A New Frontier

Well, life has certainly changed for Madeline. Now she has to count her age on TWO HANDS! When she woke up on the 9th, she came running into my room and whispered in my ear, "Mommy, I know I'm six now, but none of my teeth are loose." Having long heard that six is the magic age for losing teeth, I guess she expected to wake up on the morning of her birthday with a mouth full of loose teeth.

Luckily for her, all the teeth were holding strong. She ate like a champ yesterday. Scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and grapefruit for breakfast. School lunch, which Katie and I joined her for, in the cafeteria. Birthday snack, as requested by the birthday girl and provided for the class by her mother - Dunkin Donuts. Her desired birthday dinner? A menu of her favorites: steaks grilled by Daddy, rosemary roasted red potatoes, rosemary garlic homemade bread, green beans, and that special birthday dessert.

I tried out one of those cake pans that creates a shape out of smaller, individual shapes. So, this butterfly is actually composed of 12 shapes that are frosted together and pull apart easily for serving. The first wing assembly left more frosting on me than on the cake, but once I got the hang of it, it went ok. Funfetti cake with strawberry frosting and strawberry ice cream was just what she wanted to top it off. We were joined for dinner, dessert, and some present opening time by our good friends the Mollers.

I woke up thinking about her third year, when we were encouraging her to stop sucking both her thumbs (after a visit to the dentist and introduction to some scary looking anti-tooth-sucking appliances). I remember telling her that I wouldn't paint her nails until she stopped sucking her thumbs so that the paint wouldn't come off in her mouth. That was a pretty difficult choice for her, because she's always been very girly, but was dedicated to those thumbs. I can still hear her saying, "But I wuv my fums!" and sadly, contemplatively, sucking on them as if for the last time.

Being six is apparently like knowing a really good secret because Madeline was grinning to herself all day long. I asked her, partway through the day, how being six was different than being five. She thought about it for awhile and said, "I don't really know. It pretty much feels the same to me." She still ran over and kissed me goodbye on her way to the classroom this morning, so I'm glad she hasn't felt the need for too much change.