8:54 AM

Exactly 6 years old. Happy birthday, Seth!

For Seth, my last:

Six years ago at this exact time you were born.

This year your favourite colour is most definitely green and your favourite number is eight, “because of the way it looks and sounds”.

At age 6, your favourite toys (after video games, because there is no beating video games for fun when one is six) still revolve around building and creating. You are an ace with a set of instructions and can assemble complex pieces, but you enjoy just doing your own thing with equal measure. Art is still something you take great pleasure in – paints, clay, pencil crayons, you name it – you like to sit and create (and make a mess sometimes!) as long as a person will allow it.

Planets and space are still a big hit and you love learning new things about our solar system. You surprised your teacher with so much information about space one day that she insisted you build your own diorama of the solar system and kept it on display at the school for several months. I really need to take a picture of it since it’s in your bedroom now and is rather impressive.

As much as you like playing and creating (and video games), you still require a bit of quiet here and there to do your “thinking”. This morning while your brother ran around the schoolyard telling anyone who would listen that it was his birthday, you stood in your usual spot and commented that “that’s something a five year old would do”. You told me that being six feels “different and better” and it’s clear you’re fairly proud of this milestone in life, so I didn't bother to remind you that in the picture that I took of you at exactly 8:54 this morning, you are in fact waving and yelling across the street to a classmate that it's your birthday.

You still have a quick wit and crack yourself up on a regular basis. You are more shy at school than I expected, but you manage to convey a confidence that your peers are a little bit fascinated by. I’m glad that you are not left out even if you aren’t a joiner per se. The world needs introverts too. How else would all the thinking get done?

No girlfriends for you yet, since you have discovered that girls probably have cooties and should be avoided. You let me know that I’m the only girl you like* and I am more than OK with that for now.

This is just a little bit about you at six. I hope you have the happiest of happy birthdays today.

All my love,
Mommy

*Grandmas Rita and Leslie get a pass too.