Six Years Old.

“Mommy?” he asked in his most serious whisper.

“Yeah, hun?”

As I stood by his bed, holding his hand and hoping he’d fall asleep quickly, I knew this was not his usual stall tactic.  He was about to ask me a real question.

“Mommy, how do you know I’ll turn six tomorrow?”

“Because it’s your birthday tomorrow.  January 2nd.  You know that.”

His big brown eyes looked up at me, fighting to stay open.  Even in just the glow of the night lights, I could see his brow was furrowed in the familiar way when something was on his mind.

“But how do you know that I’ll be six tomorrow and not on the twelfth when we have my party?”

I giggled to myself.  I sighed with relief and the pure tenderness of his innocence.

“Honey, tomorrow’s your birthday.  You turn six tomorrow.  We just pick a convenient day to have your party.  We like to give people time to get settled after the holidays.”

“Oh,” he replied, satisfied.  He snuggled down onto his pillow and his eyes started to close again.

At night, when he’s just about to fall asleep, he’s at his sweetest.  His innocence shines through.  He is so clearly a child, yearning to learn and to know everything that he can.  It is then that I see most clearly that even though he pretends to be so independent, so sure of himself, really he’s just a boy.

He’s my boy.

He was a beautiful, little, tiny baby.  6 lbs, 3 oz., and only 15 days early, but he didn’t fit in regular newborn clothes.  I had to buy preemie clothes so that things would stay on him.

Look at the waistband on the pants!  January 4, 2007

But he grew and got even cuter.

September 2007

And bigger.
December 2008

And sillier.

January 2, 2010, yelling, “I’m three!”

And he started looking more like a boy and less like a baby.
January 15, 2011

And he started doing big kid things.
June 26, 2011

He had interests and took pride in his accomplishments.
January 17, 2012

He started kindergarten.
September 6, 2012

Even though he didn’t WANT to start kindergarten.

He was not pleased with the first day of school photo shoot.

Right now he has a one-track mind.  It’s all Angry Birds, all the time with him these days.  
January 1, 2013, last day as a 5 year old.

He’s still my beautiful baby boy, just much, much larger.
Happy Birthday, Nathan!  I love you more than you’ll ever know.

41 thoughts on “Six Years Old.

  1. Stacie @ Snaps and Bits

    Love this! Happy Birthday Nathan! Shane’s 9th birthday AND his party are on the 12th 😉 First time the party has been on the actual day. I guess we’ll both be ready for a cocktail that evening (Shane picked FunPlex, ugh!)!

    1. Michelle Longo

      I considered FunPlex. How funny if we would have been there for our parties at the same time!! We are having it at Monster Mini Golf – he loves mini golf so much. I am not up for a party (because people invariably end up back at my house, which is fine) right after the holidays so we always have his party the second full weekend of the new year.

      Happy birthday to Shane!

    1. Michelle Longo

      I didn’t realize they were so close in age! I kept asking Nathan to turn 4 instead of 6 but he said no. It’s bittersweet. I appreciate the independence but I miss my baby.

  2. Azara

    OMG so adorable!! I’m cuddling my 4 month old baby boy and trying to enjoy his babyhood as much as possible. My 2.5 year old already looks like a little girl instead of a baby. Sigh.

  3. Kianwi

    Aw, the sweetest. He is definitely a handsome little boy. My heart melted at that newborn picture! Happy birthday, Nathan…may all your angry bird dreams come true 🙂

    1. Michelle Longo

      Thank you! He has a red angry bird slap bracelet too and he was mad I didn’t let him go find it before the picture. That’s just tip of the iceberg on his collection. When he’s into something, he goes all out on it!

Comments are closed.