Dear Noah,

You turned six this past weekend.  Six.  SIX.  It seems like such a big number.  How is it possible that you already SIX?  It still seems like just yesterday that your dad and I were in Ethiopia simply hoping that you would survive.  That we would be able to love you for life.  How far you have come from that sick little boy we clung to for dear life.  Now look at you.

You have changed so much in the last 365 days. And much of what I wrote last year  remains the same.  Your birthday is bitter sweet for me.  I am so lucky to get to be your mom, but I feel so sad for your Ethiopian Mom who doesn’t get the joy of watching you grow every day.  To see you change each year.   Your birthday is a celebration not only of life, but also of sacrifice and loss.

Where to start…your personality has become very clear.  I think it must be about this time that many of us resign ourselves to our kids personality traits and stop trying to write it off as age-related.  You are sensitive and you don’t like to be teased.  You take everything personal.  It is hard for me, as I come from a family where we tease each other relentlessly.  I am trying to explain this to you and attempting to teach you how to tease back–I am failing miserably, but will keep trying.

You still struggle with expressing your feelings.  You are quick to respond “fine, I’m never playing with you again.”  Your biggest insult is calling someone (usually me) a “meanie” and you hit a little too often.  Never with the malicious intent of hurting someone–but to show the person how they have hurt you.  We are trying to teach you how to ignore your little sister (to no avail) and how to get upset without saying something that might hurt someone else.  Sometimes is frustrates me, because I hate to see you hurt someone.  You feel bad after you hurt someone–but you are working through the idea of “justice.”  I am hoping that you learn to control your feelings more as you get older.  I often forget that you are still young and making sense of your world.

You have become quite that class clown–this is a bit of a surprise.  But you have learned that you can make people laugh and you really like that.  You are also super social, so being quiet when you are with your friends is hard and I often here “well so and so talked to me.” and how it would be rude not to answer.  Way to throw my words back at me.

You have started to find your sports niche.  You have started judo/tae kwon do and you really love it.  You have your yellow belt already and are anxiously awaiting testing for your orange belt.  You have a knack for the forms and could be a little more aggressive when it come to “fighting” but you awesome.  You have also developed a love for gymnastics (I know your dad wishes it was soccer) but it has been really good for your strength and for your confidence.  But you are most excited about starting baseball (really it’s t-ball) but you are counting down the days until practices start this week.

You still occupy yourself most of the time with your legos–and it is all Ninjago all the time with you these days.  Your DS collects more dust that hours played and that is okay by me.  I have figured that if you get to do what you want, you tend to chose good things to do.  You like video games, but not to the point where I need to institute a time limit.  This makes me happy.

You have learned to whistle (and you are an awesome whistler), read music (???–I’m beyond impressed), tie your shoes, and read.  You can do the splits, pull yourself up on the rings and can almost do one pull-up.  So many things come easy to you that you get really frustrated when something doesn’t.  But you work hard.  You practiced whistling and trying to whistle everyday for about 6 weeks until you had it mastered.  When you want something, you are relentless and willing to work hard.

You do everything 100% and you expect an immediate return.  But you are learning that thing take time.  You are a great friend and everyone in your class seeks you out as a playmate.  You are balancing your popularity with what you want to do and who you might like to play with.

You are a great brother to you sister and you are an amazing and loving son.  You are exploring your world and your sense of adventure is clear.  You’ll try nearly anything.  I am so blessed to be your mom.  I couldn’t ask for a better son.  Keep growing and exploring.

Happy Birthday Noah!

I love you,

Momma