Hello Succotash! You are at school right now, with a bright spiky backpack we got at Luna Luna in New York and a blanket in the shape of a shark for rest time and the stuffed armadillo that we got on a trip to Texas with you when you were five months old. We made the move to Baltimore almost three weeks ago, and so far I think it's going really well. Your dad and grandparents went down first while you and I lingered in Mustard House and went to farm camp (well, you went to farm camp, and I hurdled logistical logjams to get your playdates with your favorite friends and our favorite grownups before we left). Then you and I hopped on a plane and flew down. You had find your seat day, where we met your teachers and found your cubby and explored your classroom, and then you had three days of half days. Last week was your first full week, with rest time and lunch and everything. And this week you start the cool after school activities that we signed you up for - Little Chefs and Inventors. You have started making friends, including a sweet kid you met on the playground named Ernest, and Axel from school.
You love your new room, and your own bathroom, and your bed shaped like a castle, with a slide. Many nights you have just slept all the way through in your bed, which is amazing. I feel like I can already tell that you are growing. Something in your turns of phrase sounds more kidlike. And the other night at dinner you didn't want to do the preschool brain quest trivia cards - because you are NOT a preschooler!
Also, I forgot to note that you are down one tooth! A few weeks before we left, you developed your first loose tooth. The tooth fairy was all set to preserve it in a little cute bottle with a stopper to put in the bourgeois display cabinet alongside your mother's baby teeth (not weird at all, I'm sure), but what should happen? One morning you woke up, and the tooth was gone! We searched the bed, we searched the floor, we looked on the stairs - nothing. Our current theory is that you swallowed it. You and I wrote a letter to the tooth fairy explaining what had happened, and happily she understood and left you a dollar anyway. (Side note - much debate in my extended family over the proper going rate for a lost tooth, with estimates ranging from a quarter to ten bucks).
Your dad and I are beside ourselves with how much we love Gilman for you. Much as we loved Montessori for your growth as a person, and a friend, we are so excited to see what Gilman will do for your mind. You are turning into even more of a tinkerer. I brought your gear and water tube bathtub toys, and have enjoyed observing as you take them apart and then fit them back together, working on projects. You want to use your time in the inventor class to design a contraption that will lower a hat directly onto your head. I hope they let you do it.
You are still very tall, and very muscly, and yet share your parents' antipathy to sports. The other night we went to a pizzeria that has skee ball. There was another 5 yo boy next to you, who rolled a twenty after a lot of coaching and encouragement from me. You? You rolled a 290. I couldn't believe it.
You are currently obsessed with the movie The Sandlot ("you're killing me, Smalls"). PopPop dreams that this means you might want to play baseball. Your dad and I think you just like movies about boys doing boy stuff without grownups around. But who knows? You are blooming and changing under our very eyes. And I have never loved another being as much as I love you.
