Dear Tobin,

The biggest update from this month is that you’ve started your third grade year online.  You’ve been doing great so far.  You need almost no help from me on the technical end of things, and the only reason you needed any help from me today with math was because you were using a self-guided system. You self-guided into some geometry, which was a little over your head, but not a lot. Your teacher called today for a regular check-in, and she said you’re participating, handling the online systems well, and getting your work turned in on time.  I really appreciate how well you’ve been doing, especially because I need to spend a lot of the day keeping Callum on track with his own learning.

One of your favorite hobbies right now is listening to audiobooks, and it’s common to see you walking around the house with earbuds, listening to the latest adventures of the Stuart Gibbs characters. You got hooked on Stuart Gibbs when we listened to the audiobook Spy Ski School on our drive to Colorado in the summer of 2019, and you’ve gotten interested in all things spy-related. You would really like to watch a James Bond movie, which your dad and I aren’t necessarily opposed to, but they’re hard to find on the streaming services.  It’s also hard to guess whether you’d actually enjoy something made in the ’60s for an adult audience. Who knows if you’d even understand Sean Connery’s accent.

You’ve held your dad and me to the precedent Miles set: haircuts end in third grade. I’m not sure whether you’ll let yours get as long as his. I kind of hope not, personally, just because you look so cute with your hair shorter. Your curls get sprongier when they’re cut in a more tidy way, but I don’t feel like hair is battle worth fighting. Your good friend Kit (Christopher) has a long ponytail, so you’re getting reinforcement from many directions that long hair is the thing to have.

You hadn’t seen Kit for a long time, and even though he’s in your class, you said you don’t get to do much socializing during online school. He and his sister, who is friends with Miles, came over to play outside with you guys yesterday, and you had so much fun. You did a good job wearing your mask and maintaining social distance, so I’m glad you got to enjoy some time with a friend. You came in at one point to get a drink, and you said, “I’m so happy it takes my breath away.”

You’re my most social kid, for sure. You have the kind of personality that attracts friends in all kinds of situations, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always mesh well with Miles’s. You and Callum usually get along, though you sometimes have a hard time knowing when to stop the teasing. That gets him riled up and he can get too rough with you. Miles doesn’t have the same need for physical play that you do, so Callum is your only suitable playmate for the wrestling arts, and it doesn’t always end well. When Miles gets frustrated with your high energy, I remind him that some day when he has kids and they’re driving him crazy, he can send them off to spend time with crazy Uncle Tobin.

We’re going to have to figure out some way to keep you active once the weather gets too cold for outdoor play. I enjoy doing workout videos, and you used to do them with me sometimes. Maybe we can do some more of those. You just got a new pair of athletic shoes, and you’re excited to take them out on a run with me this weekend. It’s supposed to be nice out, and I’m looking forward to getting out with you. Not surprisingly, you like the chat during the entire run, which limits the pace a bit, but it’s still a good time.

A new hobby you learned from Mubby and Skitter over the summer was poker. I don’t know if your skills are fully honed yet, but you enjoy it enough that you wrote an essay about it for one of your first school assignments this year. Your current teacher is Miles’s former sixth-grade teacher (a lot of reshuffling happened with this year’s changes), so hopefully she knows our family well enough to understand that it’s a wholesome hobby and not a descent into a seedy underworld.

Photo by Beth Clarke

Your current favorites: eating (you must be in a growth spurt, because you’re eating a lot these days), listening to your audiobooks, cracking jokes, running around the house and yard, and getting bloody noses. Actually that’s not your favorite, but you’ve been having them a lot lately. You have pretty bad fall allergies, and you rub your nose so hard that your poor little capillaries explode all over the place. I’ve been more vigilant about giving you nightly antihistamines lately, and that seems to help. It was a real horrorshow on your pillowcase the other morning. Thank goodness for Oxiclean.

You remain exciting, dynamic, and resilient. I’m so proud of how well you’re handling all these changes, and I know that you’re going to continue to thrive. We’ve got your back, Tobes.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

Hello, my little sunshine boy. You are officially a kindergartner now. You’re perfectly pleased to be doing it online, since you’re more comfortable with a screen than with strangers anyway.  You were okay with starting out the school year on your first Zoom session, but you wanted to be sure that I would be there with you. As the first week of school progressed, we got better at it, and now it’s going pretty smoothly.  I was working from home on Friday, so your dad handled getting you into your Zoom sessions, and he ran into a few snags, but I’m sure as the year moves along, we’ll all get it sorted out.  There are a lot of moving parts in the online education world, and it takes a lot of everyone working together and getting everything right.  That’s hard when the technologies are new to the parents and teachers, the schedule is new to the district, and the kindergartners are new to everything. But we are doing fine.

You surprised me the other night by pointing to a word on your calendar and saying, “Does that say Sunday?” It did, in fact. I asked you how you knew that, and you said, “I just did.” We worked on sounding out some more words on the calendar, and Thursday was a little tricky, not to mention Wednesday. Maybe we should find another reading primer.

Backing up a bit, we finished out the summer with some good fun in Ames before we headed back home.  You had a lot of fun playing with water, sometimes with squirters, sometimes with splort balls, sometimes just by dunking your head in a bucket. You’re used to getting wet, since your allergies are so bad that a nightly bath with full hair-wash is a step we can’t skip. You didn’t catch on to playing poker as much as your brothers did, so sometimes when the rest of the gang was playing cards, you’d just entertain yourself in the back yard.  I appreciate how well you can find interesting things to do on your own. I remember doing that when I was a kid, too, mostly because I didn’t get a sibling until I was six.  You don’t know what a world without siblings is like, but maybe that is part of your motivation for enjoying alone time now and then.

You love mimicking your brothers, which makes you say funny things I’m not sure you fully understand (and maybe I don’t fully understand).  You yell “Ya boy!” at semi-opportune times, you describe things as “clutch,” and you can’t understand why your kindergarten teacher wouldn’t want to stop what she’s doing on Zoom and meet Miles and Tobin. I’m so glad the three of you have each other during this sometimes-lonely period, because things are never truly lonely around here.  It’s not quite the same as being in a class full of other kindergartners, but you learn a lot about human interaction from living with them.

One of the best surprises of the first day of school was finding out that your beloved Ms. Dee is an assistant in your online classroom.  It’s not the same as being able to hug her and talk to her every day, but seeing her smiling face is a big plus for you.  I don’t have any way of proving this, but based on her reaction to seeing you when you logged in for the first time (delighted, but not surprised), something tells me she might have requested to be with your class. Before we knew that COVID-19 classes in our community were going to skyrocket, mostly due to the poor choices of many university students, I had assuaged some of your kindergarten nervousness by promising that you’d still see Ms. Dee around sometimes. I’m happy I got to keep that promise in a way even though you see her online. Even if she’s retired from teaching by the time it’s safe to spend time together again, we’ll find a way.

I remember, before I had kids, I read a letter in an advice column asking how often it was appropriate to change nannies. The advice seeker assumed it was natural and reasonable not to want her kids to get too attached to a nanny, for fear that they wouldn’t love her as much.  I remember thinking that was a strange perspective, and now, it’s unfathomable. Anyone who makes you feel loved, safe, and comfortable is someone I want in your life. I never doubt for a minute that you and I love each other, and I can’t imagine feeling jealous of anyone who brings more care into your world.

Your current favorites: Dreambox (a school math program that has a video game aesthetic that really motivates you), square cheese, playing games with your brothers, dancing like a maniac, and getting outside.  We had a rainy week, but it’s nice out today, and you spend a lot of time helping your dad clean up our yard. The upcoming week is supposed to be nice, so I hope we can get outside a lot.  It was wonderful to get down to the creek last weekend, and I anticipate doing that again before the true fall chill sets in.

You’re a joy, my sweet Callum. Thank you for your flexibility and growth. I love you so much.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

Every month, as I think about what I should write for your Monthly Miles Memo, I look through photos from the previous month and reflect on what’s been happening in your life.  The last four weeks have been tumultuous, for sure.  One of the most notable was the derecho that plowed through Iowa on August 10.  Derecho is a word most non-Spanish-speakers hadn’t heard before, but it means straight, and that’s just what the storm was: as destructive as a tornado, but it went straight through a large swath of the state rather than the more concentrated areas a tornado typically hits.  I wrote more about it last month, but I haven’t yet included this picture of you, reading by the illumination of a lantern and flashlight during out time without power.

After that, we continued out stay in Ames, since our house was not yet inhabitable.  Looking back, it really was a nice summer.  Since our options for fun stuff were limited—no trips to the swimming pool, camps, movies, the library, the trampoline park—it was nice to have a change of scenery.  You got to spend some extended time with your grandparents, which involved some new opportunities.  You and your brothers and Skitter had a multi-month project of capturing raccoons, most of whom got names based on the pop culture figures on your minds. Over the course of the summer, you caught eleven raccoons, which Skitter then transported far from the neighborhood and released.

Another interest you developed was making Chex Mix.  It’s a favorite snack (and breakfast, and probably lunch and dinner if I’d let you) of yours, and with some support from Mubby, you learned to make it all by yourself.  When we got home, you made your first solo batch in our new kitchen.  Our microwave is a little different from theirs, so you had to learn on the fly and make adjustments appropriate to your new circumstances.  That’s an important life skill, so I’m glad that you had a chance to hone it and feed the family along the way.  The batch you made is long gone, so you’ll have to get going on another soon.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Speaking of returning home, we slid in just in time for you to start seventh grade online.  The house isn’t totally done yet—the upstairs interior is mostly finished, but the flooring crew is still working on the downstairs area, and the balcony, grilling deck, and siding still are waiting for completion.  But it’s done enough that we can occupy the space, and it’s been nice to be back.  We certainly miss Mubby and Skitter (and I miss having someone else make coffee and empty the dishwasher and do a lot of cooking), but it’s a relief to feel somewhat settled again.

The transition to junior high is a strange and difficult one under the best of circumstances, and I can’t quite tell yet how it will all work out for you.  So far you seem to be enjoying your classes, and you have some classes with old friends from your elementary school and other activities.  I’ve overheard you video-chatting with your friend group, and I’m glad to see you’re doing some of that. I hope you eventually get the chance to meet new people and develop some new interests, because one great thing about your big junior high is the wide range of clubs and activities they provide. In the meantime, you seem happy talking about memes, video games, and YouTube with your friends.

We’ve set you up with a little learning station in your room.  It may or may not be where you end up doing most of your work.  Once our downstairs area is completed, you and/or Tobin might end up with a work station down there.  Right now, you start school considerably later than the elementary kids, and I feel bad when Tobin wakes you up so he can start his morning Zoom. We haven’t settled into a definite routine yet, but the year is young. Your teachers seem really dedicated to making the best out of this situation, and I truly admire their innovation, creativity, and willingness to learn new skills to rise to this strange occasion.

Your current favorites: pasta with homemade tomato sauce, video games, declining my hugs and kisses (in the interest of modeling respect for personal boundaries, we’ve implemented a system in which you can give a signal if you don’t want my affection, and you feel no qualms about employing that signal), a new book series you’ve been reading, making Chex Mix, and investigating the new lazy susan in our kitchen looking for treats.  There are Starbursts in there.

I love you, Miles. I applaud your ability to be flexible, learn safely, and continue to develop your witty and interesting personality. Here’s to another month of growth, whether we like it or not.

Love,

Mom