My dad wrote me not long ago, a card for my birthday. He wrote how he remembered when I was 5, and celebrating birthdays at church, in Brooklyn. Bright memories.

Now here I am, a mom, with a boy that is 5. People have come up to me and said, “Enjoy this age, it goes by fast.” And I think, like me, he will move on, and leave his parents behind, like he should. He’ll have new experiences and growth, that I will not be part of. And that’s ok.

But, in my mind, I will be stuck here, when he is 5. I’ll remember the good and the cuteness, the small rocks he put in my pockets, and questions like, “Is God nocturnal?” I’ll remember him putting boxes on his head, and taping nets to his arms. How he’d tantrum if I don’t hold him, at 5. How, instead of me picking him up, he’d jump into my arms, and hug me in a strangle-hold.