Dear Samaya: 6

A little late...

 

Dear Samaya,

You turned six this week. I love six. Six is so rational. So independent. So mature. So completely unaware of time. Your last day of kindergarten was yesterday. Which means that Grandpa spent most every morning for the last 10 months biting his nails while you moseyed, sauntered, lollygagged, c.r.a.w.l.e.d your way to his car at your one and only speed. On Friday last week, I found you in the bathroom thoroughly flossing your teeth ten minutes after you should had already been gone. You’ll be damned if anyone attempts to interfere with your priorities. 

 

At school you are smart and social. You are most in your element surrounded by a gaggle of girls, effortlessly and invisibly directing the play. A boss without the bossy. (I hope!) Back at home, you often go straight to your room for some top secret six-year-old stuff. You’ve started to read, but haven’t found your confidence yet. Your inventive spelling is killer. You love math. You like gym, art, and library and dislike music. You recently founded ’The Cuckoo Club,’ whose mission it is to make people laugh. I get daily updates on the current membership. One friend in particular can’t decide whether she’s in or out. You adore this girl, so her enrollment status is of particular interest to you. 

 

At home, Auntie Aynit and Mena have been staying with us. Mena has been carrying around the doll you just got for your birthday for the last three days and you just take it in stride. You were born mature.

 

On Fridays when we have our toddler playgroup, the mothers hang out on the deck in confidence, knowing you are lovingly and diligently shepherding the littles somewhere just out of sight. Isaiah is forever screaming at you for this very same shepherding.

 

Most nights, after Violet has fallen asleep, I pull you out of bed to read chapter books together. Currently, we’re reading ˆThe Penderwicks. It is one of my most favorite moments of the day. Yours too, I think.

 

The day before your birthday, we had gone to a pow wow and you had begged and cried for a Native American shawl to no avail. So you made your own costume, dubbed yourself Singing Bird, and wore it to school. You gave out honey sticks to your classmates, then Daddy, Violet, you and I went out to lunch to your favorite restaurant, Loco Cocos. For a usually picky eater, you polish off a plate of nachos like nobody’s business.

 

Yesterday we had your friend birthday party--the first time you insisted on inviting all the girls in your class. It was lovely and sweet- four girls from your class swinging on the rope swing, playing on the slip and slide, making rainbow fruit necklaces, eating rainbow cake and ice cream.

 

You fill your own hours, take your own showers, write your own stories. You are my collector of treasures, my aspiring vegetarian, my lover of water, my expert eavesdropper. Always the optimist ('this is the best day of my life!')

 

Sweet. Sensitive. Six. 

 

 

 

 

*"Wunts a pon a tim thar was a flawr shee was lonlee shee was the onlee flawr the nd.”