To Paul: this is how you spent the day you turned 6 years and 8 months old.
You arrive at my side in the living room chair at 6:35, making gentle peeping noises. You’ve gotten dressed and are ready for some morning comfort. Annie arrives a couple minutes later bearing the Norse mythology book, and we pick up where we left off the night before, with the tale of Thor and the jotun Hymir. Dad fills out a waiver for the City of Austin swim lessons you’ll start during school next week, and makes chocolate chip pancakes. We finish up The Death of Balder over breakfast.
Yesterday you and Annie received new digital watches, with pedometers, and you’re fascinated by your step count. You run in place and do laps around the kitchen island to boost your score, and we head out early on the walk to school to log as many as you can. On Sunset you hand me your backpack in order to demonstrate your top speed.
Dad and Annie catch up with us here, and we proceed to school, making our usual check of the mulberry tree for any ripe berries (still not quite). A step count check finds you with the family lead, at 1500 or so steps. Your spirits are high.
Annie asks you to stay with us on the final stretch to school instead of running ahead as you’ve begun to do. We meet your friend Dean with his mom and brother, dismounting from their bikes, and you happily hook up with them and show off your watch. You vanish ahead of us, absorbed into the student scrum.
You burst out of the gym after school, full of song, and eager to compare step counts. I’ve got an edge on you thanks to a jog, but at least you’re ahead of Annie, who studiously does not care. We rack up a few hundred more on the walk home, and you and Dad adjorn immediately for the tennis courts. Tennis is your latest obsession, and you’re out there as often as we’ll agree to a game.
You watch some videos on your tablet (the Epic app, one from school that’s full of fascinating facts about sea creatures, among other things) while Dad and I dive back under for a final round of workday. Annie opens her last birthday present, a book from Granddad and Susu that I’ve wrapped whimsically in a streamer. You chase the streamer around like a cat.
We got to Homeslice for dinner, and sit on the patio in the beautiful weather. You and I play a dozen games of tic tac toe on your kids menu, and you shape your complimentary dough ball into a person (my selection) and a little doggy (yours). We discover there is a fully-stocked ping pong table now in the back, so you get a bonus round of racket sports. Annie works on her photography skills with you as her subject.
A lemon ice tops off your tummy, and we head home for a bath. Dad executes one with major bubbles, and you get squeaky clean. He reads to you from a book about sea creatures, though you tune in now and then to Annie’s bedtime story of Ragnarok (soothing!). We say goodnight to the two of you, piled together into your bed for the final descent.