Six!
I have a confession: This is the very first year of your life where your birthday has seemed like a natural and inevitable scenario rather than an astonishing and unbelievable occurrence, the way it seemed when you turned One! Two! Three! Four! Five! This year I'm cool and casual about your swift and inexorable progression toward old age, just the mom of a 1st-grader, NBD.
You have so much to be proud of. Despite your misgivings about kindergarten ("Are we going to have time to play or is it just going to be all reading and writing and BORING STUFF?" you asked suspiciously at the end of pre-K), you rocked it. Your teacher tells us you have a "math brain" (which we all know you get from me! This is a lie. Thanks Daddy), but from my perspective the coolest thing you learned in kindergarten was how to read. Eli, I like to think I keep a pretty cool head about your accomplishments, but every time I see you reading my inner Jewish mother takes over and I just want to start bragging at the top of my voice to everyone in the vicinity: "This is my son WHO CAN READ! Here he is READING! Would you perhaps like to know more about Batman's role in stopping the crime wave? Because he can READ IT TO YOU!"
Speaking of uncool heads, you also learned how to ride a bike this year. Eli, if you ever want to see something amazing, get yourself a baby who can't even hold its own wobbly head up and then keep it alive for five or so years and then watch it balance precariously atop a narrow saddle and pedal away from you. (I know that seems pretty labor-intensive when you could just, like, visit Niagara Falls, which I hear is also amazing, but I'm pretty sure parenting a bike rider is equally satisfying.)
As your mother, I know I'm supposed to think the world of you, but the truth is that I don't always assume the best about you, and for that I'm sorry. Twice this summer, your camp counselor called, and both times when the phone rang I immediately thought "WHAT DID HE DO?" and both times she was actually calling to tell me that you were the victim and not the aggressor.
In fact, your camp counselors have been writing such over-the-top effusive praise of you that if you had better handwriting, I'd be suspicious. They say you are a "fun, energetic and loving camper," "a genuine good kid," "such a sweetheart," "always the loudest and most excited volunteer" and — this is where it gets really unbelievable — "such a good listener and extremely well behaved" (are you sure you're not paying them off in Pokemon cards?).
You continue to have what can be charitably called a "strong personality," to which you add an independent streak and some very definite ideas. But you also continue to have the softest cheeks I've ever felt and give the sweetest, gentlest kisses. Sometimes it seems fair to say that our relationship consists mostly of shouting and snuggling — sometimes the ratio is 90% shouting, 10% snuggling, but other days we can bring it closer to a 50/50 balance.
Recently at night you've been listening to the audiobook of "Fantastic Mr. Fox," by Roald Dahl — you know it so well that when we were on vacation you'd recite it out loud yourself, and a few weeks ago we had a Fantastic Mr. Fox party, where we drank apple cider and ate chicken and pretended to be the farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean, out to get the fox.
Eli, the most fabulous thing about being your mama is getting to watch you take on the world with such gusto, like it's a big juicy peach that you're taking a bite out of. Last weekend we went to a "silent disco" party at the Unisphere, where they gave us wireless headphones that could be switched to three different channels of music played by live DJs. I was watching you dance your heart out and realized I'd never seen you so enthused about, say, trying out a new sport for the first time. Maybe sports are not Eli's thing, I thought. Maybe dancing is his thing!
Because I do want you to find your "thing" that you're passionate about (besides video games), and what's most exciting about being 6 is the possibilities that are available to you. This year I'm signing you up for origami and dance in afterschool; you might try fencing; you've been asking all summer when we'll go back to the pool we usually swim in every Sunday after Hebrew school.
You love to laugh and be read to; you love soft blankets and sequin flip shirts; you love video games and candy.
Life is a door that you're just flinging open. I can't wait to walk through it with you.
Happy birthday, my sweetest pea.
Love,
Mama