Five

Dear Brayden,

If I feel like I am in denial that you are turning one year older every year that your birthday comes, this is the year that I am most in denial about. Five changes everything. Five starts the journey of no longer a “little boy”. No longer a preschooler. In my eyes, I still have a couple of hours before you are truly five. Five years ago, at this moment in time, you were still inside of me—huge and ready to go. . . fully of life, and hiccups. Five years ago, at this moment in time, we were just so excited to meet you.

And here you are. Five years later. An enthusiastic, vibrant boy—as social as they come. Bringing sunshine to our lives. Truly, your vigor for life and all things is beyond amazing. But mostly, you are enthusiastic beyond measure when it comes to friends, food and electronic gadgets.

Last year’s birthday party. . .

Friends make your world go round. Close friends, and never met before friends and everything in between. You’ll play with anybody—truly. You love playing with adults. You love playing with kids. You love playing with strangers whenever we go somewhere. There is not an ounce in your body that is an introvert, or a loner or a homebody. Seriously. . . not one.

Food is on the top of the list for you too. We have found that you only don’t eat three foods in this world—Tomatoes, onions and pepper. You eat anything else. And I really do mean anything. I pray that you are always as non-picky as you are. You will make a very happy wife one day. I think you could also eat at any single point in the day. I hope you are always active!

And we’ve known from such a young age that you totally dig electronics. You have always, always been drawn to them, and your love for them has only deepened. I remember when you were teeny and I would take you to garage sales, and you would always gravitate even toward those little teeny electronic games with two buttons that used to come in happy meals at one time.

You still love superheroes, but you have moved a bit past them. We are now entering the world of Mario and Star Wars. You know every single one of the Mario characters—and I’ll tell you—there are a ton of them. You still love sports, and you love playing them with daddy. You LOVE art, which you must definitely get from your Uncle Chad. You love to color and draw and do crafts and projects and you really can’t get enough of them. I wish I was as creative in that department as I used to be—but I’m not really, which makes me feel badly. You also want to be a cake maker when you grow up, and have talked about that for quite awhile. I find this pretty interesting . . . hopefully I can find a baking class to sign you up for when you get a little bit older. I don’t think they have baking classes for just barely five year olds.