of those jobs was a big one. We had a huge, weird storm earlier in the month called a derecho, which took down a special tree here and did even worse damage elsewhere.  You and your brothers (but you, the most enthusiastic) were a great help in cleaning up tree branches and other storm detritus. We were without power here for 3 days, and it was closer to 9 days at home.  It’s gone on even longer in the Cedar Rapids/Marion area, which received the brunt of the storm.  It wasn’t comfortable to be without air conditioning in August, but we were more fortunate than many, in that neither Mubby and Skitter’s nor our house or property was significantly damaged.  I’m grateful that we had a big tree limb removed from the enormous sycamore tree in our yard at home a while back, because that could be in your dad’s and my bedroom right now if we hadn’t.

We had a really fun day on your birthday.  Even though we didn’t get to most of the things we’d typically do to celebrate (the trampoline park, a party with friends, a trip to the water park with Aunt Suzy and Uncle Joe), you still say you had a great time.  You, your dad, Callum and I went out to the Ledges, a state park near Mubby and Skitter’s house with a shallow creek perfect for kids.  You and Callum had a lot of fun splashing around.  We picked up Casey’s pizza for lunch, which is your latest favorite food, opened presents, had ice cream cake, had beef and snow pea stir fry for dinner, and watched a movie and had popcorn.  You also got some time in with your new Nintento Switch Pro Controller and Super Mario Odyssey game.

Your current favorites: pizza, shooting hoops with your dad, Napoleon Dynamite (both for viewing and for quoting), watching videos with your dad while I tuck Callum in, listening to audio books, and having crazy hair.  Since third grade was the year we caved and let Miles starting growing out his hair, you insist that you now deserve the same.  I suppose it’s only fair, but your hair is a lot poofier than his, and it could end up being quite a helmet.  You did let me trim the rat tail that was growing down your neck, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Happy ninth birthday, my joyful, outrageous, hilarious, and energetic pup.  Your spirited nature keeps us tired, but it also generates a lot of laughs.  We all need those right now, and I need you always.

Love,
Mom