#five-year-olds

Mother Gothel slips into the tower, a confident smile on her face. She’s done it again, and the child is, oh, around five. With luck, the kingdom will stop searching soon. She looks down at her hands and notices they’re a lot more wrinkled than usual.

She hums to herself. Nothing a session with Rapunzel can’t fix.

“Rapunzel!” she calls. “Let down your hair!” She’s been training the girl from an early age.

“Hi Mommy!” she calls, running quickly. Mother Gothel puts on a fake smile and picks up the child as if she loves her.

It is only then that she notices the color of Rapunzel’s hair. She drops the child and puts a hand to her head. “Rapunzel,” she whispers, “what did you do to your hair?”

Rapunzel’s hair is choppy and uneven, and a beautiful chocolate brown. She holds a long piece of hair in her tiny hands. Her green eyes are delighted and wide.

“I cut it!” she cries delightedly. “It wath-” she stops herself, then corrects her words- “it was getting long.”

Her hair used to be down past her feet. It’s now ragged and shoulder-length. “I wanted to be like you! You have short hair and now my hair is light!”

Mother Gothel looks at her hands. They are aging rapidly. The magic keeps her young no longer.

She picks up Rapunzel and throws on her cloak before running down the stairs and away from the tower.

Five-year-old: What's that?

Me: A drink. Would you like some?

I've reached a tipping point in my parenting journey. With my oldest child now officially school age, older parents have stopped talking to me as though I'm IN Hell (Don't worry...it gets better!), and started talking to me about my IMPENDING Hell (Oh Man...if you think it's bad now...JUST WAIT until they're TEENAGERS!).

It's simply too hard right now to imagine that the five-year-old who still wears Batman pajamas and wants to be a part of every hug will one day turn into a sex-obsessed hormone monster, even though I know it's approaching fast.

However, he sometimes offers a glimpse of what it will be life, even if accidentally.

As I have mentioned on occasion in the past, our neighbors have three kids, the youngest of which is still nearly twice as old as Leo. However, due to his bull-headed insistence combined with their incredibly tolerant natures, they still play together often. Surprisingly though, the lion's share of Leo's affection belongs to the OLDEST child, a twelve-year-old girl I'll call Angela.

Over the summer and fall, not only did Leo seek her out to play nearly every day, but amazingly, she did so too. They're an unlikely pair to be sure, but it seems to work.

The other night, I was putting Leo to bed. We had just finished stories, and were spending a few quiet minutes together before I left his room for the night. This was the exchange that followed:

LEO: This is a great bed.

ME: It really is, Buddy.

(Pause)

LEO: Angela's gonna LOVE it.

(Pause)

ME: What?

LEO: You know, when I give it to her.

(Pause)

ME: WHAT?

LEO (Like I'm an idiot): When I give this bed to Angela!!

ME: I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm SO glad that's what you meant!

As kids go through the process of mastering a language, they make HUNDREDS of mistakes all on their own that give parents nearly constant joy and amusement.

In other words, they do NOT need our help screwing up what they say with what they MEAN to say. So when we nudge them along...we only have ourselves to blame.

These days, Leo is in that frustrating point in his development where he loves books and stories, can't read, and is prone to boredom. As a result, he spends just about any quiet moment in the house meandering around and either begging or plotting for our attention.

This was the situation this weekend, when we had the following exchange:

LEO: Daddy...can we read a story NOW?

ME: Not now, Leo. I'm BUSY. Leo...we have a long day ahead of us today, and you are going to HAVE to spend some time playing with yourself. BY YOURSELF!

LEO: DADDY...I don't WANT to play with myself!

(Pause)

ME: Just give it time, Buddy...