what's so great about six

The End

When I was One,

I had just begun.

When I was Two,

I was nearly new.

When I was Three

I was hardly me.

When I was Four,

I was not much more.

When I was Five,

I was just alive.

But now I am Six,

I'm as clever as clever,

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

There are a lot of things in my life that make me smile. I live in Malaysia, down the streeet from a business with a large banner reading, "foot sense hot dip"- your guess is as good as mine. I deal with people like the lawncare man who arrives in his beat-up old car with golden idols on the dashboard, and smilingly asks my daughter, "Is Mother home?" I still get a charge out of being adressed as Auntie by children I have never even met. I absolutely LOVE ending up in a traffic jam behind a police car bearing the official bumper sticker. "Don't Bribe Me."

But what makes me smile most often these days is having a daughter who is six. I love six. I love six year old teeth, with their huge gaps and crazy angles - the quintessential "homeless person" mouth. I love the lisping and the constant wiggling of teeth with the tongue. I love helping write notes to the tooth fairy asking her to please leave the tooth AND the money.

I love answering six year old questions, and contemplating the really important issues of life that they so often raise. In the last two days I have been asked: "Aren't you ever sad, Mommy? Because I never see you cry." "Does God know I am afraid to die?" "Why is drawing so much fun?" "Why are geese afraid of foxes?" "Then are animals afraid to die?" "Where is the Garden of Eden?""When did people start talking in different languages?" "Do you think I am spoiled because I live in Malaysia?" "What does being spoiled mean?"

I love six year old books. I love getting to read Little House on the Prairie again, and Just So Stories and A Little Princess. I love Beatrix Potter and fairy tales and Bible stories that are still exciting and new. I love six-year old songs - the original ones which she croons while she plays and the old standards like The Fox Went Out on a Stormy Night which everyone in my house is singing these days.

I love watching a six year old discover the mysteries of reading. I love having to wait in the grocery store while she puzzles out a word on the back of a cereal box. I love finding phonetically spelled messages all over the house.

I love living with a person who gets excited about playing in the huge mud puddle left in our yard after a thunderstorm and tells me stories with homemade sock puppets. I love getting invited to secret places like the jungle behind the living room curtains with a waterfall made from a sparkly blue scarf, a stuffed monkey swinging from a scarf-vine, a crayoned dragon fly suspended with masking tape between a chair and the window. I love making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and going to the zoo and listening to earnest bedtime prayers.

I wish six could last for more than just twelve months!