Dear Corbin,
In May, you finally wore out the sneakers that you started wearing at the beginning of the school year. I had been surprised at how well they were holding up. Then one day I looked at them and there were holes in both of them. It was like they were fine for 10 months, and then 10 months and one day later...BAM. They were falling apart. So we got your new sneakers out of your closet. They're only a smidge too big for you, but somehow they make your feet look huge. Possibly because the rest of you is still so skinny.
Dad started re-constituting his woodworking equipment, which meant several trips to Home Depot and Lowe's with him grinning like a fool. The garage has filled up with a new air compressor, and a new table saw. Then he built a dust collection system for the table saw, which meant a new shop-vac and a hose set-up that makes it appear as though the table saw is actually some kind of large squid. You were happy to help with that for a while, but you have an aversion to power tool noise. You were wearing Dad's good ear protectors for a while, which was funny looking.
We were at school twice this month. I joked to Mrs. Hedley that it was our way of convincing everyone that you weren't actually an orphan. There was an Open House, which I thought was very interesting. You got to show us a portfolio of your classroom work, and we chatted with Mrs. Hedley for a while. Then we ran into the Jorgensons, and Celia showed us all around her 1st Grade classroom. It was really fun to see what you might get to work on next year.
The week after that was the School Festival. You played a couple of the little carnival games, and then you got your face painted up like a dragon. Then you went in the bouncy house and the bouncy obstacle course, and the paint sweated off your face and onto your shirt. It was kind of gross. You and Miriam went into the tub together as soon as we all got home.
You had some play dates this month, too. You got to spend an afternoon at Carter's house one weekend. Carter was happy to see you. Becky and Suren were saying that you must be old enough to sleep over now, so maybe that will happen sometime soon. Then we had a visit from my Aunt Delma, Grandpa Lam's younger sister, and her daughter Amy's family. Amy and Neal used to live in California, so they had fun telling stories about that. You had fun playing with their son, who is a few years older than you are.
The end of the month was Grandma's birthday. Every time it's someone's birthday, Grandma says we should get an ice cream cake, and I always tell her its way too much trouble. So instead, we did an Ice Cream Sundae Bar. We got a couple flavors of ice cream, and all kinds of toppings, and we each made ourselves a sundae. For presents, we gave her a new front porch swing, and a little book of meditations that I got when Dad and I were up in the Redwoods. Grandma told me once that she was going to live until she was 96 (or was it 93?) which gives us another 20 years for her to try and convince me to have an ice cream cake for someone's birthday.
We had fewer fights over homework this month. We started doing a little at night, and a little in the morning, and that seems to be useful. For a while now you've had the assignment to write a sentence every night. I kept trying to get you to write long, silly sentences, but you kept wanting to write a little as possible. Dad came up with the idea to write about a theme each week, and that seemed to make it a lot more fun for you. Being able to have fun while you get necessary work done is an important skill. Life is full of tasks that aren't inherently much fun at all, which can make them easy to avoid. Dad, of course, is fond of playing loud music while he does chores. I like to have company, unless I'm really trying to concentrate. Find ways to make life fun. Unless it's having ice cream cakes. You can forget about that.
Love,
Mom
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