4.7 or, Homebody

Dear Corbin,

This month you started pre-school, swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons.  You would rather stay home.

You keep telling us how much you don't like school.  It makes me worried for your future. Especially when you also say that you're going to live with me forever.  In fact, one night when I said something like, "When you grow up and live by yourself..." you actually got so sad you cried.  I hope that you manage to find something fun about school.  I wonder if you'll enjoy it more when you've learned to read, although me and your Dad mainly read to escape the fact that we didn't like school, so maybe I'm being optimistic on that one.

I thought that you would like swimming lessons, after you had so much fun in the pool a couple of weeks ago.  You were talking about how you wanted to learn how to dive and things like that.  But after the first time your instructor got you to go underwater, you didn't like it anymore.  So before the second lesson, we went out and bought you a pair of goggles.  You forgot to put them on for your lesson, though, so hopefully the third time will be the charm.  You have practiced wearing them in the bathtub, although you didn't put your face underwater, you just poured water over your head and laughed and laughed.

You have enjoyed the gymnastics lessons, which we kind of expected.  I hope that you continue to like them.  I wouldn't mind seeing you stick with gymnastics for a long time.  I think it would be a good sport for you, and I would certainly rather go to gymnastics meets than baseball games.

So we haven't really done much this month.  Except go to the park a lot.  We drove home from school past Greenwood park one day, and you wanted to stop and play.  Since then, we've gone a couple of times each week.  Sometimes it's just you and I.  Sometimes Grandma or Grandpa (or both) walk there with Miriam and we meet up with them.  Sometimes there are other children there, which is fun.  One day you caught a big grasshopper, so we had to head home right away to put him in the bug house.  He managed to survive his afternoon in the bug house, and you were very good about letting him go before bed time.

A while ago, we had this conversation:
Me: You're driving me crazy!
You: You're driving me coconuts!
And then we both laughed.  So now you say, "Oh, coconuts!" fairly often, when something has gone wrong.

And this one:
You:  "What if the whole world was California?" 
Dad:  "What if it was?"
You:  "Then I'd be so happy!"
Dad:  "Why would that make you happy?"
You:  "Because California is ...  ... a fun place!"

I hope wherever life takes you, it's a fun place.

Love,
Mom