Just yesterday, you lost the first of your baby teeth. You called me from school, where the office secretary had pulled it out, and I congratulated you. When you arrived home and I saw that tiny tooth, so miniscule in your mouth, I was amazed. How did you get so big? This little tooth that once poked its way through your gums seems to belong to another child, a baby that has long ago grown up.

This year, more than any other, brought a storm of milestones for you. At the beginning of the year, things were a little rough. Although I had just quit my job to stay at home with you and focus on our family, I’d unexpectedly had emergency surgery for a life threatening incident the day after Christmas and was still recovering. We spent our days together working on improving your academics and every morning we had “school,” a session of science, music, math, reading and writing lessons that focused on preparing you for kindergarten and beyond.

As spring arrived and the world thawed, we shared with you that we were expecting a baby sister to arrive in the fall. You were extraordinarily proud, although I’m certain at first it didn’t seem real. In April we took a real family vacation to Playa Del Carmen in Mexico, where you played at the beach and swam in the ocean for the first time. It was a week filled with excursions and we tried to imprint the memories of our family as a trio before life with a baby turned it all the chaos.

We put our house up for sale, hoping for a quick sell in order to move before you started school. Meanwhile, your summer was filled with outdoor activities. We took a break from school and you spent most of the summer either at the pool learning to swim or on your bike with Dad, doing miles and miles worth of local trails on the weekend. I made lots of homemade ice cream and we took the chance to spend the summer soaking up sun or going on weekend excursions to water parks, camping and a thousand and one other things we knew we wouldn’t get another chance to do.

As the fall approached, we had you tested at a charter school that I had scouted out for you to attend. Thanks to all that extra work in the spring and early summer, you tested off the charts at a 2.5 grade level in math and a 3.6 grade level in reading. Since your birthday is in January and you’re fairly emotionally mature, we decided to go ahead and let you decide whether or not you’d like to attend first grade or kindergarten. You opted for first grade naturally and began a full day of school in mid August. The school was twenty minutes away and I had to drive you back and forth, which took up a considerable amount of time since we had to drive through five school zones, three rotaries, cross railroad tracks twice and go through no less than 8 or 10 traffic lights.

In the beginning, although you were nervous, we were well prepared and I think you loved school. Your teacher, Mrs. Fitzgerald, looked exactly like Zoey Deschanel and won your loyalty. After a few months the bloom wore off the rose. You were sick often and began to dread spending the day away from home. You had accidents at school, which we curbed by providing positive reinforcement and incentives. The transition was bumpy and you settled in well, performing at a superior level academically and making lots of friends, but exhibiting high energy and anxiety at home. Right in the midst of this, your sister was born.

Saffron came into our lives on October 30th, the day before Halloween, just around the corner from our house at Ogden Regional Hospital. She was six days early and born in the middle of the night. You stayed and watched the birth, although you dozed along with your father through much of the labor. We offered to let you cut the cord but you declined, worried perhaps that you might do it wrong. You were the first person to hold her. Since then you’ve been in a rush to always be at Saffron’s side, cooing and soothing her and she smiles often at your antics.

Shortly after she was born, I feel like Dad became your parent. Saffron was often sick and nursed slowly, so I spent most of my day and all of my nights on the couch in her bedroom. You learned to do your homework from there and even to talk to me via text on our phones when you came home from school. Being quiet now that a baby is in the house has been a difficult adjustment for you. We’re still working on it. But we’ve tried to often have Daddy-Owen or Mommmy-Owen dates- at least once a month to ensure you get time alone with us and don’t feel neglected.

You began having night terrors several times a week this winter. These episodes are frightening, mostly because you are not awake or aware that we are there, despite the fact that you are usually screaming with eyes wide open. We’ve learned all we can do is hold you and keep you from hurting yourself while you thrash around until eventually you fall back asleep. Getting plenty of rest and calm time before bed seems to help lessen the incidences and you never remember them in the morning.

Your sixth birthday was highly anticipated, mainly because most of your peers turned six long ago. We had a special day filled with treats and surprises. The school scheduled a field trip on your birthday and you got to enjoy a movie with your friends. Later during the weekend we had a party at a local arcade and you played mini golf. There was cake, ice cream, presents and tantrums- everything you need to make a birthday party complete. Your two best friends were in attendance- Ashlun and PJ. Ashlun is from your old school and attends kindergarten and you hadn’t seen him in several months. It became obvious after a few minutes that the gap in maturity level had widened and that this friendship had probably ended back in preschool.

Looking ahead to your next year I expect the changes to be no less drastic. We hope to move and with that will come a new school, a new home and other challenges. Your sister will learn to walk and talk. And you’ll continue to grow, losing a mouthful of teeth and becoming a second grader. I only hope that this next year can bring us closer instead of further apart and that you’ll always know no matter what we do or what our family looks like, that you are loved beyond measure.