Monday morning, we were standing in the kitchen and Jaidan turned to his brother and said, "Kyan! I'm five now!" He was so excited that it was his birthday and so excited to be five. I love the excitement young children have as it gets closer and closer to their day. Sure, it can also make you crazy -- like the week before when they run down the stairs everysinglemorning yelling, "SIX MORE DAYS!" or when they make up their extra special "kinda like Michael Jackson" it's-almost-my-birfday dance. But it's their day and it's the only holiday out of the whole year that belongs to them and only them. So it's very important to me for it to be special. I hope each of my children can grow up having wonderful memories about their birthdays. I hope we have implemented traditions that one day they'll want to carry on with their own children.
We began celebrating Jaidan's birthday on Sunday evening. We let him pick anywhere he wanted to go for dinner and, since he is a five-year-old and all, we ended up at McDonald's.
As much as it sucks to see my baby grow up fast, I can't really lie. I'm ready for the days when birthday dinners include restaurants with actual waiters, real glasses, and no dollar menu.
After Mickey Donny's (as it's known at our place), we went home for presents and cake. I remember when I was buying this kid shape sorters and teethers. Now he's getting Batman and monster trucks and Nerf guns? What happened? Where the heck did time goooooo?
Wanna know another then vs. now?
I bought the gifts for Jaidan's first birthday at least a month in advance. I'm thinking it was further in advance then that. Wanna know how far in advance I bought them this year? A day. The night before. I'm not sure if this is an example of what happens when you have three kids or what happens when your kids are a whole hand old as opposed to just one finger.
When Jaidan (finally) went to sleep Sunday night, it was time for me to get busy. Last year, I started the tradition of decorating their rooms the night before their birthdays. So when the Birthday Child wakes up the first thing he sees is streamers and balloons. Last year, Kyan woke up before Jaidan and proceeded to destroy everything I'd done. This year, he crawled into my bed around 2:00 in the morning. When I woke up, I checked on the decorations and found not a single balloon out of place. Since Kyan was already out of the room, I took it upon myself to take the decorating one step further:
We woke him up by singing "Happy Birthday" then made him bust through the streamers.
Since we didn't do a traditional birthday party, Monday was dedicated to being "Jaidan's Day of Fun." We started things off at Toys 'R' Us since his birthday money was burning a hole in Jaybird's pocket. Then it was lunch at the place of his choice -- Pizza Hut (because he could eat as much pizza as he wanted AND have a salad, a salad that he did not eat because he's a lettuce snob and thumbs his nose at anything that's not Romaine).
We left Pizza Hut and entered . . . the third realm of Hell (known as Chuck E. Cheese in some cultures). Apparently, it was Home School Day at Chuck's because there were several school aged children brats running around. I'm not exactly sure what pizza and 25 cent games have to do with school but whatever. The kids had fun. And at the end of the day we'd garnered enough tickets to purchase . . . a sheet of Super Hero stickers and a roll of sweet tarts. (Chuck is a little stingy with those tickets).
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She wanted another basketball to the point that she was willing to crawl INTO the game to get it. She's so . . . pretty. |
After Chuck E's we headed to THE PARK. <==== Capitalized because that's exactly how my children say it. They love the park so it was the perfect exclamation point at the end of Jaidan's Day of Fun.
The following photo is proof to you that asshole four-year-olds to do not magically morph into, you know, non assholes when they flip the page and turn five:
How can you look that angry when you're eating ICE CREAM?
I realize that this is the longest blog post in the history of ever, but I have one more tradition to add. This is something I found on Pinterest (duh - where else?) and decide to start it up with Jaidan this year. I plan on doing it every year with each of the kids. I wrapped up 12 (very small) presents for him to open up on the hour every hour until 7:37 p.m. (the exact time he was born). It was just small things -- temporary tattoos, stickers, pencils, etc. It was fun though and gave him something to look forward to each hour. (Look forward to to the point that he even opened one of them up early . . . grrr).
