Collin's Sixth Birthday

As Collin turned six this year, I found myself staring at a young boy. Six really seems to mark some sense of responsibility and maturity. At six, Collin is much more vigilant about his jobs, his work, his own independent happiness. Its lovely to see him take things on as his own.  Over the past year I've witnessed many firsts that make me so proud to be this boy's momma. Here's a sampling of the top six of those moments, one for each year we've celebrated so far.

 1. Moment one: Collin and Owen are sitting on Owen's bed and Owen is starting to melt down a little bit about not being able to read one more book before bedtime. I offer the compromise that he can look at a book, but I'm not going to read it. Collin says "I'll read it to you Owen" and softly helps Owen back to his happy smile by reading him a book and explaining the story. Oh my heart, this moment was so precious, and so illustrative of how Collin has learned to think of others in ways that surprise me with his depth of empathy.

2. Moment two:  Collin meets a new friend at swimming and recalls how hard it was for him at first. Upon seeing this new friend's trepidation with swimming he says "Its okay. I was scared a little bit too at first, but I can swim now." These are my favorite types of moments, because they make me so proud of the things he does with new friends out of my reach. I adore his compassion and willingness to help. He's made strides in swimming, but it hasn't always been easy, sometimes, teachers are not consistent enough for him and if he's not listening, it makes for slow progress. But, after 1.5 years, he's an independent swimmer, which makes me smile to know he's worked so hard on something that didn't come easily.

3. Moment three: His budding enthusiasm for challenging things. Collin has always been cautious, careful and meticulous. But, with his friends and in Kindergarten, he's now willing to give up a little bit of that caution to try new things that are exciting and adventurous. He's willing to try riding his bike down BIG hills (successfully!), and try climbing the giant ropes at school and he's becoming more and more adventurous academically.

4. Moment four. Reading and Math. Collin sits on the edge of his bed and moves through his books with a new found fluidity and rhythm in his readings. Its becoming a cycle of reinforcement and his love of books is only growing, which I adore. He's also very curious about numbers and has taken off with basic addition, subtraction, simple multiplication and division. Its a joy to watch him figure out how each algorithm works.

5. Moment five. Early morning prep. Sometimes mornings are sluggish and sticky. Sometimes we head out the door only after I've yelled to get "your shoes on!" five times, after being 5 minutes late. But really, more days than not, Collin is responsible in the morning, well enough to sometimes remind me "tomorrow we should get up earlier so we can leave earlier" or tomorrow, lets make sure we are done eating by 8," its pretty thoughtful and adorable. More times than not, I'm the one slowing things down, while they are ready to go, with Collin in the lead, packing his back pack, lunch boxes and things for school without many reminders.

6. Moment six. Love. This boy exudes love most of the time. People always remark on how he's always smiling, and its true. This year, he's starting to get old enough where my hugs and kisses are sort of an annoyance, but he still tolerates me and lets me be part of his journey. I appreciate that, and I also appreciate that he'll still crawl into my lap to snuggle or lay next to me to read books in bed.

These lead six moments of so many that have made this year fantastic. We can't wait to see what next year brings.

To celebrate these six years, we had two parties, one for kids and one for family. This year for the kid party we decided no gifts. This lead to an interesting conversation regarding what birthday parties are all about- getting to celebrate with family and friends. We talked about how for the family party we would get gifts, but not for the kid one. At the end of the conversation I felt like he was happy to have his friends over to play, and that was enough.

Collin's party is nearly always over memorial day weekend, so family can come to visit. This year was no exception. Auntie Andrea, Uncle Chris, Aunt Erica, Grandma, Grandpa, Nana and Papa all came to visit.  We got to have double the fun because Uncle Chris announced he and Erica were engaged! Collin chose where dinner would be for his actual birthday: Punch Pizza, followed by ice cream from the grand old creamery. It was a very fun weekend, and on one day, Collin was so tired he fell asleep in grandmas lap while reading a book. The weekend ended and we were all sad to go home, or back to work, but we all did, one more birthday weekend under our belts.