Lilliana Scout, 5

Lilly turned 5 today and just like that,  there’s no more baby. I’ve already accepted that neither of my children will likely ever have a birthday that doesn’t make me a bit teary eyed but I admit, this one feels especially poignant. I remember feeling that it was a big deal when Zoe turned five–like those first five years of parenting had flown by in the blink of an eye.  Five years old this time around feels just as momentous, though it’s bittersweet in a different way.

Maybe 5 is so big because I associate five with the start of Kindergarten and all that school entails these days or maybe because it’s not just three or four chubby fingers held up proudly but instead, a whole hand.  Lilly has been anxiously awaiting today for months and I’ve been acutely aware of the impending end to this chapter that we’ve shared and the beginning of a new one.  It’s different when the last one turns five too, as if a certain door closes for the last time and while I knew it would inevitably close,  I wish I could stick my foot in it like a doorstop and keep it propped open just for a little while longer.

At 5, Lilly is still jolly and joyful and exuberant and mostly up for anything, although she’s also the kid who declared matter of fact midway through a family hike this summer that she really wished that she was laying on our couch at that moment. Like with most things, she saw the hike through and I know she had fun, but I also know that she wasn’t kidding about the couch.

Like most kids her age, she’s honest to a fault–well, except for the time this year that she gave herself some bangs and initially lied to my face, insisting that she had NOT cut her own hair. When pressed and when I assured her that I would not be angry but just needed to know, she sighed in exasperation, gave a teenage level eye roll and said, “Okay, FINE….yes, I cut it but only because it kept getting in my face.” It took a lot of effort on my part to not  laugh out loud and honestly, it takes a lot of effort most days to not laugh at so much of what she says and does.

At five, she’s got a tiny bit of self consciousness that is creeping up on her but by and large, she  lives her life freely, puts it all out there shamelessly and wears her big heart on her small sleeve. I have to respect that.

She loves soup of all kinds and tries not to slurp but usually does anyway. She loves sleep and will still take any and every opportunity for a car nap that she can. She makes us all laugh with the ridiculous things she says like the time that she randomly yelled out “No pork left behind!” from  her seat when she was the lone person left at the dinner table and had been told to stop dawdling and finish eating her sausage.

She loves her Calico Critters, and her sister’s Legos but mostly she loves hoarding any and every small random object that she can find and will play endlessly with them all on the floor, quietly putting on all different kinds of voices for all of the characters she creates. She asks to be read Fancy Nancy and Pinkalicous and Berenstain Bears and Elephant and Piggie books over and over again as if each time is the first time.  She’s been known to belch like a trucker and usually has remnants of a recent meal at the corners of her mouth, despite our best efforts to reinforce manners and cleanliness. She loves dresses and all things shiny and sparkly but usually has scraped or bruised knees or elbows that betray any attempts to come off as graceful or delicate.

Her Boston accent still lingers as do lots of mispronunciations of words that I secretly wish she would always say the way she says them now. She’s sensitive and gets upset if she thinks I am mad at her and she worries about not being able to read when she starts Kindergarten or not being able to do the same Math as Zoe, even though we reassure that Kindergarten is where she will earn to read and that no one expects her to know second grade Math (well, no one except for Zoe when they play school and Zoe is the teacher who sometimes forgets to modify the curriculum accordingly).

She still covers her eyes during flashy or visually intense previews at the movies or her ears when there are somewhat loud or high pitched noises and still gets scared of loud flushing toilets or hand dryers in public bathrooms. She’s come around to the spinning tire on the playground but still hates most amusement park rides with any intensity and after dabbling with the horses on the merry go round a few times this year, she’s back to preferring that we sit on the benches now when we go on that ride.

At bedtime,  the routine is always evolving but currently includes us snuggling, playing with her stuffies (with storylines she creates that rival those of soap operas) and playing rock, paper, scissors now that she’s finally mastered that. She also likes to tell original jokes and while I’ll say that she has most definitely not yet mastered that, her attempts are endlessly entertaining.

And that’s the best way I can describe Lilly, actually–She’s endlessly entertaining and almost always delightful. I genuinely enjoy her company in a way that I will miss so very much when she’s away from me next year.  Last week, we celebrated early with a tea party and picnic and I marveled at what a big girl she has become while we ate strawberries and sun butter sandwiches and apple juice in fancy glasses. Today for her 5th birthday, we ate breakfast together at a local diner and then we drove to  the Wellington T station so that we could park and take the T into the city to go to the Children’s museum  at her request.

On the way to Wellington station, Lilly said that she doesn’t like when we drive on the highways because “it goes too fast”.   And she’s said this before and I’ve always said, “that’s just how highways are,  you are safe, you’ll be fine”. But today, on her fifth birthday, my mind was of course in a different place and I thought, oh yes, sweet girl–you don’t know the half of it but yes, it really does go way too fast.

A few shots from our birthday tea party at Long Hill last week and a few from her actual birthday….