Here’s that wings recipe we like (the one with butter).

Summary:

Preheat oven 425 F. Dry the wings very well (air-dry overnight in the fridge if you have time). Season with S&P or any dry seasoning. Arrange on baking racks and brush with melted butter (1/2 stick for a family pack).

Bake for 25 minutes, then brush with bbq sauce if that’s what’s happening. Bake for another 20 minutes or until crispy and done (165F). Rest for a few minutes before serving.

3 Tricks To Cooking the Perfect Chicken Wings

Happy birthday, dear Tobin!

We went out to dinner tonight, and even though you chose not to order from it, I noticed that the age limit for the kids’ menu was twelve. It’s a relief to know that, at least by that restaurant’s standards, you’re still a youth. You seem more grown-up every day to me, though you do sometimes show your little-boy self. Sixth grade has begun, and I’ll write more about that next month. It’s a time of big change and growth, and you’re doing great for the most part.

You’ve been busy-busy-busy this summer, with social activities multiple times a week. It seems like every day you’re out an about with your friends, riding bikes around the neighborhood, playing video games at someone’s house, or going to the swimming pool. You did a lot of good swimming this summer, and you chose the pool as the setting for your birthday party. You and a handful of your friends splashed in the chilly outdoor pool water, jumped off the diving board a hundred times, and then dried off for some time eating treats and hanging out. Over the last year or so, you’ve cultivated a good group of friends. You are still close with Kit, and you’ve gotten to be better friends with Jack, too. We’ve known Jack and his family for a long time, but it was only in the last school year that you two got to know each other well. He lives nearby, so you’ve trod the path between our houses many times.

Your friend group is a mostly nice, respectful, and kind bunch of kids. I thought you would be the only twelve-year-old in the world who requested a veggie platter at his birthday party (along side Double-Stuffed Oreos, chips, cake, and Gatorade), but the veggies actually went pretty fast.

In fact, you got to have two birthday cakes: one for your party with friends (Grammy’s chocolate cake) and one at home (pumpkin cake). You decided chocolate would probably be more of a crowd-pleaser, which is probably true, but it also made for a lot of cake-baking for me. That’s okay; I like baking cakes and celebrating you. You haven’t received it yet, but you’ll be getting an Apple Watch some time in the next couple of weeks. You’ve been begging for a phone, citing very reasonable examples of times when it would be useful for communicating with me. Your dad and I aren’t sure you’re ready for a phone yet, but an Apple Watch seemed like a good compromise. You’ll be able to text and call with it, so we can be in touch, and I can use it to track your location. As you are a person who is frequently on the move, having an idea of where you are will be good for my mental health. Hopefully something that’s strapped to your wrist will be hard to lose, too.

The week before your birthday, you spent a week at Mubby and Skitter’s house with your siblings. I think you inherited your on-the-move nature from Mubby, because she kept you kids hopping. Every day you were there, I think you did at least three activities. One day you went fishing in the morning, out for lunch, then to a movie, then to the swimming pool. I don’t know how Mubby has the energy to do so many things, but you especially thrived in such a stimulating environment. I know you guys played a lot of poker, too. I bet you also had a lot of cocktail hours and junky snacks. Mubby and Skitter also reported that you got along well with your siblings and were kind and well-mannered. The last time we heard a report like that, Artemis muttered that it was just because Mubby and Skitter can’t hear you very well. That may be the case, but I’m glad you can at least give the illusion of good behavior.

You tell me that your career goals include being a chef or an astronaut. You have been expanding your palette lately, trying new foods and preferring vegetables to apple slices in your sack lunch. You’ve reached a level of competence that when you help me make your favorite dinner, stir-fry, you’re legitimately helpful. You said you want to start helping make dinner more often, so I’ll have to take advantage of that. I have zero expertise in terms of space, though, so you’re on your own for astronaut training.

Your current favorites: playing online (especially Fortnite) and in-person with your friends, swimming, helping cook, wearing your soccer and baseball jerseys as shirts, laughing, hot Funyuns and Cheetos, being in the center of any action available, and sleeping in. You used to be an early riser, but these days you’ve been enjoying a late sleep. You usually request an 8:30 a.m. wake-up on non-school days, but as often as you actually get out of bed, you tell me that you’d rather sleep. I guess the teen years aren’t far off.

In the meantime, I’ll have to love you extra hard as a twelve-year-old.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

You’ve had a wild and adventurous summer. Last night, I was reading School Days According to Humphrey to you, and the students in the class were assigned to bring a summer box. That was a box full of things that represented what they did over the summer, and after we were done reading, I asked you what you would include in a summer box. You said a postcard from Niagara Falls, the ornament you made at the Corning Museum of Glass, the slime you made at camp in the park, and a playing card to represent all the poker you played at Mubby and Skitter Week.

This was your first time attending Mubby and Skitter Week. You planned to last year, but it ended up not working out because our air conditioning broke and your dad and I stayed there too. You were pretty annoyed about that, because you didn’t feel you could fully take advantage of grandparent (mostly grandmother) leniency with your dad and me present. This year, you were on board for the complete experience, and you definitely got it. Much of it occurred after your month birthday, so I’ll write more about that next month, but I know you had a great time. You are already excited to go again next summer. Rumor has it you improved your poker skills quite a bit, though you sometimes had to hide under the table when you knew you couldn’t maintain a poker face.

I’m a little nervous about sending you to school in the fall. It’s rapidly approaching, and you had only just begun your Humira treatment at the end of the last school year. It’s been helpful for easing your Crohn’s symptoms, but it’s also immunosuppressive on a systemic level. That means you’re more vulnerable to viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. Your older siblings have finally worn me down about not wearing masks at school, but on your doctor’s advice, you’re still going to. For the time being, you have a reasonable attitude about it. That may not last forever, but I’m glad that you don’t seem to hate it too much just now. It does mean we’re going to have to be more vigilant about protecting you from germs your siblings bring home.

Tobin’s always been the kid in the family most likely to catch a cold, which I attribute to his utter inability to keep his hands to himself. Since you share a room with him, that may mean that you get moved out of the bedroom temporarily if Tobin is sick. If he got something more serious, like Covid or influenza, he might get banished to the guest room so you could keep your room. He uses that room as an office anyway, so he’d probably be able to handle it, though he really does like being up on the same floor as everyone. Even though you two squabble, he really loves you and likes being your bunk bed buddy.

We already have our Florida Keys trip booked for the spring, and we’re staying at the same rental condo that we used last time. I’m sure you and Tobin will share a room again, since Artemis prefers the privacy of the small single room. You and Tobin had fun in the pirate ship room last time anyway, and you’re good roommates. As long as everyone stays healthy, we should be under control.

I’ve learned that immunosuppressed people such as you, including kids, are currently eligible to get an additional Covid booster two months or more after their previous shot. It seems like it might be useful for you to do that a couple of weeks before our trip. It’s hard to say whether that will still be an option seven months from now, with how fast everything changes on that front, but I hope so. What I would really like is for our whole family to get a bonus booster, but I’m not sure if that will fly. Maybe we can beg your doctors for a special prescription.

An important benefit of Humira is healing your intestines to the extent that they do a better job absorbing nutrition. Your height and weight had stalled out for a while, but you’ve made small but consistent gains at your last several appointments. That makes me happy to know. It’s a pretty dismal feeling as a parent to learn that the food I’ve been giving you hasn’t been doing its job to help you grow. You were also happy to learn that your GI doctor recommends red meat to help boost your hemoglobin. As a lover of ribeye steak, you gave a big thumbs-up to that advice. We’re (I’m) making casual plans for a big trip I hope to take in about three years, a European extravaganza. Your dad and I were talking about places in Italy we should go, and the first place I thought of was Florence, because of the enormous T-bone steaks for which they’re famous. I’m sure you’d love the pizza and pasta, too, but nothing makes you wash up for dinner faster than steak on the table.

Your current favorites: pancakes and waffles, not wearing a shirt, chicken wings, steak, the PBS show Word Girl (your dad is also excited about that, as it’s his favorite of the PBS lineup), dancing, doing elaborate fight choreography, building blanket forts in the bunk bed with Tobin, and being tender and cuddly. Even though I never get a good night’s sleep when I share a bed with you, I admit I don’t hate the idea of doing it more often. You’re a pretty sweet little pup.

Love,

Mom

Dear Artemis,

As I write this, we’ve just picked you up from Mubby and Skitter Week. You and your siblings stayed for a whole week at your grandparents’ house, and from the sound of it, you were extremely busy and had a lot of fun. That all technically occurred after your month birthday, so I’ll include photos from it next month, but I must say it was very strange not having any kids in the house. We weren’t sure if you’d want to go, being a mature high schooler and all, but you chose to. I’m really glad you did, partly because it’s good for you to get out of your room and do some different activities, and partly because I know Mubby and Skitter really appreciate the extra time with you.

After an overall lazy summer, these last few weeks before school starts have been extra busy. You had band camp a couple of weeks ago, which you claimed was torture, but you always seemed to be in a good mood at the end of the day. At your school, sophomores and up in the marching band take a more active and involved role than the freshmen, so this is your first year as a full-fledged member. The rest of the family got to attend a showcase of your band camp efforts, and the marching band sounds spectacular as ever. The music program at your school is truly impressive, and I’m very glad you’re a part of it. The band directors also highly prize creating a supportive and inclusive atmosphere, and I think you’ve found it a comfortable place to be. As your dad pointed out, sometimes it seems like the band directors get a little overly excited about the more esoteric elements of their jobs. I got excited when I heard you start to play the Brubeck classic “Take Five,” and you played it well. However, at the showcase, you and your bandmates just stood in a semicircle and played. Things could get a lot trickier when you try to march and play a song in five-four time. Having never been a marching band member, I can’t say for sure that it will be a disaster. Nonetheless, I’ve been in enough dance environments where people are accustomed to counting to four or eight that throwing a five in the mix seems like it could mess people up. I’m intrigued to watch the halftime show this year, that’s for sure.

With band camp and Mubby and Skitter Week done, you have one more week of activities before the school year begins. Your longtime favorite camp, the FilmScene Animation Camp, runs a special class about building (and maybe filming) miniature sets. It’s your first time doing it, but the advanced animation camp conflicted with band camp, so you decided to give this one a try. You’re also taking a sculpture class in school next year, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you do in the 3D visual arts.

This is still a long way in the distance, but I recently figured out that you and your little brothers will all graduate from various levels of school at the same time. The year you graduate from high school, Tobin will finish junior high and Callum will finish elementary school. We’ve been throwing around the idea of a great Clarke-Crall Europe trip for some time, and that might be just the year to do it. You seem to be doing very well in your French studies, so hopefully after having finished four years of study, you’ll be competent to handle a France leg of the trip. I feel confident in Spain and passable in Italy, so between our skillsets, I think we could have a pretty good time.

I also think it would be a good learning and leadership opportunity for you to be in charge of some of the trip. Presumably after taking multiple years of French, you’ll have some insight into where would be good places to visit, and you can be part of the planning process. Once we’re there, you can handle our interactions with shopkeepers and waiters and hotel clerks. It sounds far off in the future, especially because it will mean you’re almost ready for college, but I know it won’t take long to arrive. Having a really great vacation to look forward to will help me not sob every day about you growing up and going off to college.

You say that people keep asking you where you want to go to college and what you want to study, but you don’t seem to have much of an answer just yet. Based on the electives you choose in school and the areas in which you excel, I would anticipate something in the humanities. You are taking Honors English, Honors French, and AP World History, as well as music and art classes, but you’re going the standard route in math and science. I feel like you would enjoy computer programming, because you enjoy video games that have a design component to them. You’ve made countless games using the Scratch programming language, and you were in a big Mario Maker phase for a while there. That’s a game that allows you to create different games in the various styles of the Super Mario Brothers universe. You were planning to take a computer programming class some time ago, but the teacher left and the school was unable to replace him.

I could get into the sorry situation our public schools are facing, but that frustration so far hasn’t touched you too directly (except possibly the elimination of the computer programming class). I hope you are still allowed to read whatever books your teachers think would be valuable for your personal edification, but just ones they are sure won’t be on a banned list. Several schools in our state, and not just small-town schools who fit book-burner stereotypes, are facing challenges from groups who want books banned. Our state elected officials have put teachers in the terrible position of policing their students’ names, pronouns, bathroom use, and book access. I hope you know that in our home, you can be whoever feels right to you and read whatever you find interesting. I ache for the kids who don’t feel comfortable in their own homes and hoped to find safe haven with an understanding teacher who will now be unable to provide the kind of support they need.

We have your back one hundred percent, always.

Your current favorites: playing chess, online and in real life; swimming; telling jokes and making witty rejoinders; bingeing TV series like Breaking Bad and Lost; mini-golf; pasta; French fries; poker; and not brushing your hair. I think you do wear deodorant, though. The band uniform room has a sign that says “Wear deodorant! Don’t be a stinky Little Hawk!” As far as I can sniff, you’ve followed that advice. It’s good for everyone.

Your hair is a little outrageous. But you know what? It’s your head, and while I can make suggestions that brushing it would be a good idea, in the end I have to trust you. You’ve proven yourself to be a thoughtful and interesting person, and I am honored to be part of your growing-up process. May your sophomore year be full of intriguing ideas, friendship, music, and good jokes.

Love,

Mom