Dear Tobin,

The school year has begun, and you have jumped right into a high-action lifestyle. Lately you’ve been getting up early to go for a run before school, sometimes with your dad, sometimes with your friend Jack, and sometimes by yourself. I really admire your dedication. You’re adjusting well to your new class. It doesn’t have your entire friend group in it, but it has enough of your close pals that you’re generally satisfied. Almost every day after school, you play with friends. You have soccer several days a week, and you’d probably be playing fall baseball, too, if I let you. That would just be more than our family schedule could handle.

One thing that has been good for all of us is the arrival of your Apple Watch. It’s very handy for you to text me with your after-school plans, and I can see where you are using Find My iPhone. It’s a relief to me to be able to keep better tabs on you, and of course you think it’s cool to have a not-quite phone. Given your personality, I could see you overdoing it with a true phone, so this is a good compromise. It’s also harder to lose something that’s strapped to your body.

As a sixth grader, you have more opportunities and responsibilities. You’re a member of Safety Patrol, which is a group of sixth grades tasked with helping younger kids cross the streets around the school safely before and after the school day begins. You recently had your first week on duty, and you loved it so much. Somehow it’s not surprising that you enjoy power, but I think you were friendly about it. Callum and I got a kick out of letting you guide us past the parking lot entrance as we walked home. You were bummed out when you found out there were six teams, so it won’t be your turn again for over a month. It might be a little less pleasant when it’s very cold outside, but the faculty sponsor provides hot chocolate on the chilly days. I’ve heard talk that the program may be ending this year, because sixth graders are moving to the junior high next year. I guess it remains to be seen whether fifth graders are mature enough to handle the job. In any case, I’m glad you got to be part of possibly the last class of Safety Patrollers.

You got really into swimming this summer, and our local pool closes after Labor Day. Labor Day happened to be a hot one, so you convinced the whole family to go out and celebrate one more summer splash. You’ve gotten very competent at swimming and brave about going off the diving boards. You’ve also expressed interest in snorkeling on our Florida Keys trip this spring. I’ve been wanting to take a trip to Pigeon Key, and their website indicates that there’s good snorkeling there suitable for beginners. Maybe one day we’ll do a bigger-deal snorkeling trip, but this could be a good way to start. You may need to put a new wet suit on your Christmas list.

After much campaigning on your part, we’ve decided to let you stop masking at school. In my ideal world, you’d mask forever, but you really didn’t want to. Very few people mask anymore, and you’re such a social person that I think the weirdness factor influenced you. Your dad and I just got our Covid boosters, and I’m working on getting them scheduled for you kids. It’s true that Covid isn’t the deadly threat it used to be, and Callum’s doctors reassured us that even kids like him on immunosuppressants generally do okay with Covid. I guess it’s just a matter of when at this point, but I’d still like to avoid it as much as I can. It generally hits adults harder than kids, so if I get it, who will take care of you and your siblings? You might have to get the Chomp Delivery app on your Apple Watch.

I still ask you to mask in crowded situations like the trampoline park, and you grumble about it, but I can deal with your attitude. I’m also planning to ask you to mask at school the week or so before our spring break trip, because there’s no way I want to miss that. I think you’re excited enough about all the swimming and fun that you’ll handle it okay. What would be hardest on you is the isolation required after a Covid diagnosis. You crave human interaction so much, it would be very difficult for you. Artemis, who is a much more solitary person than you are, handled it just fine when they had Covid last March. I think you’d start bouncing off the walls of your room after about eighteen hours, though. Maybe that would be a good learning experience for you. You’ve been texting me a lot ever since you got your watch, and I feel like we’d end up doing a lot of FaceTime. That’s okay. I like your face.

Your current favorites: the Percy Jackson book series by Rick Riordan, online gaming with your friends, playing the video game Bloons with Callum, helping with cooking tasks, playing soccer both on your team and informally with friends, and being a fun and adventurous person.

I’m glad you’re having such a great start to your “senior in elementary school” year. We’ve started making some plans about going out to the soccer field for me to take pictures of you to commemorate this time. I’m not saying you’re forgettable, because you’re definitely not. I just want to always remember your smile, your spirit, and the little-boy sweetness you still have. You’re a treasure.

Love,

Mom

Dear Callum,

Third grade life is treating you well so far. Your teacher called to check in with us a week or two ago, and she said you’re doing great in all the important ways. When I picked you up from school the other day, three or four different friends called out to you to say goodbye. You’re learning, having fun, enjoying ELP, and playing soccer. Your Crohn’s dDisease seems to be pretty well-managed. You’re not crazy about all the shots and blood draws you have to get related to your Crohn’s care, but you’re getting more and more brave about facing them. Overall, I feel like you’re doing everything I hoped you would do at this life stage.

This season is always busy-busy-busy, with both you and Tobin playing soccer, Art in the marching band, your swimming lessons, and the various things your dad and I do to work and volunteer. Sometimes it feels like the day goes so fast, before I know it it’s time to tuck you into bed. That’s one of my favorite times of day: we read a chapter of a book, talk about what’s on our minds, say our goodnight rituals, and go to sleep. You don’t need to me to stay with you until you fall asleep anymore, and often I don’t, but sometimes it’s just so cozy in your bed with you that I snooze a while before moving to my bed. It’s not helping me get any reading done, but I doubt I’m going to look back on my life and regret spending some extra snuggly time with you.

The only issue is that you’re very empathetic. Now and then, when a challenging situation comes up in one of your books, you feel so sad for the character facing the difficulty that you cry and have a hard time falling asleep. The most recent occurrence was in a Humphrey book. The class had a long-term substitute teacher, and he was more interesting in having fun than teaching much. First you felt bad that he was a bad teacher, and then when we learned his back story (he erred on the side of being fun, because a previous class didn’t like him and threw wadded-up balls of paper at him), you felt even worse. I never expected to spend so much time consoling you over the feelings of a fictional substitute teacher. You really care about other people, even pretend ones.

We had a fun outing to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game. The Kernels didn’t do so well, but we got a lot of stadium food and enjoyed a fireworks show afterward. You’ve also been an active member of Family Folk Machine this year, the only one of your siblings I can still get to come with me. You’ll be having some ukulele lessons at upcoming rehearsals, which you’ve enjoyed in the past. You particularly enjoy Family Folk Machine songs that include lyrics you can act out. We recently did a performance in support of IC Compassion, a group that supports immigrants, refugees, and other people in need in our community. You took every opportunity to make dramatic gestures to accompany the lyrics. I suspect you prioritize the movements over singing. You may end up as a show choir kid, as long as it’s okay to be more show than choir.

You’ve been taking swimming lessons and improving a lot. Your teacher says that you’re making good progress, and she expects you to really take off after you master the front and back floats. You’re getting good at those, so I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next for you. After your last lesson, you told me that you don’t want to tell Tobin about what you’ve been learning. You want to surprise him when we go to the Florida Keys in March by swimming like a pro in the pool. I think he’ll get a kick out of that, and I know you’ll be proud to show off your abilities. Swimming is such an important life skill, both for safety and pleasure, so I’m glad you’re making good progress.

We’re counting down the months until our Keys trip. The way natural disasters have been happening, I hope our Marathon rental condo is still there in March. The most recent hurricane seems to have avoided the Keys, but the season isn’t over yet. I know we all look forward to returning to our favorite places, and that sparkling blue swimming pool overlooking the ocean is calling your name.

Your current favorites: biking on the path behind our house, watching Star Wars with your dad at night, the Humphrey book series, mini chocolate chip muffins, Super Mario Brothers Odyssey and Bloons video games, the show Word Girl, and maintaining your Duolingo streak (it’s over 200, thanks in part to Tobin occasionally stepping in for you when you forget to do it).

You’re a sweet pup, a caring heart, a good friend, and the sibling least likely to fight with another sibling. I love your tender approach to the world and am so grateful to be part of it.

Love,

Mom

My dear Artemis,

It doesn’t help that I’m a week late in posting this, but I was surprised to see your first day of school pictures among my possible photos to include this month. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been a sophomore for less than a month, because you’ve slipped back into your routine without a struggle. Actually, that’s not completely true; waking up early for school is a minor struggle, and it’s only going to get strugglier once jazz band starts later in the fall. Nonetheless, even that issue isn’t too serious. You always make it to school on time, even if it sometimes requires a few jostles to get you out of bed. You’ve even been a reasonably enthusiastic participant in the post-Hawkeye game stadium cleanup the marching band does as a program fundraiser. That requires getting up very early on a Sunday morning and picking up the trash left the previous day by sports fans. It’s not something I expected you to do willingly, but I think you have fun hanging out with friends and eating the doughnut holes provided by the band teachers.

I enjoyed attending your back-to-school night a week or so ago. Your dad and I walked through your schedule, met your teachers, and got some insight into what a typical day is like for you. You’re taking several advanced classes this year, and your teachers indicate that many students find this is the time they have to start putting in some real effort. I have, more than once, seen you doing homework, so I guess you’re on the right track.

The time is coming soon to sign up for PSATs and AP tests. It’s funny to imagine that you are already taking tests that will affect your college admissions and credits, and it’s even funnier to think about how recently it feels like I was doing those same tasks. You haven’t yet expressed any particular area of study or university you hope to attend, but I hope as you continue to take a variety of classes you’ll discover what speaks to you the most. For now, you’ve chosen to take Honors English and French, as well as AP World History. It seems like the humanities are the areas that you enjoy the most, but you said you’re really enjoying biology this year. You also said it was because you have a lot of friends in that class, but I had a good impression of the course from what the teacher described. I think your school has a lot of good teachers and interesting classmates who will challenge you.

It can sometimes be difficult to pry you out of your room, but now and then you surprise me and want to be included in an adventure. We went to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game, and while it was not successful for the baseball players (“The Kernels got popped,” you quipped), we still had a nice night. It was a beautiful evening, and we ate a lot of snacks and saw fireworks. You also joined us on a trip to the swimming pool on a particularly hot Labor Day. I hear you were pretty daring on your several trips to the pool during Mubby-Skitter week, but I had never personally seen you jump off a high dive before. It was good to see you plunge in and even better to see you bob up. We always do a lot of swimming on our Florida Keys trips, but this is the first year Tobin has gotten really into going to the pool in town during the summer. It was nice to have you along for one final trip before the pool season ended.

You recently spearheaded an effort among your siblings to pool your money to replace a video game you lost at some point. Among the three of you, you got the money together and ordered Super Mario Brothers Odyssey. You’ve all been playing it a lot lately, and you encouraged me to give it a try too. I don’t think it’s even the most recent game in the Mario series, but it’s certainly worlds ahead of the Mario games I played as a kid.

It’s notable that the games you most enjoy range from the super visually realistic (such as the games you play on the Oculus VR headset) or stylistic (such as the meticulously-crafted Mario and Zelda games) to the very visually simple (Minecraft and online chess). I appreciate that you can see the value in both. There’s a place for simplicity and strategy along with enjoying the labor of many talented artists and programmers. It’s useful to be able to enjoy and understand multiple approaches to the world.

Your current favorites: Minecraft, Super Mario Odyssey, online chess, pasta, Knoppers, ice cream, walking to school with your friend Jacob, wearing sweatpants, and sleeping late. You don’t love marching band, but you like the fact that it’s going to count as a PE credit in school. That seems fair.

You’re funny and witty and have interesting things to say. You’re not really very sophomoric. One of my favorite things is when you linger over family cocktail hour and don’t run off to your room as soon as you finish your cream soda. You always have interesting thoughts and opinions to share. You are developing into a person I’m genuinely interested in knowing better, and not just because you were once my sweet baby.

You still my sweet baby, even if you’re way taller than me. One day you’ll admit it.

Love,

Mom