My 5-year-old

Jack's 5th birthday was this week. I don't know why this birthday seems so significant to me. All his birthdays have been important for different reasons, but FIVE just seems like such a milestone. As I told Jack, I remember turning 5 and being so excited. I showed him that on the telephone, the number 5 has the letters JKL on them. And I remember thinking, 5 is MY number because it has the letter J for MY name on it. It's kind of fun that this is something I can share with him.

Perhaps this birthday is so meaningful because I realize this is the last year that I will have him mostly to myself. This is the last year when he will spend most of his waking hours with me. Right now, he only goes to school four hours a day, three days a week. Once he starts kindergarten, he will be gone for 6 1/2 hours a day four days a week and another 4 hours one day. That's such a long time for people other than me or the friends that I've helped him make to be teaching him and influencing him. It breaks my heart a little to think about it.

He already tells me all the time that he misses me when he's at school and particularly when he has to stay the extra hour for lunch. Last year, he loved staying late at school, but this year he tells me that it's too long away from me. I used to joke that the hours that he was in preschool went by too fast, that I didn't really have time to miss him. Next year, I know that I absolutely will.

I'm sure one reason is that Jack has turned into such a fun, funny, wonderful little boy. It's hard to believe this is the same child that I used to dread taking out in public. Don't get me wrong, he still has his moments. But something happened on his birthday that sort of exemplified just how much progress we have made.

We recently signed Jack up for golf lessons. He has gone mini-golfing and to the driving range a few times, and he has so much fun every time. So I figured adding a regularly scheduled physical activity would incorporate some needed structure into our weeks. It is the best thing I could have done with him. He absolutely loves his lessons. He asks how many days away his golf lessons are, and he has already told me that wants to continue once this session is over. It is so fun to see how excited he is about them and how much fun he has when he's there.

The teacher is a very nice young man, but he may be too nice and too young for this particular group of kids. I'll be honest, he seems a little out of his depth with seven students ranging in age from four to eight. In fact, the older kids seem to pose more of a discipline problem for him, and he is so mild-mannered that they don't seem to listen to him when he tells them not to, say, throw the golf balls against the wall or lay down and take a rest on the little putting rug.

Last Wednesday - Jack's birthday - the kids were being really rowdy, and the poor teacher was having a hard time getting them to mind him. So he grabbed an orange golf ball out of his bag and told all the kids to gather round. He said that the every week he was going to give orange golf balls to the kids who listened to whatever he said and did as they were told. He said that this week, only one kid did that, so only one kid would get an orange golf ball. And that kid was... Jack!

I admit, I nearly gasped with surprise and delight. Jack was so proud of himself and so happy to get this golf ball - his "trophy," he kept calling it. He told me that he was going to listen to his teacher every week so that he would get more and more trophies.

It is so gratifying to see that the things that we have been teaching him at home are really starting to pay off when he's out in the world on his own(ish). It's hard to let him grow up, but it's wonderful to see him do it.

Happy birthday, my sweet boy. I love you the most most most most toast.