A love letter to Simon, age 6

Happy Birthday, my dearest darling Simon. Today, you are six years old!

My dear Simon, where do I start to tell you how wonderful you are? You are a charmer and a character. If any member of our family goes on to win an Academy Award, or a Genie, or even to star in a local community theatre production, it will be you. You have a flair for the dramatic that shows itself in the way you use your hands and facial expressions to tell a story — and you have a gift for the gab that puts even your loquacious mother to shame. I admit, there are times in the car when I will tell you “Shhh, mommy needs to concentrate on driving and the other cars for a couple of minutes” just for a bit of respite from your endless commentary.

You are a delightful child and a good companion. You’d be quite happy to play a board game with the grown-ups every single day, if only we had the time. You also love the computer and video games, and are newly addicted to all things Mario Brothers. You love Lego and Star Wars and superheros, Webkinz and nintendo and Pokemon. You like to watch everything from Alvin and the Chipmunks to iCarly on TV, and you’ve become quite interested in the Food Network after watching it with the nanny some days!

In the last year, you’ve learned to read and write simple words. When the teacher sent home a note last term saying all the students in your senior kindergarten class would be learning to count to 30, you impressed all of us with your ability to count beyond 100. Which you would do repeatedly, out loud, whenever we let you!

Your sweet personality has endeared you to your chums at school. It still makes me laugh when I pick you up from school to hear the choruses of “Bye Simon!” as you leave the school yard. Your best friends this year are Sophie and Isabella and Diego and Max and Aleric and Tristan.

You do not particularly like vegetables, and you like to negotiate at each meal exactly how many more bites of each vegetable you will be forced to endure. You love caesar salad, though, and onions and guacamole and salsa. You are getting much better at eating some of everything on your plate even when you don’t like it, and I do appreciate that. Not surprisingly, your favourite meal is soft-shelled taco “roll ups”. You also love pepperoni pizza and, sigh, McDonalds.

You are a sweet-natured boy who loves to help out around the house. You are tolerant, to a point, with your baby brother Lucas and locked in an eternal best-friend/nemesis struggle with Tristan. It brings me no end of joy to see the lot of you playing together, which you do often. One of your favourite games around the house is hide and go seek with Granny!

You constantly amaze us with your gracious nature. You love to say “please” and “thank you” and when you are given a gift, you are adorable in your effusive thanks for the gift. Again, your flair for the dramatic is obvious!

Simon, I couldn’t have asked for a sweeter, kinder, funnier fellow for a son. It’s not always easy being stuck in the middle, but you do a great job of finding your own place in the world. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds for you.

Happy birthday, sweet Simon. I do love you so.

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