Dear Artie,

December is sliding by so quickly, much like all of your fifteenth year. This is your last month of being fifteen, and with all the hubbub of the holidays, I’m sure it will be your birthday before we even have a chance to catch our breath. A sixteenth birthday is a big deal, but I have nearly a month before I need to come to terms with that.

Your grades first trimester were magnificent, straight-As in all your classes, including a few A-pluses. You’re taking honors French, honors English, and AP World History, as well as biology, Algebra II, and band. After finishing up a sculpture class first trimester, you finally have a study hall now. As of this year, participating in marching band counts as a P.E. credit, so that gives you a little extra room in your schedule.

Partly as a reward for your excellent report card and partly just because you needed an upgrade, we got you a new cell phone. So far the screen isn’t cracked at all, and it seems to be working well for you. I hope you enjoy it and put it to good use. Your school has a pretty strict no-phones-in-class policy, so when I feel an urge to send you a funny meme, I try to time it so you get it at lunch. Sometimes you acknowledge it and sometimes you don’t, but it makes me feel better knowing that at least your hardware is reliable.

You have an appointment coming up next week in orthopedics to check on the state of your spine. At your last checkup, they found you were close enough to being done growing that it was unlikely for your scoliosis to worsen. I certainly hope you get confirmation of that prediction at your appointment. Assuming you can get to your full skeletal development without significant worsening of your curve, you can avoid surgery. That would be wonderful, since spinal surgery is a pretty major operation with a long and painful recovery time. Obviously it can’t be avoided in every case, no matter how diligently the patient braces, but your fairly mild curve plus your great bracing work will, I hope, keep you out of the OR. You have done a truly exceptional job being consistent with your bracing. I don’t know a lot of teenagers who would never have to be reminded at all to put their brace on or to wear it for the correct number of hours. You handle it all perfectly, including making up time on the weekends when some kind of weeknight activity makes you lose a few hours.

At your last appointment, the doctor said there’s the potential that you could reduce your bracing hours to only overnight, which would be a nice lifestyle improvement for you. We’ll find out soon whether that will come to pass. I was talking to Callum about the various ailments our family members have, and he was feeling nervous that he might have scoliosis too. I told him that it was possible, but one good thing about scoliosis is that it has an end. Unlike Crohn’s disease, which he will probably have to manage for the rest of his life, scoliosis either resolves itself through bracing and physical therapy or surgery. In any case, it’s not a life sentence, and I’m so happy of you for (hopefully) being near the end of your scoliosis journey.

You’ve gotten into movies lately, often watching them in your room at night on our various streaming services. You also went to the movies with friends last weekend. You saw Godzilla Minus One, and you really enjoyed it. You explained some of the plot to me when I drove you home, but I still don’t know what the title means. This will be a spoiler on the off-chance that you read this before Christmas, but I got you a FilmScene gift card so you can continue to see a lot of movies. FilmScene is our local independent cinema that shows a lot of more independent and artistic films than the mainstream theaters, so I hope you can make good use of it and enjoy film both as entertainment and as an art form.

Your current favorites: watching movies, pasta, Mubby’s Chex Mix, telling jokes, giving me goofy smiles when I take pictures of you, winning the quiz games you play in French class, lounging in your bed, playing video games, and keeping the dinner table conversation lively with your witty rejoinders.

You’re a special person with a lot of really interesting things to offer. I wish everything in life could be as comfy as your preferred clothes, but even during the bumpy years, you’re still one of the great joys of my heart.

I love you, my sweet firstborn.

Mom