The Queen's Rambles

We had an intense day of birthday fun today. Erik turned five, which was the big attraction. Elsa turned 6 months, which was barely a blip on our radar. Poor second baby getting short shrift. Not like she really noticed.

Erik had very specific plans for the day that I tried to accommodate as best I could. Shouldn’t a child’s birthday be completely magical?

He wanted a big hunk of chocolate cake for breakfast, which made me shudder. Of course, I always think cake is a great breakfast but motherhood is more of a “do as I say, not as I do” type of thing when it comes to nutrition. Instead of cake, I baked some banana muffins with cocoa powder, oats and whole wheat flour. No frosting. Not that bad, I suppose. My major worry was that he would be sugared up all day and then have a bunch of sugar crashes and end up having a cranky, yucky day. That’s no birthday!

He was very specific about taking green cupcakes to school and the little park down the street, so I ordered three dozen from Safeway even though the baker was confused. “No cupcake cake? Just regular cupcakes? We have regular cupcakes.” Yes, they did. But not green.

That all worked out well and now everyone in Safeway knows he is five and he loves green.

After school we went to a big Moms Club playdate at a friends house and the kids could do some crafty stuff, decorate cupcakes or just play around. Erik managed to stick three stickers on a foam bat before he left the table. He didn’t even want a cupcake (which made me happy). The sugar crash happened at the party and we had to leave early because he threw a metal doll thing and hit a girl in the head. I can’t stand it when he throws things. I will not tolerate it.

On the way home I let him sit in the back row of the van in a regular booster seat instead of his regular five point harness booster. He sits there sometimes and it is no biggie, but today he undid the seatbelt so we had to stop and I had to make him move to his five point harness. Oh the screaming! Oh the wailing!

Not very magical, but I suppose even the most perfect day has to have a little meltdown when you’re dealing with a five year old.

Once home he opened his family gifts and was thrilled beyond measure with a double ended light saber, metal detector, globe, a couple of Wii games and a Darth Vader costume. We could barely pry him away from his gifts to go to his “little park party.” We walked down to the little HOA park at the end of the cul de sac and distributed two dozen cupcakes. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough but a couple of families weren’t there and it worked out perfectly. My mom was really impressed that all the kids were running up to Erik and hugging him (ages 3-15) before they even saw the cupcakes. I love our neighborhood. We have a great group of kids and they all love Erik. What more could I want?

It’s kind of funny that they love him so much. His personality has a lot to do with it. As one of the dads at the preschool told me, the kid has a lot of personality. He’s destined to be class clown or class president or both. But he’s also popular because he’s exotic. There are other white children in our neighborhood, but they live down toward the other end of the road and none of them ever go out to play at the park. Erik is the only blond, blue eyed kid in the bunch and the other kids find it fascinating.

Anyway, where was I?

Ok. Cupcakes for breakfast, preschool cupcakes, playdate, presents, park cupcakes. How many cupcakes does that make? Way, way too many.

I wanted to do something special for dinner, but by the time dinner rolled around we were all pretty exhausted and Erik just wanted to play with his new games and eat cold steak.

Now we just have to get through the next few days, then we might be able to rest. Tomorrow it is pumpkin patch with preschool, Friday is a Moms Club park playdate, Saturday is the big birthday party followed by another big birthday party for one of Mike’s former colleagues. Whew! We will be resting properly on Sunday!

Did I mention my mom is here? That helps so much. Things like laundry and organizing are getting done and I am eternally grateful, even if I can’t find anything now. I’ll learn the system. She has torn apart Erik’s old room and moved things around (all with my blessing–I have plans, but no time to implement them) so I think we’ll be able to start painting Elsa’s new room on Tuesday.