You’re 5 years old! Woo hoo!
You ramped up your excitement the past few weeks like your birthday is its own holiday season. You told everyone you saw that you were turning 5, practiced writing the number 5, and told us (often) what you wanted your birthday to be like: Cake, candles, balloons and all things Frozen 2.
You spent your birthday eve like Christmas Eve, full of anticipation. You got to open a good number of presents early from grandparents and Uncle Ty and Aunt Amber. I think we delivered on the big day itself with a special gift (for the whole family) in a trip to Palm Desert to spend the week with your Gigi. You were so excited to get on the plane and didn’t hesitate to tell the flight attendants that it was your birthday plane ride. A lot of people still aren’t traveling because of the pandemic, but we took a lot of precaution in how we managed our timeline and kept the travel experience as low-germ as possible. So far, so good.
In Palm Desert you got a lot of pool time and continued to impress us with your swimming progression. That might be your sport, kid. Goggles are like your superhero cape. You put them on and can do just about anything. You could swim the width the pool and started trying to touch the bottom of the pool near the deep end. You figured out how to somersault underwater and could do two in a row before coming back up for air.
During rest time you played with a Frozen 2 Lego set we bought you and of course drew a lot of pictures. You’re experimenting with a new style where you draw outlines of figures with pencils and color them in with markers, creating a mixed media effect. You created a five page “book” that way in a sequence that told a story: You went swimming and got wet (page 1); Mom got you dry clothes (page 2); you put the dry clothes on in a bedroom (page 3); you went to a jungle gym with Matteo (page 4) and climbed around (page 5). That’s quite the autobiography.
You are such a wonderful kid and I’m happy to help make your birthday a special one. Being a parent is a little like creating art. You have an idea of what you want and try to shape it as you go, but you often end up with something you couldn’t have fully pictured in hindsight. That’s you. You are so bright, creative, imaginative, and beautiful. Everything I’ve wanted as a parent and so much more.
Happy birthday, kiddo. Year cinque is going to be rad.
Love, Dad