Gloria in Excelsis Deo: Joseph Turns Six!

Happy birthday to Joseph Anthony, my only baby ever to have golden curls, who is now six years old!

Now We Are Six
By A. A. Milne

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.

Joseph at four days old--five pounds and twice the size of my paperback

Joseph was my littlest baby, even falling below six pounds after his delivery, but he's certainly been one of my most energetic kids!

I want to encourage any mothers earlier on the path to keep instilling your family traditions because your oldest children, young though they may be, are watching you. My 7-, 10-, and 12-year-old kids ("older" in this household) stood in for me in so many ways for Joseph's birthday when they saw me stretched so thin, forgetting our very own traditions, and unable to fulfill them anyway. Without my asking, the day before the children found Joe's stack of gifts and wrapped them for me. The night before, when I was running a difficult bedtime routine alone, my two big girls remembered to decorate the birthday boy's chair . . . and look at his beaming face at their simple decorations made of colored Post-It Notes and white printer paper cut into paper chains with blue painter's tape because we were out of regular Scotch tape! I am so grateful I taught my children what traditions I could when I did because now they step in for me.

It was a bustling school day and Chris had to leave on a business trip, so we had a birthday breakfast celebration. I could not have added in to my regular morning housekeeping chores, caring for three little boys, and making of the regular breakfast an extra 45 minutes to bake something special, so Mary requested to wake up at six to make Joseph a breakfast applesauce cake. This year, the children insisted we adopt a new tradition we borrowed from the Bates' family TV show: we "gave praises before presents," which means that each family member praised the birthday child. I had all of us write down the praises ahead of time and read them aloud, so now Joseph can keep those and remember the kindnesses. And after all that, he got to open his gifts.

Sister Margaret wrote a private joke into her card to him . . .

For years, I have gathered the children a couple of weeks ahead of every birthday and every Christmas to have them go in together on a gift for each sibling (and the other parent). This takes actual brain cells that work and remember, of which I am in increasingly short supply. This year, I simply did not remember . . . but all three older siblings remembered ahead of time to buy birthday gifts for Joseph, which they managed on their own. Mamas, I encourage you to keep instilling your traditions because those children are watching and learning! It brings tears to my eyes.

Joseph is halfway through his Kindergarten year and is learning how to read very well. He enjoys learning phonics, math, and catechism from me, while he does penmanship and listens to any read-alouds I assign with his sister Mary each day, and he does his daily piano practice with his brother John. Joseph is a boy of great passions: he feels big, whether good or bad, and he's a peacemaker who tries to bring fighting siblings together.

Josey's faith has begun blossoming these last months, I've noticed, as he asks me the Big Questions about God. He has assembled in the boys' bedroom a little "holy collection" which he guards carefully.

And I noted this week at Confession how carefully he occupied his little brother, putting Thomas' head on his lap, and whispering to him about the meaning of the various stained glass windows in the church.