Dear Callum,

You’re 3.75 years old now, and even though it still seems like you’re the new guy around here, I guess you’re getting pretty well established.  I recently learned that there’s a free preschool program for 3-year-olds at a local school, and a person who works there was pressuring me to put you in it.  At first it seemed like it might be a good idea, since Miles and Tobin each had over two years of preschool and you’ll only have one.  I never got around to looking into it too seriously, though, because it’s too hard to deviate from my mental plan of having you with me for another year.  Besides, I think you get a lot of the benefits of preschool in your daily life.  Miles and Tobin give you plenty of social interaction, and you’ve made friends closer to your own age lately too.  You’ve been playing a lot with Tobin’s taekwondo instructor’s son, who is always happy to have you for a playmate while his dad is teaching.

We also read lots of books and do creative activities at home.  You’ve gotten really into Robert Munsch lately, an old favorite in our household, and you love doing art projects.  You especially love any art project that involves cutting things up with scissors.  With two older brothers who seem to get a new set of school scissors every year, our home has ended up with many small pairs of scissors, and you have commandeered the lot of them.  You like cutting ribbons into tiny pieces, cardboard boxes into tiny pieces, papers you find around the house into tiny pieces, and you would have cut your hair into tiny pieces if your dad hadn’t made a flying leap and stopped you at the last second.

Miles loves to quiz you on planetary facts, and you’re becoming quite knowledgeable about them.  We garden (when it’s not too soggy, which has been rare lately), take walks, run errands, and play pretend games with your toys.  Your stuffed animals Curious George and Spummy (a name you gave the blue-footed booby) have long conversations and are always falling off the bed and hugging each other sympathetically.  In short, I think you’ll survive with just one year of preschool.

You’re becoming more and more observant, too.  I was cleaning out the refrigerator and dumped out a container of old almond milk from iced coffee days of yore, and you looked at the label and said, “Hey, just like Nana crackers.”  Nana crackers are actually Nut Thins, made by the Blue Diamond company, just like the almond milk.  I was surprised and impressed that you recognized the pattern.

You love helping me in the kitchen.  You did a good job helping with the frosting for a recent batch of pumpkin bars, and today you did pretty well taking the leaves off the Thai basil plant.  We’re going to have a frost in the next few days, so I harvested the more tender herbs to freeze for later use.  You got to use scissors to take leaves off the stalks—I myself just pulled them off, but you take any opportunity you can get to use scissors—and put them in the freezer bag.

Photo by Gary Clarke

The hardest part of cooking with you is finding a balance between letting you do things by yourself and not completely sacrificing the quality of the final product.  You have no patience for leveling off flour or baking powder measurements, and baking requires some precision.  You really enjoy stirring and do it vigorously.  Sometimes the contents of the bowl fly everywhere.  Oh, and cracking eggs.  You love that.  Oh boy.

Our old iMac bit the dust a week or so ago, and while you sometimes watch a video or two on another piece of hardware, your screen time has gone down noticeably.  That’s probably good for you, though it drives me crazy how everything you pick up that’s longer than it is wide becomes a gun.  I don’t know if you got that from Tobin (who is obsessed with Nerf guns) or the larger culture.  Yesterday, we were picking the big boys up from school, and you grabbed a stick from the ground.  I tried to engage you in some imagination play about picturing it as a tree with leaves that could change color and fall off in the autumn, but that lasted about thirty seconds before it became a gun in your hand.  Gross.  I know I can’t completely insulate you from that kind of play, because whether you get it from your brothers or elsewhere, it’s going to enter your sphere.  But I don’t have to like it and I’m not going to stop encouraging alternate ways to play.

After a brief swell of heat, in which we played in the sprinkler and with splort balls (my non-violent alternative to squirt guns), I believe we’re transitioning into cold weather.  That will mean a drastic reduction in your outside time.  The late summer/early fall was a lot of fun, with many trips to the park and other outside playtime.  You love to get out, but I’m sure we’ll find good things to do inside too.  We might have to make more pumpkin bars.  Maybe you can even learn to crack an egg without violence.

Halloween is coming, and you’re excited to be a witch again.  I don’t know when you’re going to realize that most people choose a different costume every year, but I’m not complaining.  Your brothers always want super complex costumes, and they would prefer that I make them rather than buy them (though often their choices wouldn’t be available in stores anyway), so at least yours is quick and easy.  We have a variety of Halloween events to attend, and you’re going to be pretty darn cute in your oversized witch’s hat.

Have a good month, my little pup.  We’ve got some good adventures coming up, and I’ll do my best to do just as well by you as any preschool.

Love,

Mommy