It’s Saturday morning and I wake up and… it’s inevitable. I’m five today.
I put on my “Toddler Suit.” Matching sweatshirt and sweatpants, top to bottom blue. Everything stretchy, not a button or zipper in sight. Appropriately, the footwear for this outfit is my Mickey Mouse Vans. They slip on.
I migrate to the living area. I pour myself a bowl of COCOA KRISPIES—healthbedamned— and proceed to spend the morning watching cartoons and playing GameCube. Yes, GameCube.
What do I want for lunch? CHICKEN NUGGETS AND CHOCOLATE MILK.
What do I want to do in the afternoon? GO SEE THE NEW LEGO MOVIE AND THEN GO TO THE ZOO. If the polar bears are asleep, I may cry.
Will I throw a pillow at you? 100% chance.
Will I clean my room? Absolutely not, unless there are promises of ice cream.
Who do I love? Woody from Toy Story, unironically despite the pun possibilities in his name.
How do I walk? It’s a mix between the little-girl-wearing-a-yellow-sweatshirt-interrupting-her-dad-on-BBC and “My Legs Are Long.”
I really, really love straws and want to read a comic book but mostly just look at the pictures and also “what are we going to do that’s fun today?!?!”
Like any self-respecting kid, I hyper-fixate on a single song, movie, or book and keep on that obsession until you want to set it on fire as if it’s a Berenstein Bears book that was free at a book fair because no one would buy a Berenstain Bears book.
I laugh at poop jokes, am incapable of sitting up properly, and will likely fall asleep somewhere random once I stay still for longer than two seconds.
At night, despite having done nothing productive and having been cranky and tired all day, I make a huge stink about showering and going to bed. I bargain with you— let’s stay up just a little bit longer and watch The Muppets or Looney Tunes or The Phantom Menace but not Monsters Inc because it’s scary (by which I mean it will make me cry) and you have to admit that that’s a good idea, and even agree to make popcorn.
By the time the movie’s over, it’s time to stumble to bed and honestly I hardly make it. I eat my gummy vitamins and whimper as I brush my teeth.
And one more time I ask “What are we going to do that’s fun tomorrow?” except this time I know full well that it’s time to be five plus twenty and not just five anymore.
But please leave a light on. I’m scared of the dark.