Dear Miles,

 After you were born, your eyes started to change colors, like all babies' eyes do. Babies generally start out with dark irises and over time, they evolve to brown or azure or green. Your eyes are hazel, like mine. Eye color is not the only thing we share. This year, you've started doing puzzles in a way that reminds me of myself - with a deep concentration and singularity of focus. I have been impressed with your puzzle skills since you were small. But this year, I see new maturity in you - completing 1000 piece puzzles on your own is just one manifestation of this maturity.

If puzzling is a singular focus, video games are an obsession. We've heard about Hollow Knight and all its characters, bosses, areas to explore, and end goals for well over a year. A few days ago, we watched as you beat the game! Dad, as the video game playing expert in our house, went on about how your skills with video games have matured in the last year. I also hope you continue to discover your own sense of grit in the try and fail cycles that are inevitable in conquering a game and finding your way in life.

In this year, this pandemic, home-schooled, limited socialization, stuck-at-home year, you've actually done just fine. You are excelling in academics, in no small part to the dedication your father has to your virtual schooling. I think you have been able to do so well during this strange year in part due to your blooming maturity, but also because you are a person who let's things roll. Although you do get upset, you don't hold a grudge. You bounce back quickly, you rejoin the game, you don't carry the sadness or frustration from the previous squabble forward through your day. I hope this ability sticks with you through your life. What heights can you reach if you're not held back by life's little failures and tumults!

You've found a fan in your little brother Will. He watches you with adoration in his eyes. He wants to follow you, play with you, and be like you. You've been a great friend and play mate to him in this year of forced proximity. I'm so glad you have each other and I will do all that I can to foster your friendship. 

Your social skills are just starting to mature as well. You're just now waking up to the world of other people's experiences. I'm watching as you open those hazel eyes to the idea that others' world views may not be the same as your own. I watched you get surprisingly sentimental about our move from Lorraine to Belvedere this year. Your emotional/social brain is really growing this year.

I love you, Miles, my first born. I love your frenetic energy, your intensity of focus, your wide eyed fascination with the complexities of this world. I love that you hear color and that you want to learn about racism as much as you want to learn about the GI system. 

I hope your hazel eyes stay open, that you remain singularly focused on things that bring you joy, and that you stay as weird and wonderful as you are now.

Happy Ninth Birthday!

Love, Mom.