Dear Tobin,

This is your last month of being ten. I’m sorry to say it doesn’t look like your major eleventh birthday event is going to happen in the same month as your birthday—your dad hasn’t gotten much work done on getting a patio and basketball court created in our yard, and the whole second half of the summer has gotten so busy that I don’t think we’ll get a trip done. You never did settle on a particular place, either. We had talked about the Great Lakes area of Minnesota or Michigan, or maybe Colorado, but it’s gotten late enough that I don’t think we’ll get it done this summer.

Fortunately, you have a back-up in mind. You asked to go to St. Louis for a getaway that includes the City Museum. My Covid-cautious gut screamed no, but after thinking it over, the idea holds some promise. You have a mini fall break in October, so we could go on a weekday when it would be less crowded. We’re all fully-vaccinated, and while that doesn’t do much in terms of not getting Covid (especially the outrageous contagious and immunity-evading BA.5), it does virtually guarantee that we wouldn’t wind up hospitalized. As long as we all wear high-quality masks, it doesn’t seem much worse than the school classroom you’ll be sitting in every day before too long. You even helped me do some research on condo rentals, and we found one that might be the exact same place we stayed a few years ago on a similar trip. It seems like a fun idea, and I think we should do it if we can.

Even though the last month has been really busy and sometimes stressful, it’s had lots of good moments, too. We kicked off the month with a trip to Innsbrook, Missouri, to a lake house we shared with Mubby, Skitter, Tyler, Oxana, Aleks, and Vera. You and Aleks bonded over your love of sports, especially baseball. You had a great time together, hanging out in the private hot tub, watching movies, playing foosball and darts, and enjoying the sports facilities and swimming pool. After you and Artemis expressed strong opinions on the topic of the tastiness of different brands of bottled water, Uncle Tyler orchestrated a blind taste test. The photo below illustrates you concentrating hard on your evaluation of what may have been Dasani, Aquafina, or tap water.

Another could of weird issues came up after we got home from Innsbrook. Our air conditioning broke and Callum tested positive for Covid. We all implemented protocols, masking indoors and sleeping in separate rooms. We kept windows open and fans running (an easy decision since we had no air conditioning). I was freaked out because Artemis had surgery scheduled later in the month, and I wanted to do my utmost to protect him. If he tested positive for COVID the day before surgery, it would have to be rescheduled, and it was already pushing the temporal boundaries of all the other things he needed to get done. It was a challenging position. We were all uncomfortable because of the hot house as we waited for an AC tech to come replace our air conditioner and furnace. Mubby and Skitter invited us to go to their house, but I didn’t want to take the chance of exposing them to COVID. We also considered having only Artemis and me go there, since we had tested negative. Art had his surgery coming up, and I had readings for my books, so we both especially wanted to stay healthy. On the other hand, we didn’t know if we were truly negative or just hadn’t tested positive yet, so we ended up staying home and continuing our protocols.

As Callum told the pediatrician at a doctor’s appointment earlier today, the bedtime routine you and I share involves making a wish every night. After Callum got that positive, you wished that it would be a false positive. Lo and behold, it was. After Callum got two negative rapid antigen tests, two negative PCR tests, and no one ever developing any symptoms, we decided that a false positive must have occurred. I knew false negatives were common, especially early in the progress of the disease, but I thought false positives were extremely rare. Later, your dad found out that his coworkers wife also had a false positive the day after Callum’s. I don’t know if there was some kind of problem at the lab during that timeframe or what happened, but we were all very grateful.

You were supposed to have Mubby & Skitter week at that time, and we did all go to Ames, but it wasn’t the parent-free event you were hoping for. Because it was going to take a while to get our AC fixed, your dad and I stayed in Ames with you. It probably wasn’t as much fun for you, but it was a lot nicer for your dad and me not to be sweating all night. We still had a good time, including a trip to the swimming pool, lots of basketball in the back yard, and visits to the park. You played poker, enjoyed Mubby Ice, and even busted out Uncle Tyler’s old saxophone. You really enjoyed noodling around on it and composed a one-measure song. It starts like “Beautiful Dreamer” but ends up going a different direction.

You’ll be eligible to start school band next year, so I hope you’re able to play that sax. You’re still taking bass lessons, currently over Zoom, though you prefer to do them in person. I like that you do them online, partly because it’s a hassle to drive you to Coralville and back for your lessons, and partly because your teacher just had COVID for the second time. I have the impression he’s not as careful as someone should be if you’re going to be in a small room together. You’ll also start soccer in the fall, which is the first time since preschool that you’ve played on a soccer team. Several of your friends play, and I’m more comfortable with you playing an outdoor sport right now rather than returning to taekwondo. I hope you can do that at some point, but with cases surging at the moment, soccer seems like a good choice.

I know that it’s pretty likely our family will get COVID at some point, especially with school starting again soon. I hate to just resign myself to it, though, because it’s such a roll of the dice as to the severity of any specific case. I also have a couple of friends who have really struggled with long COVID. If the rest of your life is going to be a series of COVID infections, I want to do as much as I can to minimize risk while you still have to listen to me.

Your current favorites: biking around the neighborhood with Kit and Esmé, Flamin’ Hot Barbecue Ruffles, peanut butter crackers and milk, Star Wars movies, popcorn, the Spy School book series by Stuart Gibbs, helping plan trips, and being at the center of any action that is happening (even when the action does not pertain to you).

You’re such a sweet and thoughtful kid. You always ask how other people are doing, and the other day, you bought me a pack of cherry sours. Those are one of my favorite candies, and you got them for me at Casey’s when you biked there with your friends. I almost don’t want to open the bag because it makes me smile so much seeing it on my dresser, knowing it’s from you.

I am looking forward to celebrating your eleventh birthday next month, even if it’s hard to fathom that my squishy baby could be that old. I’m glad you’re still squishy on the inside.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

This has been a summer of friendship for you. We signed you up for baseball, your first sport ever and your first group activity since pre-Covid. You team was kind of terrible, but you never let it bring you down. You focused on the message that it was for fun and learning, and with the exception of one rude kid who smack-talked, it was a good experience. Your favorite parts were the post-game snacks. Even when it was beastly hot out, you always wanted to stay for Tobin’s game after yours. This was partly because you were likely to get more snacks, but mostly because you became good friends with other little brothers. One was the younger brother of Tobin’s teammate, so he was often there, and you also reconnected with a preschool friend whose older brother usually played at the same time as Tobin’s team.

Even though I was very happy that you had such a good year of online school, I was concerned about your social readiness for in-person school this fall. Seeing how well you jumped in and played with those other kids made me feel more confident. I know you’ll be fine academically, so as long as you can sort out how to listen to your teacher and follow classroom community rules, I think you’ll have a good year.

We had been a bit concerned that you might have a first-year teacher, because there’s been a lot of staff turnover at our elementary school. Right now the district roster shows two experienced teachers whom our family knows as teaching both the second grade sections, so I hope that’s a final decision. Either one of them would be a good teacher for you. I really just wanted someone who has been through years of teaching and has seen a lot of different situations to help support you as you go to in-person school for the first time in a long time.

It’s certainly going to be different with all three of you kids away from home all day. Maybe I’ll write another book or do more simulated patient jobs, or maybe I’ll just sit around and cry. Hopefully I will get that out of my system in the first few days and then find other things to do. I do know that I will be counting down the hours until pick-up time on that first day of school. Covid is a concern, of course, but we plan to get you and Tobin boosters before school starts. Unfortunately they won’t be the omicron-specific boosters that will be available to adults later this year, but any kind of medical reassurance is welcome. We’ll make sure you and your siblings continue to mask at school, though I’m not sure how that will work at lunch. Last year I brought Tobin home during high-Covid-rate times, but I don’t know if it will be practical or reasonable to do that at two different lunch times every day.

We’ll have to see how things are going and make a decision as the date draws nearer. I imagine Covid will hit our family eventually. In fact we had a scare earlier this week after our trip to Innsbrook. You had a positive test result that turned out to be a false positive. I was very freaked out, because we have a lot of important things going on in July that are hard to reschedule. I think something may have gone wrong at the lab, because your dad knows someone else who got a false positive just one day after you. We put all the safety protocols in place and were hoping for the best, so it was a huge relief to find out you weren’t actually sick. We will almost certainly get it at some point—school is a cesspool of germs, but it’s also a font of development, so it really seems like time to get you back. We can just hope that advances in vaccines continue and that any cases we get are mild and conveniently timed. I know there’s no truly convenient time to be sick, but I would prefer any time that doesn’t concur with my book tour, family visits, and your sibling’s surgery.

The family visit to which I referred was a trip to Innsbrook, Missouri. We rented a house on a lake with Mubby, Skitter, and Uncle Tyler’s family. You and cousin Vera became immediate best friends. You relaxed in the hot tub, played video games, watched movies, ate treats, played foosball and darts, swam in the pool, and had an epic water fight. It made me happy to see you have so much fun together. You both know what it’s like to be the little sibling who gets dragged to older siblings’ events and practices. You’re good at finding friends among the kids who are around.

We don’t have another vacation planned right now, which always makes me antsy. Tobin was hoping to take a trip to celebrate turning eleven, but our July has gotten so busy that we’ve hardly had time to think about it. Everything’s more complicated these days, and it’s hard to make plans too far in advance when you don’t know what the Covid climate will be like or what kind of nonsense will be happening with airports. I recently learned that the US no longer requires a negative Covid test to get into the country. That hardly seems like a smart strategy, and it doesn’t make me more likely to get on an international flight any time soon. I do hope we can get another trip figured out, because vacation time with my family is the very best time of all. I want you to have the kinds of family vacation memories that I have.

Your current favorites: corn on the cob, sugary beverages like Kool-Aid, Minecraft, playing with your siblings, doing physical therapy with Artemis, having play swordfights with Tobin, bouncing around on Artemis’s physical therapy ball, crafting weapons out of toys that were never supposed to be weapons, reading The Magic Tree House books at bedtime, and wearing jaunty hats.

You’re a sweet little guy, and I hope the American public school system doesn’t squash that out of you. In the meantime, we still have a good chunk of summer left, and I’m going to hug and kiss and squash you in the most loving way I can while you’ll still let me.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Artie,

Next month at this time I hope I am writing something like, “Your surgery went great, and you’re feeling totally back to normal.” At the moment, with it looming next week, we’re in the realm of anticipation and worry. A compounding issue was a recent COVID scare within our family. The deal with the surgery is that you have to have a negative test the day prior. If you are positive, we have to reschedule. With the months of back-and-forth, your doctor going to bat for you in search of approval from the Chief of Surgery to have it in the Main Operating Room, and challenges getting the scheduling people to call me back, I absolutely do not want anything to derail our plans. Most importantly, you’re starting high school next month, and you have marching band practice in early August. If we push the surgery any later, it’s going to make those things a lot more complicated.

Callum got a positive test result right after our multi-family trip to Innsbrook, Missouri, and we all freaked out a bit about that. I was probably the most freaked out, but you and the rest of the family did a good job keeping up with safety protocols to try to avoid infection. We all masked in the house, slept in separate bedrooms, and ate outdoors. I assigned you to the guest room downstairs, because it’s the most isolated from the rest of the household, and you are the one I most want to protect. While I think you will be glad to get back to your normal room, you did mention that the guest bed is very roomy and comfortable.

An additional issue was that our air conditioning went out right when we got back from our trip. Our initial plan was to go to Mubby and Skitter’s house a couple of days later, because your dad and I were going to drop you and your siblings off and then continue to a wedding elsewhere. We had to put the brakes on that plan, not only out of fear of infecting Mubby and Skitter, but also because of the possibility that they contracted COVID at the same time Callum did. We sweated in the house for a few days, canceled our plans for the wedding, and kept taking tests.

Miraculously, Callum’s test seems to have been a false positive. He never had any symptoms, nobody else tested positive, and he had two negative PCR tests and two negative rapid antigen tests after his initial positive. I didn’t realize false positives could happen (except maybe at the end of an infection, when the person is no longer sick or contagious but still has lingering COVID evidence), but apparently they can. It must have been a case of lab error. Once he’d had enough negative tests that I was satisfied, we headed to Mubby and Skitter’s and dropped our masks. This was supposed to be the week when you and your siblings stay with Mubby and Skitter on your own, but until we get the AC fixed, I’m sorry to say you’ll have to deal with your parents’ presence.

Our trip to Innsbrook was lots of fun. You and your cousins did a lot of outdoor things together, including lounging in the hot tub, swimming, making s’mores, and having a water fight. Your favorite part was probably when Uncle Tyler set up an experiment in which you tasted several different types of water (Aquafina, Dasani, and tap water) and tried to identify them. You went into the experiment sure that Aquafina was the best, but almost everyone mistook Dasani for Aquafina. Fortunately, nobody got too upset about being wrong and you all had a good time.

You’re kind and patient with little kids, which makes you a great big cousin and a good role model for the pack. You enjoy your alone time, which I understand; I enjoy alone time too. But I can always count on you to have an interesting contribution to a conversation and to respond to challenges with wit and aplomb. You’re even getting better at resisting Tobin’s goads. You showed me a song on YouTube, a parody of “Be Our Guest” called “You’ve Been Trolled.” It shows me that you’re growing aware of when arguing with someone is futile, especially when the person’s goal isn’t to prove any particular point, but rather to whip up an emotional response. That’s a very important skill to have in the media age (to recognize emotional up-whipping, not to cause it), so I’m glad you’re growing more savvy in that area.

We’re in a lull right now between events, so I hope you’re enjoying a relaxing week before things get wild and busy again. Apparently after your surgery it will be more comfortable for you to eat soft things, like pasta and ice cream, so I’ll be sure to load up on those. I’ve been so busy thinking about getting the surgery scheduled and keeping you COVID-free so you can have it on time that I’ve barely had time to fret about the surgery itself. From what I understand, it’s not a super complicated medical event, though your particular tumor is deep in your parotid gland. The parotid gland is a salivary gland, so I wonder if you’ll have trouble doing the spit-based COVID tests we typically do. My research tells me that the other salivary glands make up for the removed one in the case where the whole gland is removed, and I don’t even think that will be the case for you. Still, I hope you can spit and drool to whatever extent is useful for you. We’re also on the lookout for facial paralysis, which is a risk because a major facial nerve runs right through the parotid gland. The surgeon emphasized that he and his team will be very, very careful about that. That was big reason I was glad he was granted his request to have you in the Main OR, because he said the nursing staff there is better equipped to support him in that work. In any case, I’ll be there the whole time, either directly by your side or in the adjacent fretting room.

Even if you do have some nerve damage, I understand that it’s usually not permanent. It just might make it a bit difficult to play trombone a couple of weeks later. Or maybe it will add an interesting new layer to your musicianship.

Your current favorites: grapes, pasta, Minecraft, Mario Maker, white t-shirts, Doritos, absurdist jokes, and hanging out online with your friends. I hope you enjoy your return to animation camp and your beginnings as a marching trombonist.

I love you so much, my sweet-Art. I’m glad the person who is going to cut your neck open is confident, experienced, and well-supported. I hope you continue to develop into a person who is confident, experienced, and well-supported.

Love,

Mom