E-Man Turns Six

When E-Man turned one, we had a small party, and I remember that his favorite gifts were all kinds of toy balls. "Ball," incidentally, was one of his first words.

At two, it was trains. We had a great big party with tons of friends, a musical instrument parade and the hokey pokey. A friend of mine made an amazing train cake, that took her two-full-days or so to decorate. My parents gave him a GeoTrax set that has seen tons of use over the years.

At three, he was obsessed with his favorite color -- green. So, I decided to do a "green" party. We had a giant sugar-cookie fish covered in kiwi scales, flower cookies on popsicle sticks, green gak, and party bags full of green favors. I use to take Soph and E-Man to story time at the library all the time when they were younger. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his "green" party, he said, "Go to the library!" I called the library, and they were so kind as to host a special story time for him and his party guests.

E-Man turned four in China. We did things to make it special, like making him a giant homemade "Happy Birthday" banner, buying him cupcakes that looked like little animal creatures, and taking him to McDonald's (which, incidentally, is more special when you live overseas for some reason). We had two friends over for cake that night and he got a really, really cool remote controlled Jeep. It was fun, but, small.

When he turned five last year, we had two more kids living with us and his birthday was sandwiched between M's birthday (one of the girls), Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas while I was just trying to keep up with the laundry generated by five kids. He wanted to have a costume party, and, we put together one of those gingerbread house kits from Costco. It was fine, but I just didn't feel that I gave it my all (since, I was seriously spread so thin).

I was feeling guilty because E-Man's parties have been a little sub-par the last two years. I decided this would be his year for the Big One.

I told him he could choose to have his party at Chuck E. Cheese -- the new one in Layton -- (I'm not a big fan of the pizza, but my kids LOVE this place so much). Or, we could rent the gymnastics building for the day (a few of our friends have done these parties and it's so much fun for the kids to run wild on the trampolines, climb ropes to the ceiling, dance with the giant parachute and get buried in the foam pit -- serious non-stop kid fun). I didn't know how he would even be able to choose between two things he loves so much.

But, E-Man had his own thing in mind. Way to be original and not sell-out to the commercialized industry E-Man. For his party, he simply wanted a pinata and to make gingerbread houses. I explained that neither location would be amenable to the pinata, and he didn't care. So, we planned a party at home.

I don't know when I've seen anyone so excited for a birthday before. He talked about it every day for three weeks. Every night, we had to write in his journal how many days were left until his birthday. On the big day, he woke up with STREP THROAT!!!

I felt so bad for the little guy. Fortunately, we got right in to the Dr., got the antibiotics going, and were able to postpone his party by only one day.

Aside from waking up with strep, it was a fun morning because we let him open his Iron Man mask and disc shooter first thing (trying to cheer him up), and my cute friend showed up in the morning with a whole bunch of cooked bacon (so cute, my kids love bacon). The rest of the day was uneventful, until that night when we bought Kung Fu Panda and watched it to try to at least do one thing special before the day ended.

The party day, I'm happy to say, could not have been better. The weather (amazingly, for mid-November) was spectacular. I had pre-assembled 16 little graham cracker houses. The kids showed up and had a great time covering them in frosting and candy. Then, we headed out back for the eyeball pinata. Photoguy raked up 6 bags of leaves to clear a spot for the candy to land. It was so fun to see how e-x-c-i-t-e-d five and six-year-olds are about a pinata. My sister-in-law made an amazing 3-D race car cake and E-Man got tons of cool presents. It feels like we've already had Christmas around here.

After the two-hour party, two of my best friends and their kids came over to make more houses, and we ended up having people and fun at our house for 3 1/2 more hours. You could tell it was a successful and super fun party by the condition of our house at the end of the day.

The Sunday before his birthday, E-Man also had a fun party at Photoguy's parents' house. And the Sunday after, we had cake and ice-cream and more great gifts at my parents' house. Wow! What an awesome way to turn six! No more guilt for this momma. E-Man had a fabulous birthday.

Dear E-Man,

The first time I saw you, I noticed your dimples and I've been madly in love with dimples ever since. On that first day of your life, we all noticed your long fingers too. "Piano hands," grandma N. said. "Basketball hands," dad said. Perhaps they were both right. But, this year, you've showed us that you do have a love for the piano. In six short lessons, you've almost finished the first two books! At your last lesson, you passed off 20-pages. We are so proud of your dedication to this talent. The first time your piano teacher looked at your hands she said, "You have beautiful piano hands."

You are the master of numbers. Just after you turned five, you counted all the way to 750, and you would have kept going if we hadn't stopped you (You'd been counting for about an hour by then). You are always amazing me with your math mind.

When you were one-and-a-half you amazed me by talking in complete sentences, and you've been impressing me with your thoughtful questions and insights ever since. It is such a joy to be your mom. You've always been a great peacemaker, never raising a hand to hit another child even when you were little, and even when littler kids hit you first. I'm so proud of the way you run to hold the doors open for everyone as they exit the church building on Sundays. You are a fine gentleman and everything I'd hoped for in a son. Happy sixth birthday E-Man!

Love,

Mom