Six

Dear Aidan,

Happy sixth birthday to my sweet A-man! I think back every birthday on the day you were born, the very first time I met my tall, skinny, red-faced screaming baby. Little did I know then that you would always be my passionate, spirited child.

There's a lot about you right now that I just want to bottle up and never forget. Your pappy always says that you'll never be a poker player. Every emotion you have shows from your head to your toes. We never have to wonder how you are feeling, or what kind of day you are having.

Your most favorite toys in the world right now are still your stuffed animals. You sleep with about 30 little animals every night, and after we put you and Dane to bed, we peek in to see you acting out all sorts of adventures with your animals. Your favorite is a little bear you have named "Andre Johnson", and then later clarified that "this bear is Andre Johnson. Even though the real Andre Johnson is black and my bear is brown." Just in case we were confused on the matter. You are very matter-of-fact about quite a few things, and a few months ago pointed out that Emerson has the same color of skin as your cousin, Joel Valdez. Who, as you guessed it, is not Chinese.

You are learning a real appreciation for all of the different and beautiful people that God created.

This past year has been a big year for you, you have learned so much in your final year of preschool, and you kicked off Kindergarten this past week with a bang and are loving every minute of it. You came home from your first day of school with this picture:

Your Daddy and I stared at this picture for a good minute or two, until you explained that, clearly, this was a picture of you next to a giant, blue cafeteria table. OF COURSE it is a giant blue cafeteria table. That is exactly what it looks like. (And we're going to work with you on spelling your name correctly.)

You CANNOT wait to learn how to read, so that you will be able to read stories at bedtime while Dane is reading. You are still learning how to "control your anger" every now and then, and have fewer and fewer tantrums and fits the older you get.

You have gotten so tall this past year, and are still skinny as a little rail. You're just a couple of inches shorter, and about six pounds lighter than your favorite brother in the whole wild world. You pick out your clothes every day, and we frequently see you in patterned shorts and bright socks pulled up to your knees.

We celebrated your big birthday with you today by eating lunch with you at school.

Well, if you can call it lunch at 10:35am. I was just barely able to convince the good people at McDonalds to put together a couple of Happy Meals at 10:30 in the morning.

(I did not realize that Harper and I were making the same face in this picture.)

Now I know why you are starving when you get off the bus in the afternoons. You got to wear a birthday crown all day at school today, and later today you have requested Papa Johns pizza and frozen yogurt as a special birthday treat. You'll open a couple of presents tonight, but your birthday party is this weekend at Chuck E Cheese. We broke our tradition of the waterslide party over Labor Day weekend, and took the easy route instead. You attended a party at CEC a couple of months ago, and talked about it nonstop for weeks. So instead of making invitations, cleaning the house, renting the slide, shopping for food, drinks, goodies, cake, entertaining the children, fighting the heat, remembering to pick up the ice, drying the children, opening the presents, passing out goodies, and cleaning the house again, we are simply showing up with a cake. Thank you for that, Aidan. This is the best birthday gift you could have gotten me.

You have been loving church these days. At the beginning of the summer you made the leap from the preschool room to the K-3rd grade area, and you get to be with Dane for part of the morning now. Our wonderful church has a worship band just for your age group, and one of the band members shared with me the other night about how much you love to sing your worship songs. Actually what she said was "he sings so loud that I actually got distracted while I was singing and forgot my words." Bless your heart. You know the words, and the motions, and you sing at the top of your lungs with a determined intensity. I'm afraid you take after your mother with your desire to sit in the front of the room, and sing really loud and off-key. Only I sit on the front row so no one else can hear me :)

Aidan, we love you so, so much and are so proud of the big boy that you are becoming. I cannot wait to see what Six has in store for you!