On Tuesday, my second-born–my first daughter–turned six. Six. I am not kidding when I say that every birthday is a sort of traumatic event for me. Oh, how I long to freeze time. In the past, I always consoled myself with the fact that if I froze time, there were other babies I wouldn’t get to meet. What if I had frozen time, for instance, when Q. turned one? I would never have gotten to meet O.
But, now that we cannot have more children, I find myself thinking that if they just wouldn’t grow up, I could reconcile myself to this.
But, grow up they must.
When E. turned six, it seemed like such a big deal. All the baby was gone, and here was this big-little boy.
Well. Now A. is six, and it seems like a big deal this time, too. Where did the time go? And why is she so tall?
As I look back on the year, I see a girl child who…
…learned to ride a bike without training wheels…
…worked hard at learning to read, and has come so far in twelve short months…
…dropped a lot (but not all) of the baby talk…
…still says “hanguhber” for “hamburger” and “sguhbetti” for “spaghetti”…
…laughed every. single. day….
…pretended to be a mommy…
…learned freestyle stroke in swimming…
…asked 1,030,027 good questions…
…brought a smile to many faces…
…climbed trees…
…lost her first tooth…
…grew out of toddler clothes forever…
…and then started wearing the same size (well, almost) as her older brother…
…learned to have a friend and be a friend…
…pondered becoming a vegetarian…
…twice…
…brought frogs in the house and dropped them on the office floor and then chased them…
…baby mice, too…
…took her first communion with a shining face…
…decided she wanted to marry either Superman or a policeman…
…pretended to be the virgin Mary and called her husband “Jofess”…
…went from being my flighty, scatter-brained child to one who consistently conquers in memory work…
…“lost” a duck…
…began to enjoy and follow chapter books being read aloud…
…told her first real joke…
…learned to narrate…
…proved herself a good sister many times, in many ways…
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| The Official Castle Cake |
What she wanted was a castle cake fit for a princess…
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