Dear William (82 months)

Dear William,
Yesterday you were 82 months old!!

This past month you watched your father race the Quad Rock 25.

You summited Horsetooth Mountain for the first time in your life. You were so brave! You didn't complain on the long hike up the trail, and you weren't even scared a little bit once we began the climbing.  You just scrambled straight up the rock.  You loved it.  I was so proud of you.

Shortly after summiting Horsetooth Rock, you finished 1st grade!!

You decided that since it was summer vacation, you weren't going to wear a shirt anymore.

Except that you do still wear clothes so long as they are costumes.

And if they are baseball uniforms.  You started playing baseball this month! You seem to like it.  If you can hit the ball and kids behind you don't strike out, you will score a run for your team, because you can run. In fact, you scored the very first run for your team during your very first game. We were all very proud of you.

In addition to baseball, you are also taking swimming lessons this summer, and you continue to train for The Barkley.  We got you a pair of proper trail running shoes-- your first pair of Salomons.

Good outsoles are important for running on trails.

Just after Memorial Day weekend, we loaded up the camping equipment and headed to New Mexico.

After one last night of tent camping, we traded in Daddy's station wagon and bought an RV.

Saying goodbye to your dad's station wagon.

Our first night camping in the RV, on our way home from New Mexico. 

So far you love having the RV!

Shortly after we got home, we left again for another trip, where mama ran the North Fork 50.  You and daddy drove around in the RV and met me at the aid stations.  It was a long day for everybody! Having the camper made it a lot more comfortable.

Daddy cooked us dinner the night before the race.

Pre-race vegan marshmallow roasting.

The morning after the race at our campsite. Photo by @ragfield.

You also asked me to give you a haircut this month.  You said you were tired of your hair looking wild, and you didn't want the neighbors to see you like that when you were outside jumping on your trampoline.  You asked me to cut the back short but leave the top a little bit long.  You were really pleased with the results.  I told you I thought your new haircut made you look like a fourth grader.

Aren't you a handsome young man.

2nd grader, or 4th grader? In the doorway of the RV.

We finished off the month with another camping trip to one of our favorite places in Colorado (and maybe the world)-- State Forest State Park near Gould. That's why I'm late writing this post.  We just got home last night.

Hiking at Ranger Lakes. Nokhu Crags in the background.

William, I am so proud of you for being so brave and strong and kind. You will still stop what you are doing at certain intervals and come find me for a hug. Your only complaint about the new camper is that you sleep so far away from us, compared to how we used to camp, all sleeping close together.  Whenever you have a bad dream at night though, whether at camping or at home, you always come in for a cuddle.  You tell me every day that you think I am the best mom in the world and that daddy is the best dad.  And I tell you that you are the best kid.  You really are.  I am so, so lucky to be your mom. Stay gold, Ponyboy.

State Forest State Park. Photo by @ragfield

Dear William (78 months): "So, Einstein was right."

Dear William,
Today you are 78 months old. That is 6 AND A HALF YEARS! Happy half birthday!

So many things happened this month.  But first, you and Daddy made vegan baby donuts.

I just never know what you two will be up to.

Then, you had to update all your maps of the solar system when astronomers announced Planet X-- a theoretical 9th planet (Neptune sized and far beyond the Kuiper Belt).

I think that Planet X is the Oort Cloud's baby.

— Will RS (@Fig_Ragfield) February 4, 2016

Also related to outer space and theoretical physics, scientists detected a gravitational wave that resulted when two black holes collided approximately 1.3 billion years ago.  This was big news.  I heard about it while you were at school.  As soon as you got home, we studied some graphs.

And you said:

So, Einstein was right.

— Will RS (@Fig_Ragfield) February 11, 2016

Also this month: you figured out how to play "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" on some kind of bath toy that you hadn't played with in forever.

You continued with ice skating lessons.

Parents can skate with you after the lesson. It was up to Daddy, because Mommy does not like ice.

Your school had an event called the "Sock Hop."  You hula-hooped for about 2 seconds. Then you spent the rest of the night with your friends, running back and forth in the hallway.  I'm not sure why you and your friends ran so much. I was happy seeing you have so much fun though.

William, it seemed like we just kept having more and more snow this month.  You and your dad didn't mind.  We even went to RMNP to sled.  I don't share your enthusiasm about snow and cold weather.

We had such a big snow storm that you had school canceled one day.

"It's Mount Everest," you said. But really, that was just the snow we shoveled off the driveway.

On the bright side, just before the storm hit, our neighbors (Girl Scouts) sold us some Thin Mints.

William, an amazing thing happened this month.  You lost your first tooth!!  You have been so eager for this to happen.  Many of your classmates have been losing teeth since kindergarten and you were wondering why you hadn't lost one yet.  I guess your tooth had been wiggly for a few days, but you didn't tell us.  Then one Sunday night we were having sandwiches for dinner and watching one of the less-scary Harry Potter movies (the first one probably).  Just as you took a bite of your sandwich, your tooth fell out!  You were frantic.  We couldn't find the tooth anywhere.  You were terrified that you'd swallowed it.  I told you that would be fine. The tooth was tiny, and that's probably what baby monkeys do when they lose teeth.  But still, you wondered whether the tooth fairy would come if there was no tooth for her to collect.  I told you I would see what I could do.  Eventually, you calmed enough to brush your remaining 19 teeth and go to bed.

Then, as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I FOUND YOUR TOOTH!! It had been on your plate all along.  I almost woke you up to tell you, but when I peeked at you, you were at last sleeping peacefully, so I decided to wait until morning.

I put the tooth and 42 cents (the exact amount of change that had been in my wallet) on the kitchen table.  When you came down in the morning and saw that, you were thrilled.  You looked at me and said, "You're the tooth fairy, aren't you, mama?"  I nodded.

William "19 Teeth" R-S

Between snow storms, you ran with me every once and a while.

William "1 Mile" R-S

You invited your friend Milo over to play.  He was so impressed by your Legos.  He even came upstairs to tell me how impressed he was at the sheer magnitude of Legos you owned.  He said, "My mommy would never buy me that many Legos."  You looked at him knowingly and replied, "Ask your daddy."

William, you are the best.  Every night I tell you to have sweet dreams, but sometimes you have a bad dream, such as a wolf chasing you. You come running to my bed and want me to hold you and then for the rest of the night I don't sleep, but I don't mind.  I will hold you forever and ever.

Love always,
Mama

Dear William (73 months)

Dear William,
Today you are 73 months old!

We had a pool party for you on the weekend after your birthday.

You had asked me to make you a solar system cake, and so here is what I came up with:

Your party got cut a little bit short because a thunderstorm moved in and the lifeguards had to close the pool down.  I was very proud of you for not complaining.

After your party, we only had a few days left before the school year started.  We tried to make the most of them.  I took you on a hike to Well Gulch Trail in Lory State Park.  Normally you don't like hiking, or anything that takes you away from your Legos, but you did seem kind of charged about this one.  It was a self guided nature trail.  We took one of the pamphlets from the trailhead, and we learned a lot as we followed along.

We met a frog (toad?) and we sat and watched him (her?) for almost 10 minutes.  You told me, "This is the best day ever."  And it was.

The very next day, you wanted to go back and do the hike all over again, in hopes of seeing our frog/toad friend.  Sadly, we did not, but you remained in good spirits.

Just before school started, the USA Pro Challenge Bike Race came through Fort Collins.  There were a lot of festivities going on because of that.  Some of us (your father) were more excited than others.

A couple days before school, they had an Ice Cream Social, where they served Flavor-Ice instead of ice cream. You got to meet your teacher, and apparently you were supposed to bring in all your school supplies, except the invitation we got had said nothing about that.  All the other parents seemed to know, although I'm not sure how.  Did they get a different invitation than us?  And that pretty much sums up the education system.

Figuring out the new playground at the non-ice cream social.

And thus, you started first grade.

When you got home that first day, you had not eaten or drank anything all day ("There wasn't time," you said) and you looked for all the world like a person at mile 93 of a 100 mile race.  When I finally got you rehydrated and refueled enough to speak, you told me that you liked first grade and that you thought your teacher would be nice to you the whole year.  "First grade is so much better than kindergarten," you said.

You ride the bus this year, which is a big change.  It makes things very easy for me; I just walk you up to the corner and you get whisked away, and then at the end of the day, I meet you there again. I love the convenience for me, but I miss the way I used to pick you up at school and then you would play on the playground while I talked with the other moms.  They became my friends, and now I don't see them anymore.  Now you sit on a bus for 20 minutes both before and after school instead of running and playing.  That makes me sad.

You seem to like riding the bus though, so I'm trying not to get too worked up about it.  And before the school year started, your bus driver called me to introduce himself and give me information about the bus route (such as what time you were to be at the bus stop and where it was located).  I liked that a lot; it was very helpful.  He seems to be the one person in the education system who can communicate effectively.

One of the most exciting events of your life (and my life too, actually) happened this month.  We discovered the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society, and on Labor Day weekend, we joined them for a stargazing night out at Bobcat Ridge.  Several astronomers were there with huge telescopes that you could look through and see Saturn-- your favorite planet.  

You wore your astronaut suit.  Everybody there loved it. I think you may have finally found your people.

It was really quite amazing.  Saturn looked like, well... Saturn.  It was yellow and we could see the rings and everything.  Okay, it kind of looked like some sort of 1980's computer graphic.  It was small.  Not like the large, colorful pictures in Seymour Simon's Our Solar System.  But still, it was fantastic.  To be standing here on Earth.  Looking at Saturn.  And seeing its rings.

Daddy took a picture  of Saturn, with his camera way zoomed in.  It looked a lot clearer through the powerful telescopes that the astronomers brought.  But I feel like this image may be similar to what Galileo first saw when he described a celestial object that looked like it had ears.

On Labor Day weekend, you also humored your dad with a brief game of tennis (your dad loves to play tennis).

And we took a trip to Denver, where we did a group trail run with Emelie Forsberg. Some of us (ahem, your mother) were more excited about that than others.

Then, it was back to school.




You finished off the month today, with your first ever soccer game. I was so proud of you. You have always been so shy and scared of things. But you did so well. You were not super aggressive, but you participated, you kicked the ball in the correct direction (some of the other players had trouble remembering which way to go), you did not cry when the other team scored a goal, and you did not lie down on the field during the game (as I saw you do in practice). You did get tired at one point, and you walked off the field and told your coach you needed to rest and have a drink. I thought, good for you. It was close to 90 degrees out. You need to listen to your body. You took care of yourself and then felt better, and you went back in for the fourth quarter.



They didn't exactly keep score during the game, and there was plenty of lemonade. It was about as low-key as an organized sporting event can get. I don't know if soccer is necessarily your thing, but near as I can tell, you don't think its half bad.

Will, I want you to know that going to first grade, going to a new school and making new friends, all that you have done this month has been extraordinarily brave. You are braver than I could ever be. You are the bravest kid I know, and I am so, so proud of you.

You inspire me.

Love,
Mama