You’re 6.
Where does the time go.
I don’t know … maybe you use it for fuel? Because we’re still trying to figure out where you get all of that energy from.
When we started planning your birthday, well, the world happened. Job changes. COVID.
Whatever suggestion we made for your birthday, you responded with the all-time classic Jaanu “shore”. Which, if you’ve never heard before, sounds like it’s somewhere between a sarcastic dismissal and the most sincere buy-in to a suggestion one can make.
Anyone who knows you, knows you’ve found a way to do and feel both at the same time.
What you really wanted all along is what you shared with us, just like last year: “I want our family to be together, just like last year.”
Now if you remember last year, it was an epic failure of a birthday getaway. Yet you don’t; and actually, because of you, most of us remember a hiccup in the venue and location but also remember the extraordinary time we had when we got back together.
So this year, we leaned into creating space for the family to be together.
And we did.
And we were.
And we laughed a ton.
At LEGOLand Resort. At home with the family after. And then with your friends, in a bit of impromptu birthday singing at the Metuchen Pool.
As we look back on you and who you are, the thing I share with everyone who asks about you is the same thing: “Nobody in the world makes me laugh as hard and as often as Jaanu”.
I wish I was the only one to believe that, but your energy, performances and relentless slapstick comedy keeps our house light and laughing even when sometimes, we just don’t want to. At some point you’ll read this when you’re older and I’m putting it here: the number of times your Mama and I are trying to discipline you for something and you say some ridiculous things that make us laugh, can’t be counted or tracked. Really. The person who’s talking to you has to keep a straight face while the other one of us gets to laugh silently in a part of the house where you can’t see us.
Homie. This happens weekly!
Today you Make Me Proud Because of the way you make the world feel and laugh. But what I love most about how you make people laugh, and how you’re able to make people laugh, is that it comes from who you are. You feel feelings deeply. There’s nothing superficial to you. There’s no show or artifice. So the reason you make people laugh is because you yourself are feeling that joy so deeply, at that moment.
And that’s Money.
As you emerge into Age 6, I’m excited to watch you harness that joy, and to start creating space for yourself to feel all of your other emotions at their fullest, without feeling the need to wallow in them. You’re too wonderful a kid not to allow yourself more space and grace to feel tired, to feel hurt, to feel sad, or just, to feel responsible for bringing joy to everyone.
Just because you can and have, doesn’t mean you’re required to.
You, Jaanu, are the life and joy every family needs and deserves. Know that your Mama and I count our blessings for you every moment of every day.
Between fits of laughter of course.
I mean really … who eats like this?
Suneet Bhatt 