“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week you were very upset because you’ve been placed in a remedial math program. I know that being remediated does carry a stigma, but it can actually be a good thing! I told you about my own struggles with math in high school, and how I desperately wish I had been remediated so that I could have been more successful. I know it’s hard to accept, but a fact of life is that you’re not going to be incredibly gifted at everything you try. Sometimes you are going to try and fail, and you will face challenges of varying degrees of difficulty throughout your life. Remediation is not a punishment and it is not an indictment of your future potential; it is a gift, and I hope you eventually see it that way.

Zane: This week we’ve been spending a lot of time exploring the trails behind our house. We have been out there before, but you were always too small to really hike by yourself so you ended up being in a backpack carrier. It’s a whole new world being on the ground! This week we saw herons, salamanders, and slugs. You poked mushrooms with sticks, and collected acorn caps and other treasures. You love running down the trails at full speed, though you do occasionally get a little tired. To go all the way around the pond and back home again is about two miles, which is a pretty long way for those little legs to go on their own! I plan to make nature walks a part of our routine on days when you don’t have preschool.

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week as been very difficult for you in a lot of ways. The expectations for fifth graders are so much higher than for fourth graders, and I think you are a little overwhelmed. You are such a bright girl and so far you have been able to succeed by doing a minimal amount of work simply because you are smart. But, I feel this year is going to be very different for you, and you’re going to have to decide how hard you are going to work, and how important your grades are going to be to you. Of course, as your mother, I would love for you to be a stellar student. I want every door to remain open for you. But, I can’t do the work for you, so from this point on you are going to play a much larger role in your destiny than I will.

Zane: You’ve only been at school for a week and already you’ve picked up a virus! Having been sheltered at home with me, you weren’t exposed to as many germs as you will be now that you’re in school. Thankfully, it has been a very mild cold and you’ve done well. This week you also seem to have had some sort of developmental shift and you are now REALLY enjoying having people read to you. You always enjoyed books before, but you didn’t have much of an attention span. This week you’ve been bringing me stacks of books and sitting through each one attentively; you remind me so much of Lillia when she was your age.

“A portrait of my children once a week, every week, in 2014.”

Lillia: This week you’ve been listening to a podcast called “Welcome to Night Vale”. It seems to be a sort of dark comedy. Your dad and I were discussing how you are a person who is highly susceptible to being scared, and I mean really scared, and yet you are also attracted to things that frighten you. You like to walk to the line between being genuinely terrified, and perhaps just a little uneasy. I do not like to be scared at all, so I had to learn where to draw the line (PG and under, thanks). But, it will be more nuanced and subtle for you, and you’ll have to be careful about what you expose yourself to as you get older.

Zane: Today is your very last day as a two year-old. I cannot believe it. I would be in denial, if I wasn’t so aware of it. Although we are still very much a duo, I can feel you pulling away, ever-so-slightly, and it does hurt. But, let me be clear: YOU are not causing me pain; and, it is more sadness than despair. I know we have at least a couple more years before you go away to school, and then after that there will be many years to go before you leave home. Still, I do feel it looming, just a little bit, already.