Zoe, 5

Almost a month ago, in the midst of us running around like crazy people as we packed up our home for our move, we all woke up and Zoe was suddenly 5.  I suppose no birthday is really sudden but there doesn’t seem to be a better way to express what it feels like when the tiny baby you once held in the crook of your arms is now walking around casually asking how many days there are until Kindergarten. In some ways, I must have been preparing myself for her 5th birthday months ago because once the warmth of spring set in, I found myself referring to her as “almost 5”, rather than 4 or as she would clarify, “four and a HALF, mama, not FOUR.”

If I can’t say  that 5 was a surprise, I can admit that I’m not quite ready for it.  If the truth be told, some days I wish for Zoe to be “almost 5” forever. Because now, undeniably, there is no more baby, no more toddler, no more preschooler even but instead a bona fide kid.   The baby rolls are gone for the most part and she’s coltish now as if she’s trying to figure out movement all over again with these increasingly long limbs. She has more to say than ever before but still has her own delightful mispronunciations  of an array of words.  She still rubs her eyes like she did at 6 weeks old when she is tired and likes to wrap herself tightly in blankets the way we once swaddled her tight like a burrito.  Sometimes, when I wrap my arms around her in bed and close my eyes, I swear she smells just like a new baby all over again.

On Zoe’s birthday this year, we went to the Town Diner at her request for one more family breakfast as Watertown residents. Dressed in her new Elsa dress, she gobbled up her French toast and bacon and milk and remarked that she might have grown a tiny bit while she was sleeping and magically turning 5. At her request, we headed to the Children’s museum where she once crawled around and where she was now one of the big kids, climbing to the very top of the structure there that once made her eyes open wide in fear.

And then that night, we had dinner at Full Moon, a little gem of a place in Cambridge. We first ventured to Full Moon when Zoe was maybe 2 weeks old, having heard about how much they catered to families. We’d heard that they understood parents of little ones who just wanted great food (and let’s be honest, their wine and beer lists don’t hurt) without getting the stink eye from staff or other patrons when their babies and kids act like, well…babies and kids.  I remember how 5 years ago, we sat down at a table for two with Zoe sleeping in her car seat on the floor and how we plowed through a plate of nachos and 2 beers, as if Zoe were an explosive who might detonate if we didn’t hurry. I remember how we had ambitiously planned to have dinner too but that just as we finished our nachos and beer,  we looked down and suddenly, she was wide eyed and staring at us. She didn’t cry–in fact, she rarely pitched a fit publicly as a newborn–but she squirmed and grunted and squawked in her little seat, just enough to worry us. As rookie parents, she made us nervous enough to get the check and head for the door, grateful for our successful outing, albeit a brief one.

It’s hard to believe that five years ago, we sat there, trying to figure this small creature out but it’s not hard like when people say, “Oh, how can that have been 5 years ago–that feels like yesterday!” It’s hard because my heart can’t remember a time when she wasn’t ours and with us and intertwined into nearly every thought or feeling that I have and every real decision I make now.   Just five years, how can that be?  She’s been here all along, hasn’t she?

Five snuck up on me, even though I knew it was coming, even though the signs were all there and even though the kinds of questions she now asks were all pointing to the inevitable. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to close the chapter on my firstborn’s babyhood, or maybe there’s never really a way to be be truly ready for that.  I can’t slow this train down but I know now how fast it moves. So I find myself lingering with her at bedtime some nights or holding onto her hand long after we have safely crossed the street.  I tell her that she’s my big girl and in the same breath, I tell her that she’s my baby.  Somehow, in a way that I know she understands as well as I do, both are entirely true.