My son was in kindergarten when he came home with an extra spring in his step.  "Lily has the most beautiful hair but I love her smile more."  It was the first time he acknowledged a girl so affectionately and my heart fluttered in response to his sweet crush.  Throughout the year he told me stories of how he let Lily "cut in line" because no one else did and how he noticed she wore new Disney barrettes in her long hair.

No longer in the same class for first grade, I witnessed at lunch/recess duty that playing "tag-you-are-it" was the most popular game amongst the six year olds.  The girls would holler and scream as they ran away from the boys.  The boys would giggle and smirk as they ran towards the girls.  Jay and Lily stood in the center, managing the orchestra of taggers.  "Go get him!"  "Run away from her!"  They both giggled.

On the last day of school this year, Jay came home defeated.  "You didn't buy a yearbook Mama!"  Apparently every mother in school purchased one and this was the year that Lily and Jay had a half-page spread with their arms around each other on the school playground.  Mother cusser, I dropped the ball again and am out of the running for "Mother of the year" award.  Bygones.

The most fascinating thing about parenting is watching your child grow from year-to-year and evolving into someone so incredible.

Last year I was secretly proud that my son saw what a waste of money it was to have a birthday party.  "Just give me the cash you would spend on pizza and cake."  My future investment banker said.  I thought he was brilliant then.  This year I was surprised to learn that he decided to have a party.  "I don't want money.  I just want to have a fun time with my friends at the pool." Pretty brilliant for a soon-to-be-eight-year-old to decide that friendship is more important then money.  We sat together one evening designing the invitations, we wrote out the mailing labels, we included every boy in his class even THE biggest bully much to his dismay, he stamped our address label on the back of each invite and I smiled in result of his contagious energy.  "Yay!  We're gonna have a party!"

"But. What about Lily?"

"It's a boys-only party for your class.  Even your sisters will be gone.  This is all about you, handsome."

"I really want Lily there."

"Here's an envelope.... address it to her."

And so he did.  The kid who hates to color and for the last two years of his elementary school report card teachers have complained that he "doesn't pay enough attention to detail" and often times "forgets to color in all the white spaces" and "is bored when asked to color" spent a long time designing Lily's envelope.

"Do you think she will like it, Mama?  Do you think she will notice it?"

"I know that I would LOVE it, Jay.  It's beautiful."