Before my eyes, my third baby becomes a little man. You are the oldest of the stay-at-home children right now, the biggest big brother, and my most reliable helper.
Your body and your brain grow stronger each day, and you can't wait to use them both in Kindergarten next year. I am excited for you too, even though I know that school will change everything for you. It will make your life more complicated, and your small world so much bigger.
You and I have a complicated relationship already, don't we, my son? You love and adore me like most little boys and their mothers.... and yet, already you wonder how in the world a kid like you could come from a mother like me. Truth be told, I sometimes wonder too, and often credit (or blame) your father.
You have a wonderfully analytical brain, a brain that works in ways utterly foreign to your mother. It is a brain that comes up with questions constantly, questions that already puzzle me on a daily basis. You care about things mechanical and scientific, and you are very detail-oriented. You have discovered that your mother is none of these things. "I don't know honey, that's a daddy question," I say frequently. So I have only myself to blame for your chauvinism: the kind I saw the day you actually withheld your question from me, and then quietly reminded yourself, "Oh that's right, only just daddies know stuff, not mommies."
You taught yourself to read this year, and are trying to learn to spell every word on the planet. I can actually help you in this area, so I do my best to spell as you command me. When you get tired of spelling, you switch to math. Sometimes you follow me around the house with a calculator, asking "Mommy what's 9+9? What's 7 + 8?" When I give you a right answer, I see you are greatly impressed with me, so I have decided that we should linger in this stage for a little longer. I will continue to answer those questions correctly for a few more weeks, thus becoming a bit more respectable in your eyes, before I let you learn about numbers with double digits.
To my relief, you also care about food, so I still have that reliable way into your heart. You were very appreciative of your backwards dinner today: the Spiderman birthday cake, followed by shells and cheese and brats, per your request. Perhaps daddy knows stuff, but mommy cooks stuff, and that definitely counts for something!
You and Marcus were watching Spiderman the movie last week, and I happened to pass by at one of the kissing scenes. I teased, "Oooh, boys, Spiderman is kissing a girl! What do you think of THAT?" I expected your reply to be either blushes or gags, but instead, you said to me, "Mommy me and Marcus are Spiderman, and we just rescued you from that building. Now it's time to give you a kiss." You crawled up on my lap, kissed me on the cheek, and smiled proudly.
My dear son, I am happy to be the woman in your life for just a little bit longer.
Happy fifth birthday, Seth!
Love, mommy
No comments:
Post a Comment