Andy had a big week last week. We started off with the feast of one of his patrons, Pope Saint John Paul II -- the Great -- on Monday. Feast days equal dessert days, and are therefore a Big Deal. Katie, who is rapidly becoming The Resident Baker, whipped up a batch of snickerdoodles in honor of the occasion.
Then Thursday was his 6th birthday. Unfortunately it was just another work day in some ways; Miriam had class, so we still had to haul ourselves out of bed early so Miriam could discuss bones with her advanced biology class for 2 hours. (Her teacher, who is now a practicing physician, used to play rugby of all things. So he had all kinds of stories about all the bones he broke when he was younger. His poor mother.) Actually, Andy didn't really mind -- while Miriam is looking at slides of cells or speaking Spanish we get to hang out in the nursery (classes are held in a very hospitable church's basement classrooms) and play with all the toys. Since birthdays are automatic holidays in our house, I didn't bring any school to do. So Andy and Dominic got to play with friends and eat snacks and cupcakes that we brought to share. Not too bad a deal.
After a lunch of crepes with strawberries and whipped cream another friend whose birthday was earlier in the week had a party at the park that afternoon, so we got to hang out with more friends and eat cake. (October parties at the park are always a gamble -- thankfully the weather cooperated and it wasn't too cold or windy that day.) (We also got a couple weird looks from the other moms there who were with their sweet little tiny tots, as our ginormous crew of 14 obviously school-aged children took over the playground.) And THEN Daddy came home early and made pizza for dinner and we had MORE cupcakes for dessert. Add to that that he got just what he wanted for his presents and he got to choose what video game everyone played that evening, you have one happy six year old. When I asked him at the end of the day how his birthday went, he said, "AWEsome." (Actually, it was more like "awethome" because of that adorable little lisp.)
Then on Saturday we had a little party for him with all the usual suspects (best friends, neighbors). I wasn't involved in the planning of it, but apparently I ought to have been -- there were a couple details that weren't decided until the last second, and the activities were not very well regulated (at one point we had bored kids wandering around the house). Well, lessoned learned: always double-check the plan. At any rate, Andy was happy and loved being with his friends, so that's what really mattered.
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| he wanted chocolate cake with strawberry icing and sprinkles and a rainbow made out of jellybeans. (that icing was AWESOME -- I was eating it straight out of the bowl) |
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| the requisite Silly Picture |
He is also obsessed with swear words. Not that he SAYS them, he just tells me often about the one or two times he heard someone say (a mild) one. When he gets mad he says "STUPID!" which I guess is the six-year-old equivalent of a swear word.
He is also obsessed with weaponry of every kind. Everything he plays with turns into a weapon eventually. We have a lovely wooden educational set of letters of word boards -- all those little letters have been guns and bombs and bad guys for a long time -- I don't think they're ever actually used for their intended purpose. So for his birthday he wanted a gun with a scope. I REFUSED to buy the dart sniper rifle he saw in Walmart (really, Nerf??? I lived in DC in 2002!) but we found a cool Star Wars nerf dart blaster that makes laser sounds, and also has a scope. And the darts glow in the dark. So, yeah, way cooler and better than the future-terrorist-in-training toy.
We have fun speculating about what Andy will be when he grows up. He definitely likes all his ducks in a row -- and if you gave him some toy ducks, that would be proved literally. He understands the whole "place for everything and everything in its place" thing instrinsically, which is awesome. It's always nice for a mother of a large family to have one ally in the battle against total chaos!
We'll see what this year brings for Andy!
