five fingers, five years for seb
i received an email from "P", reminding me that my annual assessments of the four pillars of joy are either overdue or near due. yikes. so here you are.
STARRING: sebastian.
at five years old, sebastian sems to be on an exciting cusp. on the one hand, he wants to be little.he still prefers to play, has no interest in learning to ride a bicyle without stabilisers, and prefers a world of superheroes than sports heroes and teams. he tends to like kids younger than him, and possibly this is because of the environment he is around.
yet while he can appear so very young, sebastian sometimes asks questions that remind me he is no average five year old.
"mummy, why do i have to live forever in heaven? couldn’t i spend more time on earth and see more of it?"
his glance is cool and unflinching when he asks questions like these. he crosses his fingers carefully and looks at me. he can wait. no hurry with the answer.
he is adopting little "airs" and is trying them out at home to see the response he gets. crossing his arms and saying, "humph!" in a discontented voice. i love to see this. if i call him on it, "what’s this, sebastian?" he will get defensive, (arms will stay crossed) and claim his right to pique, or he will get a silly smile on his face that suggests he knows his is silly.
he seems to have few properly fitting clothes right now. everything is either hanging off him, or it’s wristbones and ankle bones several inches above fabric. he’s a carrier bag kid, either way, or a rapper, worse luck. next he’ll be dating whitney houston.
when procrastinating bedtime or some equally as unsavoury activity, he will get very amorous.
"i love you so very very very very very very much, mummy" he says, and comes toward me, to plant a kiss on my forehead, the tip of my nose, my cheek, my chin. at times i think he is heading toward my neck. and they’re lingering kisses too (lingering means putting off bedtime, good strategy!).
his hair is rapidly turning darker. there is nothing shiny blonde about his hair any more. it is a light brown. given that his eyes are my colour, i don’t know why it surprises me that sebastian’s hair is likely to turn my colour. i suppose i always thought of him as a blonde boy.
he can bully the triplets, push past them and declare their property his, but among his peers he is quite thoughtful. or as thoughtful as the next five year old, how’s that? he is popular amongst his friends. he has really come on socially in the past year. small world did that for him.
his accent is all over the shop. sometimes i think he sounds like he is from new york. he certainly doesn’t sound canadian, or american, but there are a couple of words, that when he pronounces them, come out SO manhattan. a friend raised her eyebrow and said, "be grateful it’s not bronx." you heard him on that cake making thing, he is all over. but he enounciates very carefully. i find that extraordinarily endearing.
sebastian still loves books and being read to. no big changes there since last year except this year he is reading, except…he doesn’t want to. too much effort!!!
his six pack and muscles are fantastic. what a little sinewy boy! so proud of him. he runs long distances and doesn’t get winded. sprints aren’t his thing, distances are. he is very much like his father. actually, he is very much like his father in many respects. people say he looks less like charles than he used to, but i have yet to see anything except his eyes (which may deepen unless they want to get bulgy like lyons eyes) that are too lyons-like. i actually think sebastian looks like his grandad doug more than he looks like charles. now, doug and charles are meant to be twins as well, but there are differences.
sebastian is still a daddy’s boy. mum is the disciplinarian, but also the one seb walks to park and shop with and who does neat things with him, but daddy is the hero of the house. seb loves his father. easy to do, really.
five words to describe sebastian? ( i will leave out lovable, etc.. you know they are in there)
honest
deliberate
shy
insightful
maths inclined
he is becoming such a nice little boy. but he does have his drawbacks. right now, in no uncertain order:
1) he hums the theme song from superman INCESSANTLY
2) believes it takes 36 squares of toilet roll to wipe his bottom following a poopers
3)is a frightful tattle tale on his siblings
4) has figured out that if he sits up in bed and our bedroom door is open and we are watching television, then he can watch tv too. the other night we were halfway through the shawshank redemption and during a fight scene i heard him gasp.
5) has a very good memory and can remember when i said, "nobody is going to have another sweetie" and calls me on it five mintues later when i am licking chocolate flakes off the now empty wrapper. "but mumm-eh! you said…"
he has actually stopped calling me mumm-eh. i am often just "mum". wow. does the shortened name mean i have a diminished role in his life? i hope not, because sebastian blake caldwell is just gorgeous.
