Elliot's best friend Tobias is moving away from Amsterdam in about a month. They were both born in Ohio, within six months of each other: both the first-born children in their families. They both moved to Amsterdam within three weeks of each other. Together, they formed the backbone of Zolder50's kids group. I can't remember for sure, but I think they have celebrated all ten of their birthdays together (and they'll get to squeeze in an eleventh yet, when Elliot turns six, just before Tobias leaves). They've definitely shared quite a bit of history. But unfortunately, their paths will soon be diverging. Understandably, Elliot has been sad about saying good-bye to Tobias. But he's processing everything quite well, and I'm hopeful that we can make it an emotionally healthy experience.

Part of Elliot's emotional processing is drawing pictures and writing songs about his friend Tobias. Recently, he completed the above piece (complete with a tune to the song and everything!). In case your understanding of six-year-old phonetic spelling (he did the project completely by himself, during an afternoon rest time) is not the keenest, the words of the song are as follows:

All the good times we had

But we have to move on

I know I really know that we

Don't want to go and

Then we went away

From each other.

At the bottom of the page, Elliot added some beautiful collage work. The figures on the left side represent him and Tobias together (in Amsterdam). The figures on the right side represent the two of them separated. The shorter figure (in the middle) holds a flag representing England (you can see a dog eating a tomato, with the word "tomato" is written on the flag understood to be pronounced "to-mah-to" -- which, Elliot explains, is the best thing that he could think of to represent the British way of life); and the figure on the far right holds a flag representing the United States of America (with an American eagle has been emblazoned on this flag).

Sad and sweet, isn't it?