Dear Tobin,

I made the mistake of buying you a pack of socks that are not all the same color. I bought you new socks because yours were getting worn out, and socks are the one item of clothing you’ll change without prompting. You really like the new socks, but you don’t care at all whether the socks you’re wearing match or not. That, combined with your spotty record on getting them into the laundry hamper when you take them off, means that your feet are almost always silly looking. I do my best to pair them up when I fold laundry, but as another person who questions the value of matching socks, I don’t get too upset when it doesn’t work out.

That’s you, Tobin: you’re flexible, easy to please, and always ready for an adventure. Your spring break this year wasn’t especially adventurous, but you did manage to get out of town. Because you didn’t get any no-parents time with Mubby and Skitter last summer, they invited you and Miles (and Callum, who declined) to spend the week with them. We dropped you off the first weekend, you spent the week, and they brought you home the following weekend. Skitter seemed worried that you were bored, and it’s true that you didn’t get to do the usual list of activities you enjoy there. Also, the weather wasn’t very good most of the week, so outdoor time was limited. You and Miles and your grandparents did play a lot of poker (though the royal flush remains elusive), and I know you ran around outside and shot baskets. You and Mubby made it out to Brookside Park at least once, too. I tried to reassure Skitter that you were probably no more bored there than here, since you had all your favorite electronics, and at least at their house you got all the treats you could want. You and Miles never complained, and really, you haven’t complained much at all throughout this whole ordeal.

Although I was happy you got to spend some special time with your grandparents, I missed you more than I ever remember missing you in past years. I think all the time we’ve spent together over the past year has gotten me accustomed to always having you nearby, and it was a shock to my system not to hear you laughing to yourself as you watch your favorite anime shows or to see you running around the dining room when normal people are sitting at the dinner table.

You started virtual ELP today, which you said you enjoyed. One of the challenges of online school is that the teachers have reduced ability to tailor instruction and content to individual students’ needs.  Your ELP teacher (who was also Miles’s ELP teacher) indicated that for the rest of this online school year, you’ll have private weekly sessions with her. Once the school year starts next year, we hope and expect that you’ll attend in person, and then you’ll be in a small group. I’m sure you’ll prefer that, since you’re a social person anyway, and I remember hanging out with my classmates being the best part of ELP from my youth. Still, I admire the commitment of the school district to continue to provide services to you even when it’s not convenient. Your teacher sent a variety of topics and let you choose, and you said that you were interested in almost all of them. You were excited because almost all of them had to do with biology in one way or another, and learning about animals is your favorite. I think you settled on aquarium management for your first topic. Watch this space to see if we end up with an aquarium. I’d probably rather get everybody vaccinated and take a trip to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, but we’ll see how it pans out.

I recently found the photo above, an old one your dad posted on Instagram that I had forgotten about. You were always a little sweetheart, but that picture really captures your cherubic curls, little nose, and soft cheeks. Your dirty fingernails show that you were always a lover of playing outside. You still have a lot of those attributes, but it highlights what a true kid you are, no longer a little pup. Thankfully, you still let me hug you pretty often. You don’t seek out my snuggles so much anymore, but you are indulgent and don’t run away when I wrap you up in my arms. I appreciate it. Plus you got a really soft new sweatshirt, and it makes you extra squishy. You don’t have much baby fat left, so a fluffy sweatshirt helps me reminisce about your more tender days.

Your current favorites: Club crackers, tortilla chips, your neon green sweatshirt, watching anime on the iPad, hanging out in your “office” (aka the spare bedroom that has become your personal computing/schooling station), and being outside. We’ve had a few lovely days over the last month, and when you saw me relaxing out on the balcony on one of those evenings, you came out and joined me. It was really nice to have some quiet time with you, since you’re not usually a quiet kind of guy.

You’re more of a mismatched socks kind of guy. You’re comfortable with a little imbalance. That’s good for all of us.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

Subtraction is a problem. It’s not a mathematical challenge for you—in fact, we learned at your school conference that you’re excelling in math. The problem is that subtraction story problems hurt your heart. When you see a problem like 10-7, you whip out the answer quickly, but if seven fish swim away from the group of ten? That’s an issue. You get concerned about where they’re going, whether they’re coming back, whether their family misses them. I end up concocting backstories to assure you that they’re just out gathering worms to share with the others at the upcoming fish party.

You have similar trouble with throwing away leftovers. Even if it’s food you don’t like much, you can’t bear to see a plate with a few bites left scraped into the garbage. I don’t know where you got that Depression-era mentality, because you’ve never known a day of food scarcity in your life. Usually I can sneak it into the garbage when you’re not looking. That works okay, because you only very rarely ask to eat the leftovers you insist on saving (and it’s easy to predict that the half-slice of carrot cake is going to be higher-priority than the mixed vegetables). Still, I prefer not to lie to you about things like that. I’d rather you understood that if we stick the plate with two bites of food on it into the fridge, it takes up valuable space, and it keeps a plate we might need out of rotation. If we scrape the bites into another container, it means another item to wash later, which is a waste of water and energy resources. That logic doesn’t usually fly with you, though.

We were almost late for lunch today because you couldn’t manage to walk home from the park without picking up every pinecone. You really like to keep things.

In a way, it’s good that you’re doing online school this year, because it would not be fair to foist these issues onto a kindergarten teacher who has twenty other students’ academic and emotional challenges to address. Maybe it’s a symptom of COVID-times and the stress we’ve all been feeling, or maybe it’s something intrinsic in you that would have come up anyway. In any case, I hope it passes before you start first grade in person (fingers crossed).

Online school has been going great, though. You’re a mommy’s guy, so you’re happy to work through your assignments with me by your side. At your conference, your teacher asked what a good goal would be for you, and I said for you to be able to be more independent in your learning. Sometimes I think you see your teacher on the Zoom screen as a TV news anchor, not someone who can see you back. When she tells you to take out a piece of paper, if I’m not there to say, “Okay, take out a piece of paper,” you just sit there and stare at her. She suggested that you might do better if I step away, and she’s probably right—sometimes it’s hard for me to put aside academic goals (“What if he doesn’t get his paper out and practice writing the letter N? What will we do?”) and realize that gaining independence and following directions are just as important. Maybe that’s really a goal for me.

In any case, we’ve been having fun together. You especially enjoy your online science assignments. We’ve made papier maché bowls, rolled balls down ramps indoors and at the park, made balloon rockets, and woven paper strips to illustrated woven fabric. I’m having a great time doing them with you, and I so appreciate the work the teachers in your district did to prepare this curriculum. We’ve also been having a lot of fun doing online PE (balloon tennis with spatulas is your new favorite sport), music, and library. Your music teacher in particular is so kind and makes such an effort to connect with you. Throughout most of the year, you’ve felt too shy to participate in class much, but you’ve sent audio and video recordings to your teacher talking about what you most enjoyed and why. She always sends a thoughtful response, and you just light up when we listen to them. You’re getting braver about participating now, but having the asynchronous communication option worked really well for someone like you who is hesitant to jump into the cacophony of a bunch of un-muted kindergartners on Zoom.

After a stretch of really cold weather, we got lucky with a warm blast that lasted for about a week. We still had lots of snow on the ground, and the mud that comes with a thaw, but you had a lot of fun playing outside. Through your online P.E. lessons, you got interested in jumping rope. After a lot of practice in the house, you are getting pretty good at it, and you did well jumping rope on the sidewalk. I even included some footage for our upcoming Family Folk Machine video “Mr. Blue Sky.” It’s all about celebrating the joy of sunshine, and you have embodied that attitude lately.

I’ve noticed a real jump in your verbal development lately. Not only are you braver and chattier in school, but you’ve been employing a larger vocabulary and saying funny and precocious words and phrases. I’m sure you absorb a lot of them from your brothers, but other times, you say things that make you sound like a very short adult. Before a car ride yesterday, I reminded you to go to the bathroom. At that moment, the bathroom was occupied, so when I checked back with you later, I wasn’t sure if you’d gotten it done. I asked if you had, and you said, “I imagine you would know the answer to that, since you told me to go.” If someone older than kindergarten-age had said that to me, I might have been peeved, but it was so funny when you said it that all I could do was laugh and apologize for doubting you.

Your current favorites: anything cute, like cute animals or heart-shaped chocolates; “waffles how I always like them, extra butter, extra syrup, and Skitter Mix;” doing dramatic dance moves in the dining room; zackscottgames on YouTube; cute animal videos on TikTok; your stuffed animal collection; not throwing anything away; demanding that I take pictures of anything that is remotely appealing, such as cartoon animals on your school worksheets; and roughhousing with Tobin. Your big brothers are going to stay at Mubby and Skitter’s house for spring break week, and you chose to stay home with your dad and me. I know you’ll miss them, but you’ll probably also enjoy being an only child for the week. I wish we could do things like go to the Children’s Museum and Tot Time, but I know it won’t be long. Unfortunately, the forecast for the week is pretty bleak, so we probably won’t be able to spend much time at parks or on playgrounds. It might be fun to make one last snowman before the season is out, though.

You are a sweetheart in many ways. You’re losing your baby face, and when I look back at old pictures, I can hardly believe that soft, chubby pup is you. I’m so happy to be spending extra time with you this year, Callum. I know I’ll never regret it, sad though I may be about the circumstances that led to it. Scooping up an extra year with you is an honor, and even when I’m tired of playing balloon spatula tennis, I’m always happy that we’re together.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Miles,

You’ve just started the third trimester of online school, which will hopefully be the last trimester you complete in such a way. I’m really proud of how well you did. You ended up with very good grades, a new membership in Geek Club, and a basically good attitude. I asked you if you feel like the school year has gone fast or slow, and you said, “SLOW.” It seems fast to me, but you’re the one who has to juggle a new learning style, new teachers, and little squares that represent new classmates. The transition to junior high was going to be big in any case, and I’m hoping that when you look back on your junior high years, you think of this one as a somewhat gentler introduction than it might have been otherwise. This year, it’s been easy for me to keep an eye on your online classes and make sure you have all your tasks organized. You didn’t have to deal with some of the social pressures that come with face-to-face interactions with your peers. Maybe, now that you’ve made some new friends through classes and Geek Club and gotten the hang of some new organizational strategies, eighth grade will be a little smoother.

Despite your complaints that online school is torture, you seem pretty engaged. You elected to take on the advanced coursework in Literacy, and you also chose to take the advanced eighth grade Seminar class. Once you’re back in person, that will be a good way to meet kids with similar interests, perhaps even ones who aren’t in Geek Club.

Our final Family Folk Machine concert is coming up, and one of the songs includes you doing a big solo. You have a nice voice with good pitch, and I’m glad we’ve been able to continue to have choir in our lives. You aren’t interested in participating on a weekly basis, but you’re mostly a good sport when I pester you to record something. You’ve done well in school band and choir this year, and you wanted to make sure to continue with both of those as we got your Fall 2021 registration set as well. One tricky issue is that we haven’t completely decided whether you’ll go in person or online. We’re cautiously optimistic about going with in-person, because by fall, all the adults in your life should be vaccinated. We’re hoping that a pediatric vaccine is on the horizon too, though probably not for an August start date. We’re also hoping that the school district keeps their mask requirements in place until all the kids are vaccinated. Our hope is that if you happen to catch it, it would follow the typical pattern and be mild for you and your brothers. I hate gambling with your health, but I was heartened by evidence that kids who get flu shots (which you do) are less likely to have serious COVID complications. We have to strike a balance between respect for your physical health and respect for your mental health, and the social growth that happens at your life stage is crucial.

Spring Break is next week, and I mentioned to you that you should get Friday’s homework done tonight (Thursday) because we’ll be leaving town right after school on Friday to go to Mubby and Skitter’s house. You seemed surprised by that news, as if no one had mentioned it to you. I guess I don’t remember having a specific conversation with you about Spring Break plans, but everybody else seemed to know. You’ve declined to be a part of group conversations a lot of the time lately, so you’ve been missing out on news. You were happy to hear about it in any case. You and Tobin didn’t get your no-parents time there that you typically spend during the summer, so the plan is that we’ll all go this weekend, then your dad, Callum and I will come home and leave you for the rest of the week. It won’t be quite as exciting as usual, considering you probably won’t go to your usual favorites like the arcade, pool, and movie theater, but I’m sure you’ll still have fun. You’ll probably play poker and eat a lot of treats.

I don’t know for sure what this summer will bring. I’m starting to get information about camps and classes, and I know you’d probably enjoy doing them. I still feel a little reluctant, though. I haven’t asked you about them yet. You’re fairly risk-averse, so maybe you wouldn’t even want to do them in-person. I just know that we’re all going to breathe a big sigh of relief when all of us are vaccinated. Your dad had his first dose yesterday, and I’m hoping to get one as soon as eligibility expands enough to allow adults without preexisting conditions.

In the absence of anything else to do and also because we genuinely like each other most of the time, we’ve been doing some good family activities. Along with our regular Saturday night hangouts, we’ve started watching the show Wandavision together. We are a mixed family in terms of our interest in binge-watching television. I’m not a big fan of the practice—I never watch more than one episode of a show in one day, and ideally I don’t even watch the same show on consecutive days. Tobin and your dad could probably watch ten in a row. I’m not sure exactly where you fall, but I’m guessing I may be outnumbered based on how many episodes of The Simpsons you quote at the dinner table. Repetition clearly doesn’t bother you, since you’d eat pasta for both lunch and dinner every day if I let you. In a nod to variety, you do eat Cheerios for breakfast most days.

Your current favorites: Fudge Stripe cookies, pasta with homemade tomato sauce, Wandavision, The Simpsons, Minecraft, playing video games with your friends (virtually) late into the night, sleeping late into the next day, wandering around the house wearing a sleeping bag, and taking long showers. I have to pester you a lot to get you into the shower in the first place, but once you do, you stay there quite a while.

I love you, Miles. I know you think this has been a torturous year, but I like having you around. I like hearing your Simpsons quotes, and I like it when you’re impressed that I can finish them with you. I like making choco-chums and helping you with your science labs. I like hearing your trombone through the closed door of your room. I like editing Family Folk Machine videos and seeing your face and hearing your voice. You’re my guy.

Love,

Mom