Six

The baby who used to live here is gone.

In her bed this morning we found a gangly, tangle-haired, long-leggedy six year old girl who stated it was her birthday and as such she was claiming her right to try chewing gum for the first time. Where was it?

I laughed and kissed her although I did feel the corner of my heart crack slightly when I gathered her into a wriggly hug. She’s awfully big now and quite far from the pliable infant I used to nuzzle and coo over such a short time ago. She drank hot chocolate and ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and opened a few little gifts before school although her main presents are yet to come.

Sometimes it seems that these years have crawled by at an achingly slow pace. I have been at times so bored I could scream, frustrated by the combination of small-town-life and stay-at-home-motherhood, (neither of which I exactly meant to do).
Yet looking at this amazing child, I see that the time has thundered by because here she is, a great girl of six already.

She is still so innocent, so dear, so funny, so sweet, so interesting and so untouched by the travails of the adult world. I plan to keep these things from her for as long as I can.

To this end I will continue my policy of no broadcast media in the house, no fashion magazines or other commercial female beauty-related imagery, minimal gender stereotypecasting in terms of toys and clothes although I will  not impose outright bans on gifts from other people. Ok, I will if it’s F. BLEEDING HANNAH MONTANA, and there is no negative talk about body image in our house. The longer Six is blissfully unaware of her appearance the happier she will be.

This afternoon we are going out to tea, just the two of us, and then we will go and spend a gift card she received the other day at a book shop. She’s quite excited by this grownup present although at first she was slightly put out that once she spent the $15 the card was void. I think she got it confused with my credit card and had been hoping that she’d get one of those because she told me that she thought that a really good gift card would be one that never ran out, that you could just keep buying things on.

I explained to her that when she was a grownup she could get one of these credit cards for herself, and then every month she could spend whatever she liked provided she had enough money to pay it back.

“But that’s not a GIFT!’ she shouted. “I want a GIFT CARD with, like a MILLION DOLLARS on it!”

I told her that most people didn’t have a million dollars, and even if they did, they usually didn’t give it away as a present. And even if they did give it as a present, they gave it to people who really needed it, like hungry people or endangered animals, not as birthday gifts for individuals.

Six had obviously thought about this for a while because this morning she said to me that when she was really big, like eleven or something, she’d have TWO million dollars and she was going to give most of it away to hungry people and endangered animals BUT she was still going to get one of those cards that never runs out like I have.

“And you know what, Mom? I’m going to get you one of those, too.”

Only five more years, then, and I’ll be a kept woman.

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