Six

Each day, he brings home a folder and his teacher has colored in that day's bucket on a paper calendar.

Green for a good day.
Yellow if there was a problem of some sort.
Red for something serious.

He came home from school with a yellow bucket in his folder. I imagine his teacher - in trying to briefly explain what had happened - felt slightly exasperated at finding the right words.

"Just silly", she wrote.

"Max", my husband called him into the kitchen.

Max came running into the room.

"You got a yellow bucket today, bud."

Max - without a second of hesitation and with a spark in his eye replied, "Yeah, but I made the whole class laugh."

We looked at each other. Bit our tongues in an all out FAIL at trying to hold it together. Looked back at the proud smile on his face and did everything we could to drum up some appropriate parenting skills while our instincts were blatantly failing us.

"That was me, you know?", my husband said shaking his head.

"Well", I replied, "you turned out alright."

"Yeah, well, let's just hope he doesn't discover what blue duct tape can do when stuck to the girl's hair who's sitting in front of him."

Happy 6th Birthday to our Max - our chubby-cheeked toddler who has grown into a marvelous boy.

May your yellow buckets turn green.

And, may you never find the duct tape.

But, may you never lose your love for making others laugh.