At the end of next month, our eldest son, J, will turn 6 years old. To commemorate his 5-year-old self, here are a few recent anecdotes and observations:

1. On unadulterated sweetness: today I tried to snap a picture of him and his buddy palling around as they boarded the school bus. Instead, I captured him in a moment of turning back to me with the sign language symbol for “I love you.” On just about every school day this year, he started his bus ride by waving goodbyes, “I love yous,” blowing kisses, and otherwise making goofy gestures out the window at me until the bus pulled away. I reciprocated in equally animated fashion & from underneath my umbrella or behind my layers of winter clothes or whatever else the elements mandated throughout the seasons. I know this won’t last forever, but for now, his affections are uninhibited and resolute, and the bus stop is therefore a place of happy associations in my mind.
   
   
2. On independent development: with several small children in our home, we spend a lot of time teaching, helping, and doing things alongside our boys. Watching J grow, where every new milestone as our eldest is a new milestone for us as his parents, I’m increasingly noticing the many things that we cannot do for (or even with) him. My first conscious taste of this was watching him learn to ride his two-wheeler: repeatedly falling, crying, frustrated… getting back on and trying again until he mastered the physics. I could burst with pride for the way he’s stopped preemptively asking for help before sounding out long words in his books, the way he volunteered to play goalie his first soccer game this spring, the way he happily assures me he can just “help himself to something else” (read: deli meat, see also: a battle I’m not willing to wage) in the refrigerator if he really doesn’t like our dinner entree.
   
   
3. On the increasing influence of friends: J brought home a drawing from school recently that featured a figure on a path to a building labeled “WWE.” I asked him what it was. He casually replied, “John Cena.” As if we have ever, ever viewed or discussed or even tangentially referenced professional wrestling (much less John Cena) in our home. Upon further probing, he told me that his friend at school introduced him to John Cena and WWE, and while he didn’t have many more specifics than that, he is confident that John Cena is a “great guy, Mom.” I’ve loved watching his humor and enthusiasm for imaginary play matched by his friends before, but this was my first overt reckoning of the fact that, over time, the direct influence of my son’s friends will only grow… and there’s no reason to believe I will ever be privy to the full extent of it. I contemplated this fact solemnly that night along with the realization that I had said “John Cena” more times in a single evening than the entirety of my lifetime before.

In sum, I’m feeling pretty content about closing out this 5th year with a son who loves his mom enough to bring her home a dandelion from recess (however mangled it may be by the time it arrives), who seems fundamentally motivated by making progress rather than expecting perfection upfront, and who has spent >1/5 of his life in various stages of severity in a global pandemic, yet is genuinely delightful to be around. And just in case anyone else is equally as uninformed as I, it turns out John Cena is evidently a pretty great guy indeed.