Dear Callum,

You have now completed first grade, which we anticipate will be the end of your online education. Of course I can’t say for sure; not much over the last couple of years has worked exactly the way our family expected it to. Your online school experience was mostly good, especially first grade. Your teacher was truly excellent, so good that we decided to keep you in her online class even after you were vaccinated. But it will be good for you to be in a traditional class with lots of other kids. I haven’t been too worried about your socialization, since your brothers keep you busy with negotiations of all sorts, but it’s not quite the same as a group of kids your own age.

There’s talk of our school system reorganizing; right now, kindergarten through sixth grade are elementary school, and seventh and eighth grades are junior high. The plan is to change to a middle school model with sixth, seventh, and eighth grades in the same buildings. It’s unclear exactly when that change will happen, but it’s possible that you and Tobin will only have one year together at the same elementary school.

You’ve been having fun playing baseball, even though your skills aren’t very strong yet. At your level, the emphasis is still on having fun and learning. That’s good because it’s your first time on a sports team, and you really haven’t had much practice at all. I’m hoping it’s taught you some of the basics you’ll need for school, like how to line up and how to hustle in when the coach (teacher) calls you. You strike out a lot, and you sometimes sit down or spin around in circles while fielding, but you’re good-natured about it. You always say you had a good time at the end of the game. You really enjoy the snacks. You also have a lot of fun playing with the younger brother of a teammate of Tobin’s, and since he’s usually around during Tobin’s games, that’s offered you another good socialization opportunity.

We’ve been keeping busy throughout these first couple of weeks of summer. We’ve gone downtown, to the movies, strawberry picking, out for ice cream and flavor ice, checked out library books, and had relaxing time around the house. You’ve been into a variety of video games, and sometimes you beat your siblings when you play together. You can guess which one of them is usually gracious and which one throws the remote.

We’ve been able to get outside more often because the worst of allergy season has passed for you. The rest of us are all getting running noses and itchy throats, but your swollen eyes have abated. You have an appointment with the allergist next month, and I suspect they’ll recommend a full panel of allergy tests. We were hoping to get into the program at a different clinic (all part of the same hospital system) that offers sublingual drops, but that’s not where the appointment we finally got will occur. I’ll ask them about it when we’re there. I don’t want to put you through the pain and stress of allergy shots for an issue that only bothers you a few weeks a year, but it bothers you so much during those several weeks that we need step up our protocol somehow. I guess they’ll give us advice then. For now, it’s nice to let you play outside without knowing it will result in suffering.

You still love to craft and create. I bought you a fort-making kit for some birthday or holiday, and you liked it fine, but what you like most is repurposing the sticks. You make arrows out of them to shoot with your bow and arrow sets (both the commercial one and the one you made out of a bent stick and elastic from my craft supplies), tools for playing bop the balloon, various swords and shields, and some things I can’t identify but that involve a lot of masking tape. You’re hard to buy gifts for, because you’re not really into toys exactly, and people don’t seem to want to buy rolls of tape and sticks for children. You also like sticks from trees, and we have an ever-growing pile of them on our front step. Sometimes you wrap those in tape too.

You’re funny, silly, quick to laugh and always ready to join in on a conversation. You like telling jokes and doing magic tricks. You enjoy wearing hats.

Your current favorites: cocktail hour on the balcony, the video games Arms and Cookie Counter, Minecraft, YouTube videos of other people playing Minecraft, the Magic Treehouse and Nate the Great book series, following along with Artemis’s physical therapy exercises, bouncing on the exercise ball even when not doing physical therapy, meat of all sorts, and frozen pizza.

You’re a hoot, and I’m so happy I get to spend the summer with you. It’s going to be tough to let you go in the fall, because we’ve spent so much time together over the last few years, but you’re brave and smart and ready for new challenges.

In the meantime, we’re going to have a great summer. I love you so much.

Love,

Mommy