Simply Sensational Six

My littlest blessing, my “bonus baby” that came to us right after I turned 41, is now six years old.

That’s just some crazy talk right there. I mean, how did he go from this

to this

so dang fast?

I have loved his preschool years. Of course, they’re not without stress, but 4, 5 and 6 are such fun ages to parent. They’re potty-trained, always learning something new, and hilariously self-sufficient. I can’t get away with choosing his outfits anymore, because he has strong opinions on what he’s going to wear, even down to his socks. His last morning at school, he couldn’t find the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle socks he wanted to wear. I told him we were going to be late for breakfast (he loves eating it at school) so he settled for a plain white pair. We rushed out to the car in our usual mad dash, but I noticed him walking funny. He took his shoe off a couple of times on the way to school before triumphantly waving a colorful sock in the air.

“My TMNT sock was stuck in my shoe! And, shoo-whee! It smells dirty. Here.” And he flung the stinky thing up into my lap. Nice.

I’m just glad he figured it out on his own. It wasn’t too long ago that he would’ve just whined about his toes hurting and I would’ve had to pull over and solve the mystery myself.

I had a lot of fun hanging out in his kindergarten class on his birthday, but I hope his teacher still likes me. Instead of cupcakes, we made gummy worm dirt cups.

I assumed they would be eaten in the cafeteria as dessert, but it turns out that it was testing week. So the kids had to eat lunch (and my messy treat) at their desks. I bet his poor teacher is still finding chocolate cookie crumbs in odd places.

Some of the kids had never had dirt cake before. One little boy turned to me and said, “Is this really DIRT?” Jonah laughed and said, “NO! It’s cookie crumbs!” and the little guy looked very relieved as he dug into his cup.

I had my own moment of feeling apprehensive. The teacher held up sight word cards, calling on one child to read the sight word, and then another to say a sentence including the sight word. I was sitting there, highly entertained by these smart kiddos, until she held up the word “fat”.

Then I had a mini panic-attack because there I sat, with all my Rubenesque rotundity perched atop a squatty little chair designed for 8-inch-wide butts, and I just KNEW the sentence was going to include “Jonah’s mom”.

Maybe it was because I’d just served them little pots of chocolaty goodness and they didn’t want to bite the portly hand that fed them, but the sentence-building boy said, “My teacher is fat.”

(Even though she isn’t!)

The class giggled and I thought, phew! That’s over.

But then the teacher cycled through the word list again.

Oh lawd. Here it comes….

“Fat.”

A little girl was called upon to use it in a sentence, which she served up with a sprinkle of attitude.

“Don’t call my teacher fat.”

Bwahahaha! I guess she shut that first kid down! Anyway, I was off the hook.

I hope to go back and volunteer again after fall break (which has been this week and also known as The Week I Get All the Fun of Homeschooling Middle Schoolers While Keeping Oldest Teen and Kindergartner Entertained, Too). I know from experience that it won’t be long until my son won’t want me anywhere near his school, so I’m going to enjoy this time that he’s happy to see me there.

Jonah is now zipping around on his new bike and keeps talking about when he turns seven, and I want to scream, “No! Slow down…let’s don’t even think about that yet!” Because six seemed to arrive while I blinked, and seven is bound to feel the same way.

No, son, let’s just stay calm and enjoy being simply sensational six.