Dear Martin,
I have loved you since the moment you arrived, but each day as you get older I love you more and more.  Today you turn five, turning the corner from little boy into a KID.  We've been celebrating your birthday for about a month now and I bet that starting tomorrow you'll be counting down the days until you are six.

You have become such a funny boy.  I mean you really crack me up, and not just in a little kid kind of way anymore.  Today, after noticing that your dad was in the bathroom for a long time you went to the door and asked him if he was a poop factory.  I mean, that's funny.  And also observant, because you are right, he is a poop factory.

You have learned so much this year.  When you were four, I knew that you knew all of the letters of the alphabet but you just could never be bothered to say them all in the proper order.  You started to write your name, but you were satisfied with using only the M and A and just leaving it at that, as if to say that everyone would know who you were anyway.  But now, for some reason, you've decided that writing is cool and you love to write out everything.  I spend a good part of every day spelling out words and reading the new words that you've created.

In the past few days, you've discovered the fun in rhyming, which I always have thought was kind of fun too.  This morning you told me about two words that rhymed and it was a combination I'd never considered before (and I can't for the life of me remember what it was, I'm hoping you do because the next time I hear it I'm going to write it down - it was that good).  It was then that I decided that you were BRILLIANT.
Edited to add THE rhyme: SYRUP AND EUROPE!

Since we were on a rhyming roll I introduced you to The Name Game without really thinking.  And now I'm afraid that I'm going to be sorry because I don't know if we'll ever get to sing another song again.

You have hardly gained any weight this year although you've gotten taller.  You eat plenty, I think it's just that you're always moving.  Like ALL OF THE TIME.  Some days I would describe you as "high energy" and occasionally "exhausting", but for the most part it's just fun trying to keep up with you.

You have a wide variety of interests and are very willing to do things with your dad and me that we enjoy.  You love to help me cook, happily playing my sous chef, chopping ingredients and making up your own recipes.  You have set up your own work area in our office and spend time each day on the laptop.  You have your own login and have figured out how to do all kinds of things.  One day I noticed that you had somehow taken a page from pbskids.org and turned it into your wallpaper - and I still have no idea how you did that.  I think this means that you probably have an aptitude for computer related things, just like your dad.  Tonight you told me that if I need any help, I could go to martin.com and for a moment I could actually see it in your future.

You are easy to love.  I'm proud of who you are and can't wait to watch you grow.


Love,
Momma