We are closing in on my firstborn’s 7th birthday. All of the boys’ birthdays are an opportunity to step back and reflect with fascination and pride on the tremendous growth a child accomplishes in 12 months. But there’s something about the first. You watch your firstborn develop and change and you have never been here before. You have precedents from every stage before — set by that firstborn — but every tomorrow is brand new for both of you.

I have been a mom for many years now, but I have never been a mom to a 7 year old.

Similar to last year, a few anecdotes that describe what J is like in this, his last month of being 6 years old.

1. Great intentions. I asked J to hang up his towel after his bath this evening. I walked through my bathroom shortly thereafter and saw this (below). While the execution is sometimes lacking, this is a boy who is happy to help, eager to please, and exceptionally rational (particularly when it comes to cause-and-effect of, say, chore-and-privilege). He is still — as he’s always been — easy; easy-tempered, easy-going, and easy-to-reason-with.

2. “Easy” should not be confused with “low-energy.” I can’t embed a video file, but see below for a series of screenshots our Nest doorbell camera captured from a ~1.2 second moment in time. This is J just, you know, exiting the house. As he bursts out of the door somehow already 18 inches off the ground, the accompanying audio is of him channeling a martial-arts-style yell. He then casually trots across the lawn in the direction of the neighbors’ house. The nuttiest part is that his mind somehow has even more boundless energy, constantly whirring such that you can almost hear him processing new information contextually against things he’s learned before. He does not accept perfunctory explanations, will challenge inconsistencies in your logic, and then go on to beat you handily in a footrace.

3. On the cusp of something new. He is still so sweet, asking me to sign “I love you” as his bus pulls away — insisting I continue until they drive completely out of sight. He plays peek-a-boo with C, holds A’s hand on walks, and laughs so genuinely at O’s antics such that it feels less like a connection borne of brotherly convenience and more a true friendship. He doesn’t care if he leaves the house with comically obvious bedhead. He cries with the most heartfelt histrionics when he falls off his bike and skins his knee. He likes to imagine he’s the Flash, or Sonic the Hedgehog, or a dragon.

But he has 2 of his permanent teeth now. He was subtly trying to brag to a little girl at the playground recently that he could skip bars on the monkey bars “without even trying.” He starts statements with “yo” (as in, “yo, that ice cream is so good”) since he started watching videos on YouTube Kids of other people playing Minecraft. His legs look so long to me as he pauses getting dressed in the morning to show me how cool his new “boxers” are. He is literate!

He is growing up. I’m not sure when the switch will flip (per above: firstborn), but it can’t be long before the little boy innocence fades compared to the traits that I’ll come to associate with his identity as a bona fide young man.

Frankly, maybe we’re already there. If that’s the case, and if this is the early preview of the adult he will grow into… I feel pretty good about that.

*****

^I began drafting this post this afternoon. During the evening, the boys were in charge of cleaning their room, and J took O’s bath towel downstairs to “hang it up to dry.” Clearly I need to be more specific about what constitutes a satisfactory place to hang a towel…