Five and a Half

Happy Spring, my Succotash! It's been a crazy few months, and I'm sorry I haven't been blogging about you as much as I wish. We are closing in on the last several weeks of Montessori, and I think you and I were both a little wistful at the Spring Tea this year. You were an impeccable host, taking down my tea order and bringing me a little plate of tasty sandwiches. Later we will make fairy bread, which is bread with butter on it and covered in a thick layer of sprinkles, so thick it almost turns into frosting. 

You are doing well at swimming, and continue to be hale and strong and also theatrical, obsessed with costumes. Last night we went to Maddie's and you wore a PFD, just because. You also brought a new book all about snakes. You are deep in a Greek Gods phase, and when you went to Farm Camp at Appleton for April vacation you made a fast friend named Asa, who is 6, and who is also obsessed with Greek myths. One night at bedtime not long ago you and I had a whispered conversation in which you confessed you were nervous about our move to Baltimore, that you would miss your friends and were worried you weren't going to make new ones. It's interesting to me, watching you prepare yourself for this big coming change. We are going to give you two birthday parties, one early one in August so you can invite all your Massachusetts friends, and one in October, your real birthday, when we can invite your new Kindergarten classmates.

Like you parents, you are something of a night owl and don't much like getting up in the morning. You are still being picky about food, subsisting almost entirely on chocolate kids protein shakes, buttered pasta, sunbutter and jelly sandwiches, and avocado maki (of course). You are excited for Camp Devereaux, though our summer is looking unusually travel intensive for us -  a week in Fire Island at your aunt's house, then later on a week and a half in the UK for my graduation (with your grandfather, God help us), and later you and I will go with Emily and Anne and their kids to Cabo San Lucas. Fortunately your last week before our move will be back at Farm Camp, which you love, and Asa will be there too. 

I'm also nervous about our move, for many reasons you aren't privy to, being a little boy. We have lately bought a second car, dubbed the Blue Oyster (in part because you were briefly obsessed with the Grim Reaper, making us play Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" on repeat and also your father tried showing you The Seventh Seal, which you didn't finish, but most five year olds don't make it that far into Bergman on their first try). I look at our summer schedule and my mind boggles. It seems shorter and faster than before. I am already stunned that at your next birthday, you will be turning six. 

The same age as Eloise.

Springtime

I have fallen down on my baby blog entries! I'm sorry Succotash. I fear I've spent more time parenting than chronicling. Right now you are at reading playgroup, as we figured out that Montessori method is not really connecting the dots for you. I am at a cloyingly feminine tea room, and I will pick you up in fifteen minutes.

News: you got into Gilman!!!! My huge project of the fall was a success! You also got into McDonogh and Boys Latin, and were invited to reapply to Park. I am so proud of you I could just about explode. We have plastered Gilman stickers all over the huge battery powered moon rover that your favorite uncle brought to Christmas, and which you enjoy driving to the fort and around the neighborhood. Your dad worries about the battery range, but I've been very impressed with your ability to navigate narrow passages on sidewalks, and even pull off a three point turn (albeit with some direction). I might even get your dad to agree to put one on the Red Menace. You are excited for your new big kid school, and though you had initially wanted to attend "Daddy's school," you came around when Daddy confessed to you that he had actually always wanted to go to Gilman. It's up the street from our new house, and they love exuberant boys there, just like you. Also, they're not fools - they bring in 30% of the class at Kindergarten, and they probably took one look at your tall and muscly self and someone thought "wide receiver." We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. The football bridge. God help us.

More news: You can write your first and last name! We practiced a lot making valentines for your class (you still call them "valentimes"), and then one night you started writing them both in the fog on the shower door. 

Obsessions: yesterday you dug a blue fishnet out of the garden shed that you found abandoned on the beach last summer, greeted it like a long lost relative (there were kisses), brought it indoors and even took it into the shower with you. When I asked you what you loved most about the fishnet, you said that it could be anything as long as you used your imagination. Fishnet, jousting lance, sword, walking stick... the possibilities are endless. 

Other obsessions: Vikings. Lots of reading about Vikings, dressing up in a Viking cloak, Viking helmet, Viking shield, Viking axe (many of these Christmas presents from your indulgent aunt). I met a woman on a work trip to New York last week who, upon learning of your obsession, insisted on meeting me the following day with a miniature Viking someone had given her. You have named him Tiny Man (your dad pronounced it "Tinniman"), and he is presently attending reading class with you, with I hope not too disruptive results. 

You are excited for your own room in the new house, but still really prefer sleeping with us in the "big bed" to sleeping in "Charles bed" on the floor. You love snuggles, and drink them up to fall asleep and also adjust to being awake in the morning. I know I have to support your independence, but I just love snuggling you so much, it's hard to hold the line. Your dad is out of town this week, and I've been feeling hugely stressed due to a combination of my doctoral defense coming up next week, and other grownup things that are at times necessary but hard, so the temptation will be to put up only token resistance and fall asleep wrapped up in your gently sleeping arms. 

You still love Manatee and Baby Faff and the Paddington that we bought in Paddington Station on our trip to the UK last summer. 

You like to explain things by saying "So you see...." which your Montessori teacher thinks is hilarious.

Your best friends at school are still Penny (your fiancee), Dylan, the Boy Charlie, and Lily, but you also are partial to Holden and Alistair, who are younger. You're still friends with Paul from school last year, and with James up the street who also loves the olden times and dressing up. 

Overall, you are a fascinating growing person. I could not imagine loving any human being more than I love you.

Christmas is Coming

"What do you think Santa is doing *right now*?" This is a question you have asked me a couple of times, usually when we are getting ready for bed. We theorize that he is probably hard at work with all the elves finishing toys. 

You are very into Santa this year, and have big plans for us on Christmas eve. You want to decorate the house (we are having a little tree trimming party next week), you want lights, you want to make a gingerbread house. You have special Christmas jammies and sock and elf ears. 

Turns of Phrase

"It's a smooth as a thousand midnights," you said about something recently, though what you were describing hasn't lodged itself in my mind as much as your characterization of it has. 

Also, this morning, when I asked you if you were in the air next to your dad before you were born, as you have claimed to have been in the air next to me, you said "No, I was a shooting star, with a face."

Nighttime

You told me you didn't want snuggles, but wanted to lie in your bed and listen to Harry Potter. So I climbed into my bed, and did word puzzles while Harry Potter played.

I heard rustling.

I peeked and found you looking at a book.

"What book is that?" I asked. "Are you looking at the cover of Harry Potter while you listen to the story?"

"No," you said. "It's this one." You showed me the cover. It was a paperback of Annie Van Sinderen, a ghost story I published ten years ago or so.

"Oh, that's my book," I said, surprised. "Why are you looking at that one?"

"I don't know," you said. "I want to cuddle it."

"Why?"

"Well you see, Mama, if I cuddle a book written by someone I love, then it's like I'm cuddling them."

I came over to your bed. I gave you a kiss. We tucked the book under your pillow, and I gave you Manatee to hold because he is soft, and then I lay down next to you until you fell asleep.

Back to School

You are growing, my Succotash. You have just begun your official year of PreK at Harborlight, which will be your third in the same classroom, with Miss Sue and your friends and Monty the rabbit. I realized just after you and your Dad left this morning that I forgot to pack your nap blanket. I wonder how it will go?

Last night was a watershed moment. We've introducing the idea of you sleeping in your own bed at last. We set up the trundle bed, which I used to sleep in when I was very small, and on which all my sleepover friends crashed throughout my entire childhood. It's been a bit bumpy, with you missing our snuggles and claiming you just needed a break. I promised you that you would get all the snuggles that you needed at bedtime and in the morning, but that you would sleep better without snoring grownups.

Well guess what? Last night you drifted off to sleep in my arms in your bed while I read to you from the Great Illustrated Classics version of Moby Dick. You had a bunny nightlight, glowing red, and a little sticky dinosaur thing that you won as a prize for being so good at the dentist, whom you have named "Mr. Squishy," watching over you. You had Manatee and Henry the Dog (gifted to you when we checked in to our hotel in London at the beginning of the summer), and Chompy (crocodile won with Cora at the fair on Martha's Vineyard last month) and the as yet unnamed red dragon given to you by Claire when we went to play in castle ruins in Wales. I love that you love stuffies. I pulled up the comforter, tucked it around your shoulders, watched you for a few more minutes (I do that, you don't know it, but I do), and then you slept. All night. No wakeups, no crying out. You slept alone in your bed for the entire night for the very first time.

The first time we tried this, about a year or so ago, I missed you terribly. I don't know if I would have parented this way in the absence of a global pandemic in your babyhood, but for a long time I felt constitutionally incapable of having you sleep in another bed, away from my arms, where I couldn't immediately smell your hair and feel your breathing. Fortunately you and I were aligned in this respect. 

I can tell that you are ready for more independence now. And I am ready too. I am so proud of you.

Another thing - yesterday was the last day the pool was open for the season, and I sat shivering in a bathing suit while I oversaw your play in the baby pool during All Out. A small mob of other kids were there, splashing, whining, shouting, snatching, ignoring their parents when summoned for lunch. You were so absorbed in practicing holding your breath, floating on your stomach with your goggles on, looking around, doing projects of your own devising, that all the chaos rolled right by you. You are a self-determined little person. You keep your own counsel. I admire that about you. Not a follower or member of the mob, is Succotash. 

But a growing little boy all the same. You are still four, but only for another month.

Swimmer!

Yesterday at the yacht club pool you climbed up onto the diving board without any floaties on and jumped in! I was treading water waiting for you down below, and the moment you disappeared under the water was, not gonna lie, terrifying. ("No really for real for real, I'm not lying, for real" as you sometimes say). But up you paddled, breaking the surface with a huge grin, and half swum, half climbed onto me as we paddled our way to the side of the deep end. 

"Mama, did I make a big splash?" you asked. Yes, my Succotash, the biggest! Your first real cannonball. You really are a big kid. How did that happen?

Then you held the side and "monkey walked" all the way around the edge of the pool back to the stairs. You spent the rest of the afternoon climbing out of the pool and jumping back in, climbing out and jumping back in, until you were so exhausted that you almost fell asleep in the car on the way home. 

"I need more relaxing time!" you wailed when we pulled up at the house. But we made it home, and you played in the shower while I warmed up leftovers for burritos, and we had a nice dinner with Grandpa before going upstairs to finish The Muppet Movie.

"Sparkling muscatel," you quote to me. "One of the finest wines of Idaho."

You have taken to claiming that you passed your swim test. I'm not sure if this is a literal thing that happened at day camp, or a reference to a plot point in "Jabari Jumps," about a boy who decides he is ready to jump off the diving board.  

This is your last week at Devereaux day camp, which I think has been largely a success. Next week, another set of half days of the Peewee program at Gatchells Playground, and then we have a week of Appleton Farm Camp. And then friends some to stay, and then it's back to school. Change is in the air. But summer isn't over yet.