One Whole Hand, redux

And so, yet again, the earth and time has illustrated to me the mysterious way in which, seemingly in the blink of an eye, this:

…can whirl around, lickety-split, and turn into this:

Of course, on the one hand, those five years themselves don’t feel as though they’ve flown by. Five years in a place that was unfamiliar from the start, all of us learning and adapting, little by little, have felt like a monumentally difficult period. I feel every bit of five years older than I was when we moved here. But the changes in me (other than the running and subsequent shrinking) don’t nearly compare to what this child has done with the same time period. I mean, all I had to do was figure out that you can actually get an ice cream headache from breathing super cold air, so scarves are an imperative. He had to learn how to walk, feed and clothe himself, and speak (with rather scary fluency) a whole language.

When Sam turned five, I waxed poetically about how being a mother had changed me. And it did, undeniably so. The most significant change Gabe has wrought in me is an ever-honed sense of humility. Some kids, by their nature, allow you to feel self-satisfied and proud of what an excellent mother you must be, having produced such sparkling examples of mankind’s future. Gabe sparkles all right – like a firecracker loose on the ground, possibly in a hospital zone. Even as you’re cringing about what the wide-eyed onlookers are thinking about your parenting skills, or lack thereof, you can’t help but shake your head and admire his ability to shine and make a bang. (Nobody puts Gabey in a corner, if you’ll forgive the bad paraphrase.)

And unlike his brother, who was content on his fifth birthday to have a relaxed day out, with a playground party later on that week, Gabe has been determined to have every last detail arranged to his very specific tastes. I was to bring him his presents in bed, first thing in the morning! He wanted cupcakes, from a mix (no homemade cake!), with store-bought frosting and – this point was heavily and repeatedly emphasized – Halloween decorations. He was quite chagrined that his big party wasn’t able to be both a pottery-painting evening and a costume party (“All the girls have to be princesses, and the boys have to be scary!” Sam was horrified by that, but what can you do?), but I mollified him by assuring him that he could paint scary fangs and claws on whatever cutesy animal he chooses. He’s willing to accept that I share a birthday week with him, but when presents arrived for me today from my parents, I almost had a mutiny to quell.

Gabe, you are the cayenne in my chili. You’re the pickle on my sandwich, and you’re the fizz in my mimosa. You’re the one who makes everybody’s eyebrows shoot upward, and don’t we all need a bit of that in our lives? For five years, you’ve kept us on our toes, and every time I think I’ve got the hang of balancing myself that way, you shake the floorboards with a giggle. I don’t know what the next five years will bring, but I think I’ll stock up on ballet slippers – and pillows to tie to my butt.

Happy birthday, wild child.