A year ago this week we invited your whole class to go snow tubing to celebrate your birthday. To your desperate embarrassment, we passed around cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday. Some kids stayed for a sleepover, but of course nobody slept after all that artificial food dye. There wasn’t mention of COVID, we didn’t wear masks, we blew out candles and didn’t even worry much about whether it was safe to exhale so wishfully all over that shared frosting. Fourteen days later, the world shifted on its axis and we’ve been swimming against the tide ever since. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but your year has been sheltered and quiet. We’ve surrounded you with trees and fresh air and a barnyard of animals hoping that it would blanket you with enough comfort and companionship until this is over.

We’ve rearranged our spaces so that I could be your teacher for now, and even though you’ve actually been in my class before, it was very different then than it is now. On the days when the friction of our roles ebbs a bit, we have big, broad discussions about things I didn’t know you’d be ready for.... the Vietnam war, human evolution, commercialism, the AIDS pandemic, and what the words in the song Southern Man really meant. Your dad and I have walked a wobbly line between wanting you to feel safe but also believing that the racist, political and cultural events of the past year may not be forgotten or ignored and we need to raise you with an awareness to do better.

I took you to your well visit today and on the ride there, your voice squeaked as we sang terrible Post Malone lyrics. The Pediatrician asked you to come up with three adjectives to describe yourself and I smirked watching you hold the floor in a moment of golden opportunity. From the day you were born, you’ve been Ferris or Cameron, depending on your mood. You asked her how you could get to the 90th percentile for height and she told you it would help if you ate more veggies. “Meh,” you said, “70th percentile is ok by me.”

Every time I try to take your picture now, you stop me first to ask whether or not your hair looks good. I don’t have the heart to tell you that your photos over the next few years will probably have glasses and braces. I’ve read that between the ages twelve and thirteen one can see the face shape of a boy transition into a young man. I don’t have the heart for that yet either.

Today, your face is 4380 days old and I love it just as much as I did on day 1.

HBD, BigLittleMan.