Dear Callum,

This has been an active and adventurous month for you. You’re well-established in your school routine, nailing your schoolwork and making new friends. Sometimes you get a little hung up when you don’t feel sure about how things are supposed to work. You were teary at pick-up time a couple of weeks ago, because you had been dismissed directly from P.E. and you weren’t sure if you were supposed to check in with your teacher in your main classroom. I offered to go back inside with you and ask, but luckily, your teacher happened to step outside at that moment. She reassured you that it was okay to go home without stopping by the classroom.

You were similarly freaked out when the weather started getting cold enough that you needed more than your green hoodie for the walk to school in the morning. For a while your compromise with your dad was that you’d wear a jacket to school, but he’d take it from you before you went inside and bring it home with him. It’s now getting cold enough that you need your coat during recess, and that provoked some resistance. As it turned out, you weren’t sure about what to do with your jacket when you were in the classroom. I gave you the assignment to watch what other kids did. We talked about possibilities, including my prediction that they would hang their jackets up the same place they put their backpacks. As it turned out, that’s exactly what they did, and you successfully wore your coat all the way inside today. At pickup, you told me that you forgot to grab it for one of your recesses, but I think overall it was a successful day in outerwear.

Possibly prompted by the footwear of your classmates, you expressed a sudden interest in learning to tie your shoes. We’re in the “it’s going to get worse before it gets better” stage of lace-up shoes right now, in which you really like wearing them, but it takes you quite a while to get them tied. Sometimes it’s easy for the baby of the family to be treated like a baby, and it hadn’t really been on my radar to teach you to tie shoes. It’s a good skill to have, though, and I’m glad you made the request. You’re doing a good job learning, and I’m sure you’ll get more and more confident as you practice.

You’ve also been excited about badminton lately. I’m not sure what got you on that kick—maybe watching a YouTuber who plays tennis. We don’t have easy access to a tennis court here, but we do have a badminton set, so you’ve been playing with that a lot lately. Though the weather is changing now, you had a lot of warm fall afternoons over the last month when you’ve gotten to enjoy it. You even get your big sibling outside to join you pretty often, which is a special treat. The two of you also worked hard on a computer game. Artemis taught you how to make a simple game using Scratch programming, and you two spent hours on it together. When it was finally done, you were so proud to show it to your dad and me. It was pretty cool. I didn’t do a great job deflecting the arrows to pop the balloon, but I loved how happy you were about the whole thing. Mostly I enjoyed watching the two of you cuddled up together on the couch, concentrating hard and achieving a goal together.

We had a family mini-vacation to St. Louis last week. We did a lot of fun stuff, including the City Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, and the Gateway Arch. I think your favorite of those places was the zoo. You got to see your favorite animals, flamingos. You also ate a lot of treats and picked out a special friend in the gift shop. At first you were disappointed that the townhouse we rented didn’t have a pool, I think because you associate our family trips with the water-centric Florida Keys vacations. St. Louis is warmer than our city, but not by much. The weather was perfect for lots of zoo exploration and outdoor dining, but not really for swimming. Still, once we got there, you totally fell in love with the place. You made me promise that we’d go back one day and rent the exact same house. I don’t know if that’s related to your cautious nature—you like going places where you know just what to expect—or if you just liked the rental house so much. Either way, you had a great time, and I’m really happy we got to take a getaway. Family vacations are very important to me, and it’s all the better when the rest of the gang enjoys them as much as I do. Maybe one of these years we’ll do something not specifically kid-centric, like an art museum.

You’ve been enjoying Family Folk Machine a lot lately, including a special performance where you sang a solo. You’ve also been getting ukulele instruction as part of the FFM children’s programming, and you’ve actually done a good job. You know several chords and can sing a few songs while you play. You’ve grown up surrounded by music, but the whole pandemic situation meant we didn’t get you into lessons like we did your older siblings. That might be in your future, but for the time being, I’m glad you’re playing the ukulele. We have a guitar or two hanging around that could be good for you to play if we got them touched up a bit. It won’t be long before you and your siblings can form a family band.

Photo by Gary Clarke

Your current favorites: chocolate-dipped granola bars, your school friends, the Humphrey books by Betty G. Birney, watching YouTube on the iPad, spending time with Artemis, holding my hand as we walk home from school, watching The Great British Baking Show with me, using words I didn’t realize you knew (e.g., on the topic of the judging of the former, “Do they judge on taste or aesthetics?”), and cuddling up at bedtime. The best part about having kids over a wide range of ages is that I know exactly what I need to cherish. Your big siblings don’t cuddle me the way they used to anymore, so I am extra appreciative of the love you give me.

You are learning and growing so much. School has been a great experience for you, and I love your inquisitive attitude and excitement. I know the world can be big and unpredictable, so I will do my best to help you contextualize your new challenges and find comfort in both the known and the unknown.

Love,

Mommy