The first six years
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My daughter is two, and her father crashes the party and sprays green foam-string stuff all over the red decorations I’ve carefully hung with my friends. An older toddler blows out the two candles and screams out in anger when we relight them for the birthday girl. “Two is this,” my daughter tells me, holding up her little fingers in a peace sign.
My daughter is three. She has been waiting for this day as long as she can remember. “Am I going to be big when I am three?” she has asked again and again, and I have said “Yes.” “Big up over the ceiling?” she has asked, and I have nodded and smiled and never thought much about the question. But now she blows out her three candles, instinctively jerks backward from the shock of the cheer, pauses, and bursts into tears. She’d thought she’d grow suddenly–like Alice–big up over the ceiling. But she is still small.
