A Letter to My Youngest Daughter: On Your Last Day as a Six-Year-Old

Dear M.,

As I sit down to jot you a birthday note, what strikes me like a sledgehammer is that it's been a year and a day since I wrote you a letter about things to remember when you're 6. A whole year has passed and tomorrow you'll be 7.

Since you're still little, you probably think it's been a long year. And for the same reason, you're probably just as excited to be 7 as you were to be 6. But you should know that for those of us around you, each of your birthdays are exciting but also a bit sad. (Who am I kidding? Very exciting and very sad.)

The exciting part is that it's like we're all watching the magic of life play out in you. We saw you as a tiny baby, then toddling, then off to school, then learning to read and to write...slowly transforming into an amazing little person who is re-writing our own understanding of how to be. I told you all about what I mean by that in last year's letter, but trust me - it's even more true a year later.

In JUST ONE YEAR, you've accomplished so much. For example:

• You stopped being afraid to try scary things. Maybe not all of them (and that's good, because sometimes being scared of doing something is a good sign that you shouldn't do it), but when we've told you to trust us - you've learned to trust us. I watched you in the course of a few ski lessons go from barely able to move your feet to standing at the top of a hill and skiing your way down it (the best part was when your instructor told us that you screamed all the way down the first time). You tried (and loved) minestrone. You learned to jump into a pool and then dive (sort of). You learned to jump right in at a new school and make brand new friends.
• On the subject of school, you learned about homework. It's weird that they call it "work" when it's actually so much fun, but sometimes things are just named funny (like "sign language" instead of "sigh language" which is what you thought it was called). I loved seeing you rush in the door each day, pull your journal from the bag, check what your homework was (despite having been the person who wrote down what your homework was just a few hours before), and then put your head down and do it. And usually more than you had to. If you keep that up - approaching "work" with the same intensity that you approach "play" (and vice versa) - you will go far.
• You managed to make a whole bunch of new friends while continuing to hold onto your old friends. We needed 3 birthday parties this year to hold them all - one with girls from the old school, one with girls from the new school, and one with your treasured boy friends. I love that you decided to separate them this year for the first time because that way you could give each person an experience that was suited to them and you could give each person much more of your attention. Very smart.
• Then there was soccer, skating, math, french, antonyms, homonyms, synonyms, basketball, reading books that have no pictures, telling time, watching movies and shows that aren't just cartoons, losing a few more teeth, buckling yourself into the car, and so on and so on and so on.

The sad part is that each time you have a birthday, it means you're a year deeper into childhood and a year closer to not being so little anymore. Why wouldn't we want you to be little anymore? Because you are such a joy to be around all of the time and because we're afraid that a time will come when you'd rather be around other people instead of us. (Sorry, I had to stop just now to gather myself).

Remember, Mommy and I have been through this before. We watched your two older sisters grow from little, little kids into full-fledged adults. We spent just as much time with them as we do with you, and now we get to spend less time with them than we used to. BUT, they also showed us that even as they made friends and had sleepovers and went on sleepaway trips and then went away for school, that didn't have to mean drifting apart. I feel like they're nearby all the time, that I can pick up the phone and hear their voice whenever I want, and that they're thinking of me constantly (evidence: dub-smashes, texts, e-mails, snapchats, facebook 'likes' and messages, whenever-they-can visits, etc.) Some of that is because it pains them so much to be apart from you, but some of it is also because it pains them to be apart from us (I hope).

Your world gets much, much bigger as you get bigger, but at its centre will always be your family and your dearest friends. The sun isn't something you have to go out and find, it's where you started and it's what will always pull at you and keep you from flying too far out from who you are.

So that's why we're happy and sad as you turn 7. We'll keep the sad at bay so you don't feel it, but later on when you read this I hope it will make you feel even more love and loved than you do already.

Happy birthday my sweetest little girl. Enjoy 7.