Oh, my dearest boy.
Today you are six.
Today you are home sick.
(Today you are home and really sick. So we’ll keep this one short-ish, yeah? Yeah.)
Last night before bed you informed me that you were going to wake up in the morning and, first thing, look in the mirror. Because you knew what to look for. A certain “six” mentality, maybe, or another inch of Big Kid growth. Your Dad read you a book and, upon its completion, you announced that reading that whole thing made you feel a little taller. (Nora pointed out that you had been reading The Grinch, so maybe we were inspired by all that heart-growing? No matter.)
You’re such a pleasant guy. Is that a weird thing to say to a kindergartener?
Because you are.
Yesterday, in the midst of your highest fever spike, you looked up from the show we were watching and blearily, excitedly asked me, “I’m really going to be six tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, this is the best,” said the smallish man in the midst of something not-so-best.
(You know, just a guy excitedly getting the velour electric blanket he had asked for…)
But before we hurtle headlong into All Things Six, I think it’s important to note just how awesome Five was for you. Because it was, buddy. Five was when you tiptoed between baby things and gigantic boy activities, and you stared them all down with the same shrugging acceptance and grace with which you met the news that you wouldn’t get to wear the kindergarten birthday crown today, and that you wouldn’t get to attend the kindergarten holiday party tomorrow.
Five taught you patience.
It showed you that life was occasionally, randomly, patently unfair.
You lost your first tooth.
You didn’t let the blood bother you too much. Too much.
All-day kindergarten was was your new reality. (And mine, pal.)
The goal of swimming with a smaller size of floaties was attained.
(Even though you’d still like me to stand really, really close please.)
After a year of OT for fine motor skills, you hand-wrote your friends’ names on birthday goodie bags. All. By. Yourself.
Related: After a concurrent year of speech therapy, you can now crisply say “My brother Arthur the weatherman.” (I don’t know exactly where this sentence will best serve you, but it’s now firmly in your arsenal.)
Five was the year where you’d wind up in my bed at 2am, hold my hand, and tell me that we’d talk after my first alarm went off.
(“The one that you ignore.”)
(Five was the year you got super duper funny.)
It was also the year where you’d tuck yourself into bed after starting your bedtime CD player, blowing me a half-hearted kiss as if to say- okie doke, Mom. Maybe head back downstairs? I’m good.
Five was the year that broke my heart open and stitched it back up with the knowledge that you are becoming more YOU with every passing day.
And YOU, pal, are one of the best people I’ll ever know in my whole life.
Definitely one of the cutest.
So when you snuggled into me today to watch some Scooby Doo, your warm little head resting against my shoulder, and asked “Aren’t we so lucky,” I couldn’t help but agree.
We are so very lucky, Jasper.
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