Mateo's six-year-old letter

Dear Mateo,
You have gone and turned six.  Somehow, this seems more impossible than when you turned five!  Time just keeps marching along, and you have been growing by leaps and bounds.  Here are some of the things you've been up to in the last year.

This year has been a time of lots of transitions and adventures.  We moved to a new house, sold our old house, you finished preschool, we traveled many places (including Europe) this summer, you started kindergarten, and now you have had a birthday.  Change has been hard for you in the past.  Really, it's hard for most people!  However, you shown a lot of flexibility in the last year, and a heightened ability to understand what was going on and why.  In fact, a lot of your worries have calmed down in the last year.  It is nice for us to see and it must be nice for you, too!

In fact, this has been a year of maturing for you overall.  Your relationship with your sister, Natalia, went through a rough patch in the spring and then, when we hit summer, things calmed down and have been relatively good and peaceful ever since!  Of course, you have your moments, but overall, the two of you play very nicely together.  She is very protective of you and you of her, especially when we are out in public.  Today, we were in church and the two of you went off to Sunday school together.  You came back in to meet us at the end and you were holding hands.  It was very sweet.

You have also really grown into the role of big brother to your sister, Rosa.  She has become much more interesting to you since she has gotten a little bigger.  Again, you have your moments of frustration with her, but you also love to shepherd her around, help her with things, and try to make her laugh.  I took the two of you out last Friday and you had a lot of fun playing together at the Children's Museum.

You learned how to ride a pedal bike this summer, which was very exciting for all of us.  It was one of those moments where Mommy and Mama realized that the tiny baby we brought home from the hospital had become a big boy and was, in fact, riding away from us on a two-wheeler!  Needless to say, we were very proud.  We were equally proud when you not only made it through a total of 25 hours on a plane with all of us, but handled it with good humor and patience. 

Of course, some things have stayed the same for you, and number one among those is your love of books.  You have continued to love reading more than anything.  You have made your way from picture books, which you still love, to short chapter books, and now you are really going for longer and more complicated reading material.  You will read pretty much anything that you come across, because stories just fascinate you no matter what they are about, but you are loving Harry Potter right now.  We have been reading it out loud to you to slow things down and limit the scariness, but you are more than capable of reading it on your own and have enjoyed re-reading the books when we have finished them.  You just got book #4 for your birthday, and, after your bath this morning, I came out of the bathroom and found you like this.  Based on what you can describe after you read things, there is no question that you are understanding what you read. 

One of the great things about your kindergarten class is that there are several other kids who can read just as well as you can.  It's amazing for you to have some peers in this area, and also nice for your moms to know that you're in good company at school.  In fact, you are loving almost everything about your class and school.  Thanks to Grammy, you are going to an amazing school with the resources to offer you lots of both academic and enrichment options. 

At school, you have time in woodshop with real tools and saws and hammers and such, music time, story workshop time, art time, and PE four days a week.  You are right where you should be in terms of other academic stuff, like writing and math.  You are really excited about patterns right now.  You have teachers who are getting to know you and what makes you tick.  You have jumped into the social scene and made friends that you really seem to enjoy.

And, you are playing lots of pretend games out at recess.  The most recent, although you just informed me that it's going out of style, is an absolutely hysterical game called Killer Whale Circus.  It involves one very dramatic kid playing the part of a beached killer whale and lots of other kids running around trying to save the whale.  I hope, that if and when you read this when you're older, that the memory of that game jogs your memory of what it was like to be a kindergartener, playing your heart out on the playground.

Of course, the long school day and going to school five days a week has been a big adjustment for you, but you are thriving and we couldn't be happier.

Of course, like all kids, you have your challenges.  You sometimes get very frustrated and that can lead to some explosive behavior.  You do a great job of being a model citizen at school, but that means that your temper can be short at home and with those closest to you.  We are working together on learning how to use words first instead of lashing out and how to say sorry when things have gone awry.  You are really adjusting to a lot right now and we understand that you are going to have some growing pains!

Here's an update on your night times:  your sleeping, which has always been an area of challenge, is going pretty well.  We have had some growing pains since being in our new house, which have mainly involved Mama trying to get you to sleep through the night upstairs in your own room, where you feel scared and not like sleeping through the night.  Since Mama finally threw in the towel on that idea, you have moved into the guest room right across from Mommy and Mama's room and you are much happier there. 

On good nights, you sleep until about 5 or 5:30 am and then come get one of us.  You have gotten much better at snuggling with one of us until 6 or 6:30, instead of insisting on getting out of bed right away.  On not-so-great nights, you wake up as early at 11 pm and want one of us to sleep with you.  It has been so difficult to get you back to sleep on your own for any length of time that right now we are just going with it and having one of us sleep with you.  For whatever reason, it's really hard for you to be alone at night.  At some point, you will either grow out of this or we will find a better solution! 

Speaking of all this, your basic preference for being with someone nearly all the time is unchanged.  This may be different at school, but, when you are home, you prefer to be with one of your parents nearly all the time.  Occasionally, like when we get home from the library, you will go into what we call a book coma and be fine with us doing other things.  Mostly, though, you are happier and more comfortable with someone with you.  In the mornings, for example, you would rather get up and play right when you first wake up, but you know that you would be up by yourself if you did that, and so you opt to have company in bed instead.  We are sure that this quality will evolve as you get older, but, for right now, we are just trying to meet you where you are.

We are going to wrap this up, but, quickly, here is a list of other things you love right now:  being pushed as high as possible on the swings (no pumping with your legs yet, but someday!), being ambushed with tickles, eating waffles, building things with Legos and magnetic tiles, figuring out puzzles, making up rhymes, telling jokes, climbing like a monkey on the playground, playing with your car collection, riding in the way back of our van, playing with friends, going out for special time with Mommy or Mama, seeing Apa, and seeing all your other special people, like your grandparents and great-grandmother and aunties, uncles, and cousins. 

Mateo, there are a zillion other things we could say about you, but this sums things up for now.  You are our big boy but you will always be our baby.  We love you more than we could possibly say.  We cherish the time we have with you at this age right now and we look forward to what tomorrow will bring.

All our love,
Mommy and Mama