3.5, or Free Range Child

Dear Corbin,

I am very late writing your letter this month.  I delayed in order to include our family camping trip, because other than that, we've had an uneventful month.  It's been crazy hot.  We didn't do much except fantasize about moving somewhere with nice weather, like Siberia.

Your last set of molars are finally coming in.  They were late enough that I asked the dentist about it at my last appointment, and of course that night was the night I noticed them appearing.  They aren't giving you any trouble, but they are giving rise to conversations about what will happen when your baby teeth are replaced by your adult teeth.  I tried to convince you that other parts of your body would fall off and be replaced, too, but you weren't buying it.

You're able to write the first two letters of your name, which is kind of exciting.  So far, your penmanship is the opposite of your Uncle Alex's.  His is small and cramped and hard to read.  Yours is huge and sprawling.  Also backwards.  We'll work on that.

You began the month with a trip to Madison, over the 4th of July.  I took a couple of days off to hang out with Miriam so that you could go to, "Grandma and Grandpa's big house."  You've started playing with the Lego sets there, kicked off by the battery-powered train set, of course. You brought a little forklift home with you but I hope you'll wait to get really obsessed until after we buy a bigger house.

And you ended your month with the camping trip to the UP.  We were at Bodi Lake, by Whitefish Point, and we had a fabulous time.  The weather was great, with only one rainy day, and the beach by the lake was perfect for you and the other kids.  It was a little hard for you to play with the other kids this year.  They were all old enough to ride their bikes around the campground, which isn't a skill that you've got yet.  So there were times that you got frustrated and felt left-out.  I think you'll probably have your own bike next summer, and then we'll have to worry about you riding it off of a cliff or into a tree.  We borrowed the Ross's tent camper, which was great.  They had just bought a new 5th wheel-er and offered to loan us the pop-up.  It did manage to get a flat tire on the drive up, but other than that it worked out really well.  It was far more comfortable than a tent, and gave us lots of room to spread out our stuff.  You slept with Dad one night and with me the rest of the nights.  You are a terrible person to share a bed with right now.  You actually crawled on top of Dad in your sleep, and there was one night that I had to pick you up and move you off of my pillows.  Twice.

You had fun playing on the beach with all of your diggers and with a bunch of trucks.  You didn't swim with the other kids, but you had fun watching them jumping in and splashing.  We did s'mores around the campfire one night and omelets in a bag one morning.  Your favorite thing, though, was going fishing with my cousin Brian.  He had a little plastic container of worms, which you loved playing with, and we did actually manage to catch some fish.  It was the first fish I had caught in about 25 years.  Funny enough, the last time I caught a fish was with Brian's dad, my Uncle Steve.  So I felt very accomplished as a mom, being able to meet your expectations that of course we would catch fish.  Between us and the kids in Uncle Steve's boat, we caught enough fish for a fish fry dinner.  You got to witness the fish cleaning, and my uncles and cousins made fun of me when I was showing you all of the internal organs on one of the gutted fish.  You ate two helpings of fish for dinner that night, proving that you are a good fisherman, according to Aunt Karen.  So it was a successful camping trip, which made it really hard to come back to hot, humid weather, and to go back to work the next Monday.

You drove to Madison with Grandma and Grandpa Lam to clean up their camper and leave it in their garage.  When you drove past Oshkosh, the EAA was having their annual air show.  You saw a blimp and a bunch of helicopters.  You were very excited.  You told me on the phone later, "Someday I'm going to ride in a blimp, Mom!"  I hope you do, sweetheart.  I hope you do.

Love,
Mom


Too hot for shirts:

 

Building a mini Cornhole game:

Lego train!

Changing the flat tire on the camper:

 Kayaking with Dad on Bodi Lake:

 At the Lower Falls at Tahquamenon Falls:

Fishing with cousin Brian:

  Watching Uncle Mark gut the fish that we caught:

Playing on the beach:

Squished into Grandma and Grandpa's camper in the rain.  Why is Dad making that face?

Helping clean up Grandma and Grandpa's camper in Madison: