FIVE

Consider five years of anything. That's more than the time between high school and wrapping up your undergraduate degree. For some people... ahem... it's enough time to move three times.

It's also enough time to go from a little 7 pound crying blob that can randomly move muscles and poop to one that can balance on two wheels and say, "Daddy, look at me go!"

The boy turns five in a few hours and as I watched him sleep, I saw a big yet small guy. On the one hand, he can fit in a paper grocery bag. On the other, he can jump from a high perch, run and play, successfully crack eggs into a bowl, tell stories with a plot and explain new and sophisticated concepts that show his depth of understanding about a million things. Just tonight he corrected himself when asking for a dinosaur where he started to say huge but replaced the word with gigantic. Understanding these two simple words isn't what excited me but instead his interest in elevating his speech with specific detail I thought was kind of cool.

The boy had his party today. A huge horde of us biked the mile to get gelato after eating homemade pizza and drinking cappuccinos and espressos. The stress of ushering half a dozen kids along Portland streets caused me to age about five years (speaking of five) just getting them there and back safely. With a bunch of parents and kids, we were our own critical mass! It actually went quite smoothly and the route was safe by all measures. He had a great time playing with his friends and I'm pretty proud of how this little soul is growing up.

He starts kindergarten in the fall.