Dear Will,

You’re Seven! What is seven? Seven is finishing up the first grade. Seven is playing T-ball. Seven is giggle fits at the dinner table. Seven is tailing your brother and avoiding my kisses.

You’re an excellent liar. And I mean that in the best way possible. You tell us stories you think we want to hear instead of the true story. Right now it’s hard to know what is true and what is not true in your world. In the medical field we would call that being a poor historian. I think that this quirk is born out of your deep empathy. You can feel what we feel, you can anticipate what we want to hear, what we want to know - so you project those stories back to us. It's quite a talent.

You can really read this year. And your standardized tests say that you are surpassing your peers in math and reading. You tested into a gifted and advanced learning program at school. But gosh, you cannot focus on completing tasks that you find boring. Trying to get you to write even one sentence is pure torture… for both you and me.

You’re still kind, empathetic, silly, and a pure joy in our family. Your jokes are getting better. Sometimes you have Dad and I chuckling pretty hard. You’re a great physical comedian. Silly walks are a specialty of yours.

I’m excited to see what this next year brings. I want to see more silly walks.

Happy birthday!!

I love you kiddo,

Mom

Dear Miles,

 I think it’s clear that these letters are as much about me evolving in my role as your mother as they are about you developing into a truer version of yourself. 

On the eve of the eve of your birthday this year you ran away.  Not because you were sad or because you were scared or angry. Not because you wanted to leave your family. Not because we had a fight.

You ran away because you had an impulse to. Because you had an urge to. Because you wanted to see your best friend Charlie. Because you knew how to get to his house on your own. Because you wanted to see if you could do it. By yourself. 

I realized I lost you about 10 minutes after you snuck away. I knew where you went because you told me you wanted to do it earlier in the evening. We had reviewed the outcomes of you slipping away unannounced - the distress it would cause me, the consequences you would face, the possibilities of unforeseen danger.

As I drove up to your best friend’s house, my phone rang - it was his mother letting me know that you were there. I felt embarrassed and upset. And relieved. 

You were surprised that I was mad because I wasn’t yelling. And you learned that choices have consequences. This choices/consequences lesson is a prominent one in our lives right now.

But, if I’m honest, in addition to feeling embarrassment and distress, I’m also impressed by your initiative and independence. We wanted to raise a kid who questioned rules. We wanted a kid who trusts himself. We wanted a kid who is incessantly curious about the world, who looks for evidence, who pushes boundaries. You do those things. Sometimes you could make better choices. But also, sometimes I could make better choices too.

I find it challenging to parent you but I find it effortless to love you. 

To many more years of choices and their consequences (good and bad)! Happy 10th birthday!

Love, Mom

Dear Will,

 Most mornings I can count on your little feet padding up to my bed. Your messy hair appears next to me, your body clamoring over the sheets, your knees and head finding their way into my soft spots. As much as I love sleep, I love these moments more. And often, I’m already awake, waiting for your body to join mine in the early morning light. 

We giggle and play games on my phone. We cuddle and watch tiktok. You share your latest thoughts about the stuffy that accompanied you on your journey from one set of sheets to another. We make plans for the day. Mostly that involves you asking me to play and me saying I need to work, or garden, or cook. But these early morning moments are ours, yours and mine alone.

It was back to school this year, kindergarten, repeatedly interrupted by Covid quarantines. You are reading. You are writing. You idolize your brother. You love this family your dad and I have built. You are bright and funny and sweet and cuddly. 

You turn 6 today. I wonder if I’ll have 6 more years of this friendship we’ve built. I wonder what we’ll laugh about when you’re 12. I hope you still find me, wherever I am in the house, to share your morning thoughts and your morning breath, your sparkly eyes and your messy hair. 

I love you dearly my sweet 6 year old.

Love, Mom

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.

Dear Will,

 You are five years old today!

How the heck did that happen? Five! Five years old!

You are at a great age! You are old enough to be trusted to play on your own. You are young enough to still want to snuggle.

This year has been a change for all of us, but you've taken it in stride. You had school at home this entire year. And because of your Dad's dedication, you really blossomed. You can read! You can do addition and subtraction! You know all about the coronavirus and vaccines. You rated President Biden pretty high up on your favorite people list!

You and I remain pretty good friends. You like to help me with chores around the house and you like to sit right next to me. You also adore your brother. If you could do everything he does, you would. In this isolating year, the two of you have been constant playmates, often the best of friends. You even sometimes have sleepovers in your bunk beds. You and your dad are also closely bonded. Dad works with you on your reading and math and school. Dad gets so excited about all the new words you gain and the books you can read.

You know what, Will? I remember your birth very clearly. I remember the way it felt to hold you directly after you were born. I remember all the good feelings that swam through my heart as I bundled you up and cuddled you close. I get those same good feelings now, as you sit next to me while I cross stitch, when you ask to help with baking or cooking, when you hold my hand crossing the street. 

You are growing up into your own kid self. And I'm so happy I'm here to watch it happen!

Happy Birthday Kiddo!

Love, Mom.

Dear Miles,

Happy Birthday! You're eight years old!

Eight years old was unfathomable when you were born. In the early days of figuring out our first baby, of figuring out our family, eight years felt like an eternity away. An unreachable goal. But here we are - a family of four, eight years in the making.

Here are things that help define you as a newly minted eight year old. You are into video games and screens of all sorts. You love Minecraft and this sim city knockoff called Cities: Skylines. You're pretty indifferent to the Zoom classes you have as a replacement for in-person school, but you love the math exercises and a typing game that Dad found for you. You got so far ahead in math lessons that Ms. Shelley had to ask you to slow down and do just one lesson a day. You will participate in anything that can be turned into a game. You're a boy after your father's own heart in that way. If we need you to eat more at a meal or sit still while we're out, it's game time! Games like animal draft or "I'm going to a cook-out" or even practicing spelling or math facts, will keep you focused long enough to accomplish our primary task.

Focus. That's been an eye opener for us with our adventures in home schooling (Dad's adventures, I should say). On the days you're not medicated, it is hard to get you to focus on the reading/research assignments. But, medicated, you can focus with assistance on the hard stuff and focus independently on the stuff that you like! ADHD is a real thing and I'm so glad we started treating it so that school can be a successful experience for you!

You're into jokes, classic comics like Calvin & Hobbes and the Farside. You are a dancer - jerking body movements and hops and hip swings are your go-to moves. You're somewhat oblivious to other's feelings and the social temperature of a room. But you are becoming a bit more empathetic. You cry at sad parts of movies. Rarely, you come out of your room at night, saddened by some random thoughts that have crept in as you wait for sleep.

But your mood changes quickly and the sadness rolls off. This ability to let the world roll off, or at the very least, how you avoid harboring ill will for any significant amount of time, is something we should all strive for. I hope this stays with you. I hope you are always able to feel the sadness, recognize the injustice, but move forward without letting those feelings immobilize you.

My favorite moments with you are in the evening hours after we've sent Will to bed. You're often snuggled up in bed with me, reading a book, wanting to share a new joke you've found, or insisting on discussing some odd fact of life. You get sleepy, lay your head on my shoulder, and say you love me. Those must be moments where you feel completely safe and at ease. I hope we can continue to give you those moments for years to come.

I love you, Miles. Happy Birthday!

Love,
Mama

Dear Will,

I trim your nails nearly every week. Your discarded nail clippings are a notch carved in the wall, marking the passage of time. Their growth is light speed. If I neglect your nails for even one week, they're too long, packed with dirt and childhood, a vector for disease and a weapon in your rumbles with your brother.

Just like your nails' growth, your healing powers are impressive. We recently got to watch as the skin, which had been fully abraded from the surface of your knees, grew back within a week. First there were scab mountains with deep valleys, then small scab hills, then freshly pink skin, shiny and boasting about the miracles of the human body.

The passage of time does seem accelerated. Things are changing as you morph into a "big kid." School started this year, you were adjusting well.  And you adjusted well when school "ended," as the world fell apart around us these last two months.

We've reached the part of your birthday letter where I sing your praises; I identify the things that make you a bright light in our family. You are sweet and empathetic and funny. You are starting to push limits and are working on your lying (you're not quite good at it yet). You love to cook with me and you help "do the dishes" (make a mess with water). You're a pro on a scooter. You keep up with the big kids. And you get so offended when you don't get to talk or you get the wrong cup or your sandwich was cut incorrectly.

I adore you. I will continue to cut your nails as we add another notch in your life, marking the passage of time until you can someday manage your nails yourself.

Happy Birthday Will! You're four years old and the perfect little big kid!

Love,
Mama