Today You Are Five

Dear Five,

Welcome to our home. You'll find everything you need here--provided that what you need is similar to what Four needed: the spontaneous appearance of cupcakes, freezer-burned waffles, and the occasional eggs in shell; a teeming vat of Transformers; and the ability to pause Super Why or Ben 10 Alien Force when you find that rare Something Better to Do than watch four hours of television.

But I must be candid with you. We liked Four. Correction, we adored Four. Four has been our favorite so far, and we'll be sorry to see Four go. Four was smiles and happiness and please and thank yous and hugs for no reason at all. Four listened--at least more than Three did--to our requests, reasonable or not. (I can't say Four always followed through. I can't say he always "eared us"--but Four mastered the Look of Listening.) Four was incomplete Knock-Knock jokes, he was scatological (butt I don't have to poo you that), he read to us at night, and he liked to hide, spin, and race, even though it was never really a race and we never really winned him unless Four beated us.

Four wasn't all good times, though. Four liked to whine--and if there's one request (well, a first request) that we'd make of you, we'd like you to park that at the door along with your muddy shoes, please. Four liked to cry at things we found inconsequential--like not being able to have five more minutes with the sidewalk chalks even though we had already given him an hour or not getting a popsicle at demand or not being able to have a cupcake at breakfast. Four had definite and firm ideas about what he wanted--and we're all about definite and firm ideas, but we'd just ask that you, the much more mature Five, maybe ask for those things before you engage the meltdown. We think that would be really cool.

But despite all the whining and occasional tears at the trivial, Four was a boy. We can't remember a week that Four didn't have a new bruise or a scrape or want a pirate band-aid to cover up some skirmish he had with a stick or a stone. And Four wore his boy-ness like a badge of honor. Sure, Four sometimes liked to pretend that he was a baby. He'd fake "waa" and ask me to bundle him and rock him to fake sleep. He'd crawl around the house and "goo goo" (and then, moments later, mysteriously morph into a panting, barking dog).

And sure, as we mentioned above, sometimes the remnants of baby-ness would get the better of him. But when he heard you were coming, he embraced the boy within and started to put the baby aside. He started talking about things that you would like to do, that he didn't: "Five will jump into a pool" or "Five won't whine as much as I do" or "Five will get to watch scary movies and play Grand Theft Auto." (Sorry, Five, that last bit, not so much gonna happen.)

We're excited you're here, Five, and even though we'll miss Four dearly, we can't wait to see what you'll be like. So please, come on in, take your shoes off, get settled in, and, if you need anything, please ask.

Uh, ouch.

Finn: Mama, was there a time when I didn't want you to go away?

Me: . . .

We Are So Fond of Our Young Prince

"He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter,
Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy,
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all:
He makes a July's day short as December,
And with his varying childness cures in me
Thoughts that would thick my blood."

--William Shakespeare, A Winter's Tale

Ode to Four and Three Quarters

[I'm stealing this idea, blatantly and with no remorse or apologies whatsoever (although I will cite!), from Notes from the Trenches--and from a writing prompt I used to give my seventh grade students.]

I want to remember how you demand oatmeal for breakfast. Followed by Cheerios. Followed by a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that you end up eating in the car on the way to school.

I want to remember the peanut butter kisses that you then smear on my cheek as I drop you off at school.

I want to remember how you used to cling to my leg and beg me not to leave you.

I want to remember how you used to catch my kisses and put them on your heart--and how now, instead, you eat them.

I want to remember how you now stride off eagerly, confidently, almost forgetting to blow me a kiss goodbye.

I want to remember your curly toes and your adamantly straight hair.

I want to remember how your head smells like roasted marshmallows. And I want to remember how you bust me with, "Mama, are you smelling my head again?" but then sit still and let me inhale those last notes of your babiness.

I want to remember your fake burps.

I want to remember how your giggle lights up the room.

I want to remember how your fingers like to flirt with the holes of your mank and the edges of my ponytail.

I want to remember how you love lip gloss and fingernail polish.

I want to remember how you found your funny in all things that rhymed with "poop."

I want to remember how you turned down soda because your tummy didn't hurt right now and how you'd eye-patch before we could even change the channel.

I want to remember how, at Four and Three Quarters, you fell in love with your mama again, giving me spontaneous hugs, jumping on my back, bestowing your fake burps full in my face, and telling me that you love me more than I love you. Even though, my widget, that's not even possible.