Dear Banner,
I've been putting off writing this letter to you for a few days, which is very much unlike me. I'm not sure why I've put it off for sure, but my best guess is either because I'm in denial that you're 10 or because I'm so unsure of how best to capture this past year and how to write my innermost thoughts about you. To be very clear, I love you. I love you with every bit of my being, which is why I want to do the "right" thing, why I worry so much, why you drive me insane trying to figure you out. But, truth be told, I haven't liked you much this year.
There, I said it. It's out. Out of my mind and on this post that you will read someday. Let me say you can be very likable, and you have a really great heart. There are so many things I DO like about you. But, overall this year, I haven't enjoyed my time with you, and I am pretty sure you would say the same about me. This is not necessarily a secret. I've been honest with you during our chats at bedtime that I'm really worried about your anger, your attitude, your lack of interest, your impulsivity, and especially your negativity. We've been seeing a psychiatric nurse practitioner, Ms. Sonia, about what might be going on, but three months later, we don't have a lot of answers. This is my number one worry and frustration with you. It's been hard as a parent to know if the behaviors and emotions we see are due to an underlying diagnosis and, if so, which one(s). I don't know how to make it better. And, even though most of what concerns me are behaviors we only see at home, it impacts our relationship and our ability to bond.
-You are obsessed with (probably addicted to) screen time. That's probably the root of a lot of the issues - you just want to stay home and play video games ALL.THE.TIME! Yes, quarantine and COVID lockdown created a really bad situation for our family, like everyone else's. At first I tried to really monitor and limit the screens. But about 8 months in, I had had enough of the fighting with you guys, and when you rarely wanted to do the fun activities I had planned, I gave up. You guys won. With virtual learning for 27 weeks of school this year, you were just so used to being online, being able to sneak on to YouTube, message your friends, play on websites, and there's not a lot I could do to control that. So, I let it go. And now, this summer, with two weeks of quarantine coming up before you leave for Greene, I've decided to let it go until after you return from camp - a 3.5 week detox you'll be forced into. But, buddy, you better believe we will have MAJOR limits coming up in August.
-You continue to wish you were an only child. I agree it would be really fun for you to have ALL of our attention, and I wish I were able to give you more of our undivided time and attention. But, the reality is that you have two little brothers. And when I do set aside time fo you, you rarely want to spend it doing anything but having me watch you play video games. You don't really engage with us.
-Your brothers seem to really annoy you. (See point above.) You have a love/hate relationship with them. You've come a long way with Quinn, but you can still be pretty mean to him. Knox considers you a bully. He doesn't want you around a lot. You're not the most helpful to him, and you don't really engage with him either - unless it benefits you, like delaying bedtime to "say goodnight" or "give Knox another hug."
-You absolutely hated virtual school this year. Ms. Eddy was your teacher and you thought she was super strict. It's true, she was. But, I don't envy any teacher who had to reach their students virtually. She had a tough job, as did you, and I'm so very happy that has ended. Your grades went way down during virtual learning and came right back up the last 9 weeks of school (minus math which I will be defensive of you about - not enough grades and lack of teacher feedback to parents since everything was turned in virtually without us being able to see what you were missing. You went from A first 9 weeks to C second 9 weeks then to A and back to C.)
-You rush through your work and make careless mistakes, but you are a very smart kid. You don't really want to work for your grades. You want to do well - but you aren't really willing to put in the effort or time that it takes to learn or correct mistakes. You expect it to come easily for you, and if it doesn't, it's everyone else's fault - it's the teacher, me, the paper, the other kids in class....
-When we tell you we are going somewhere or doing something, you are completely irked. You don't want to leave the house much, and if we do go somewhere fun, it's never good enough. You wish we had invited more people, you don't want to go right now, you wish we could stay there longer, you wish you could buy something from there, you wish we could go do X instead.... This is a constant nag for me, as it seems also to be for you. This is nothing new, but it's getting really old. I've often joked that if we said we were going to Disneyland, you would say, "Oh, man. I wish we could go to Disney WORLD." It's just never enough. I told Ms. Sonia I just wish for you that you could be content with your lot in life.
-I don't see you taking responsibility for your actions. It's never your fault. Ms. Yael noticed this in PreK, and it is still the same 6 years later. There's a reason you hit your brother; he took the iPad while you were in the bathroom. There's a reason you failed the test; Ms. __ didn't explain it right. There's a reason you threw something at Quinn; he wasn't listening to you. There's a reason the juice got spilled; Knox shouldn't have put the cup there. I'd love to see you starting to take some responsibility - perhaps an "I'm so sorry," an "I shouldn't have done that," or even using your words kindly and in a nice tone to ask for what you need.
-You are excessively persistent. While this may be a strength in your future endeavors, it's annoying and frustrating at home. When you want something, you don't stop. You've been asking for a phone for most of this year, and the probing and pushing is incessant. You beg, bribe, and negotiate with all your might, and it can be quite draining.
-Making decisions is rough for you. I've heard this is true for others with ADHD. I'm not good about decisions either - but it's usually because I don't have a preference. For you, you want everything and can't make a choice and then wish you'd made a different decision. Saying goodbye to old items is hard, too. You've grown much better at this just this year. Perhaps because you didn't connect with your teachers well this year or didn't enjoy this crazy virtual school year, but you were easily able to throw away old papers and notebooks which is very different than in years past.
I know I've just unloaded a whole lot of complaints and negativity, but it's the honest truth - which is the whole point of these letters. But, that's not all of you, B. As I wrote in the beginning, you have many likable qualities, and I want you to know I see those, too.
-You have a deep care for others. When a friend at school told you something about her home life, you shared it with me because it was on your mind and really upsetting to you. We were able to talk through that situation and come up with a plan to help. You worry about what you might hear in the news - about Black Lives Matter and conflicts in Israel. You want to help those you see on the streets and wonder about what someone might be going through.
-You love history. This year you learned about the Holocaust, and while it was a topic I feared discussing with you, I think it went (and is going) really well. We started with reading Number the Stars together, then we talked about Anne Frank and some of our distant cousins who had to hide during WWII, then we discussed more awful ways the Jews were treated. We haven't covered just how bad it was, but our conversations have begun, and I feel like I'm not hiding anything from you anymore. This year you read books about D-Day, Pearl Harbor, Walt Disney, the Revolutionary War, and Titanic. You are intrigued by the story told in Hamilton. You also really like science and nature. You're drawn to gems, fossils, rocks, and even though you complain about going on hikes, I think you secretly like learning about outside.
-Speaking of difficult topics, I love that there is no topic off limits when we chat. You know you can ask me anything. We talk about puberty, sex, and love. We talk about gender identity, racial tensions, and your perceptions of people. We don't get embarrassed about it, and I love that we can talk without holding back.
-You have some really sweet friends. I love the relationships I see you building and have observed that you are a genuine friend to others.
-You're a gorgeous boy. You have beaming blue eyes and a radiant smile with deep dimples. I love to look at you. The reason I get on to you about fixing your hair is because I want to see your whole face - including your short, cute forehead.
-You really are very smart! While memorizing math facts has never been something you feel the need to do, you can figure out complex math problems in your head. This can cause us to argue sometimes because I don't know how you got an answer to a problem without you showing your work... and usually the reason you miss a problem is only because you misread or didn't read the question right or at all. You are quick and expect yourself to be right, which has gotten you in to trouble, but in general you are a good mathematician. You don't love reading, but you're really good at it. I wish you'd read more novels, but you're much more fact driven and like books like Guinness Book of World Records, fact books about Star Wars, and other types of general knowledge books. If you read fiction, it's generally a graphic novel: DogMan, Captain Underpants, for example.
-When in public, you have really great manners. I'm often told that you behave very well. You ask others how they are doing, make great conversation with adults, and are polite with your responses. I don't see this at home, but I'm delighted that you know how to behave yourself when I'm not around.
-You're trying out new activities: basketball and tennis. You seem to like them, so perhaps in the fall, we will join a team or enroll in more lessons. You also want to be a model... which we started to look into before COVID hit last year, but then... well, COVID. So, we are looking into that now.
-You've lost 12 teeth at this point. You pulled the last two on your own. Your 12th tooth came out the same day Knox lost his first tooth. In fact, you pulled your tooth at bedtime (truth be told, I think you pried it out so you could earn some money from Fontina for Robux or V-bucks). But, that gave Knox the courage to try to let us pull his first tooth, and out it came easily.
-Some of my favorite memories from this year: when you filled out a language arts vocabulary page for "gratitude," and under antonym you wrote, "baditude." Ms. Eddy counted off for it, but we got a good laugh, and when I sent it to the counselors in RISD, knowing many of them use the book Baditude by Julia Cook, the director responded that she had forwarded my email to Julia Cook! Also, snowy hot tubbing in Broken Bow; watching you talk to Grandma on FaceTime many nights this year; taking you and Quinn to Six Flags, and as we were walking to the next attraction you said, "I want to go on that roller coaster, but I might get an erection," because you know you'd be "excited" (you'd just learned what an erection was the night before during one of our puberty talks); watching Aunt Mischelle show you how to snowboard at Hightower; watching you swing the pantyhose around on your head on New Year's Eve at Grandma's - trying to knock water bottles over; knowing how excited you were to tell everyone you were on a commercial for Dad's judicial campaign. When we were filling out your camp forms, and on the page asking the camper to fill out information yourself, there’s a question asking about what you hope to get out of your camp experience. You said, “To get out of family business.” I asked what you meant by that. You said, “You know, to get out of family business.... I don’t know, just to get away from family business.” I said, “Like to get away from home?” And without missing a beat, you said, “Camp IS home.” Your seamless response made my heart so happy, and I said, “I’m so glad you feel that way. I feel that way too.” We talked more, and you meant you want to get a break from the ordinary, a break from your usual every day, a break from us. And I’m okay with that, especially if it means you're just going to another home for the summer.
Now... about how we celebrated your big day! I'd been asking for over a month what you wanted to do to celebrate your birthday, and you never committed or wanted to talk about it later. I'd suggested many things, but you never seemed to be drawn to anything. I even suggested Great Wolf Lodge - which you didn't take me up on! Finally, you decided about a week before your birthday that you'd like to take a few friends to Urban Air. So, we had those friends over for pizza at the house then spent 2 hours playing at Urban Air before returning home for cake and ice cream. Just before cake, Jillian had a special surprise for you, a Cameo of KreekCraft, your favorite YouTube gamer. You're still ecstatic about it a week later!
The evening before your birthday, we had our usual tradition of reading your I Believe and reflecting on the year you were 9. Dad and I told you your birth story, and you seemed more interested than ever before. I asked if you wanted balloons the next day, much to Dad's frustration (he is not fond of balloons); you said yes, but the next morning you were barely interested in them. I think that MAY have been our last balloon wake up. We ate donuts, you let me take your chair picture, we went to Grandma's to swim after taking Knox to Anshai camp, we had Cane's for lunch, you played a lot of video games in the afternoon, and after taking Knox to Emler, we met the family at Uncle Brock and Aunt Mischelle's community pool to swim and have dinner and cupcakes. Brycen and Nami spent the night that night, and of course, you got to stay up late playing more video games with your cousins.
At your well-check with Dr. B, you did great! Here are your stats:
Weight: 75.6 pounds = 55th percentile
Height: 52 inches = 28th percentile
BMI: 18.92 = 80th percentile
Banner, you really are a great kid! I am eternally grateful that you are healthy, smart, and loving. I know I've said a lot of things that are negative and hard to read about yourself. They're hard to say. I do believe as we get back to "normal" after this pandemic, things will get easier for you and for me. I do believe we are on the right track with Ms. Sonia to try to figure out the best course of action for you, whether that's medication or just counseling. Something has to get better. This is not the kind of dynamic I want for either of us or this family. We're going to continue to try some ADHD medication in the fall while weaning off an anxiety medication that seemed to exacerbate the ADHD symptoms of impulsivity (trying to climb on the roof at Lana's and at Uncle Brock's houses, for example). School is only going to get more challenging; relationships are only going to get more complex; our calendar is only going to get more packed. But above all of this, I want you and I to connect more. I love that you trust me, that I'm your safe space, that you can be your raw self with me, but I want to be more than your metaphorical punching bag. I want to see you be happy. I want to see you be content. I want to see you calm and thriving.
As I wrap up this blog post, I'm well aware that this is the last post in your second album of your blog books I publish for you. On your 5th birthday, you received all my letters of your first 5 years, and so at 10, I will create another blog book for you. I have a feeling you won't really ever read these books, but I love that you will have my inner-most thoughts ready to read whenever you want. Perhaps this particular letter will be a rough read, as it points out a lot of my (and dad's) frustrations with you right now. I hope you see that we care so much about you, though. I hope you see that we've been on a path with you for a while where we are trying to better our parenting, find what will help create calmness and happiness for you, and explore all of our options to help you grow into a successful, fulfilled individual. Our job as your parents is to get you from childhood to adulthood in as smooth of a journey as we can - in one piece, as safe and healthy as possible with functioning coping skills, a healthy self-esteem and self-efficacy, and thriving relationship skills. It's not an easy job, and sometimes your job IS to push back, test the limits, and explore the boundaries. On that, you do a great job. I just want you to remember we are your partners in life. We want to guide you over the bridge that connects childhood to adulthood, and that bridge can be shaky sometimes. As we enter "tweenhood," please hold our hands, Banner. We love you so very much and I sure hope you know that and can feel it as strongly as I do.
Happy 10th Birthday, Banner Boone!
Love,
Mommy
