Six

Six is a very significant birthday. At least, it feels that way to me. In just the short month that Jack has been six, Jared and I have commented to each other on numerous occasions how much we love six year olds.

Here is he capturing the art of multi-tasking: politely listening to birthday wishes from Nona on the phone, while obliging mom with the obligatory birthday picture pose.

This poem seems to capture my sentiments exactly:

Now We Are Six

When I was one
I had just begun
When I was two
I was nearly new
When I was three
I was hardly me
When I was four
I was not much more
When I was five
I was just alive
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever;
so I think I'll be six now
for ever and ever

-A.A. Milne

He is just so, so… I am grasping for the right word here- interesting?, maybe. Yes, I think that is it, he is interesting. He is fun to talk to- aside from the fact that he knows everything. Most conversations go like this:

Jack: “Daddy, why do we have earthquakes?”

Daddy: “Oh, well, that is because the earth is made of different plates, and as-"

Jack: “-ya- and, of course, when the plates move a little it makes the earth move too.”

Daddy: “Mmmhmm.”

Birthday morning

Jared has been reading with Jack for as long as the kid has let him. But picture books are giving way to chapter books and Greek mythology- and they both just love it- can’t get enough.

Jack is still constantly being distracted by books. Like right now, he was in here looking at video with me, I asked him to go get changed out of his school clothes, and he saw the Greek Mythology book and has been looking at it for the last 15 minutes. It is all wonderful and endearing unless you actually need him to get something done.

Birthday breakfast.

To me this breakfast choice demonstrates his personality. What child when faced with the choice of a powdered doughnut, a coconut-sugar-crusted doughnut or a plain doughnut, chooses plain? Just this one.

For his birthday we invited some friends over, and for the sake of good record keeping they were: Kolby Bradshaw, Spencer Garret, Ethan Doller, Caleb Wood, Parker Brown, Cael Jarvis, Dallin Hutcheon, all from the neighborhood, and Kent Partridge and Katie from his Kindergarten class.

I filled up over 100 water balloons and we played a variety of games adapted to the use of water balloons. Like, water balloon freeze tag, hot potato with a water balloon, and water balloon soccer.

I made a star cake and the kids all brought a present for Jack to open. It was wonderful and fun. He has such great friends here, and has made some really good friends at school.

He has become very imaginative and a true boy loving all things guns and Star Wars and destruction.

We absolutely adore this kid and couldn’t be more proud of him.

Birthday Girl

Some days seem to pass so slowly. Often you spend an entire day thinking it is Friday, but it is only Thursday.

But on the day you celebrate the first birthday of your darling baby you simply cannot believe time has gone by so quickly. At least, I can't.

My grandmother, who herself will turn 96 next month, often tells me how quickly time goes by. She can no longer work in the yard, she can no longer drive, she can barely even dress herself or make her own meals- but she can clearly remember what it was like to be young and vibrant. When she spent hours at her grandmother's house speaking Italian. When she went dancing every weekend at the Trenaum (sp?) Ballroom in Seattle.


Eleanor is such a joy. She is so happy and content. She loves the stairs- thinks she can go both ways but can really only go up. So when you start to chase her up to bring her back down she "runs" or just crawls up as fast as she can go, laughing hysterically.

She is getting really good at putting something inside something else. A cup and a car or a ball can entertain her for quite sometime.

She loves the toilet. And, very unfortunately, Henry can't ever remember to put the lid down...

This is representative of a classic "I told you so" moment- but Jared didn't need to say it because I had to clean up the chocolate pie.

See, I am of the persuasion that babies should be allowed to do everything reasonable, this includes playing in the refrigerator. You know, unloading and loading (OK, mostly unloading) the door of all the dressings and sauces, helping empty the dishwasher by throwing all the clean silverware on the floor (I remove the knives, of course)- stuff like that.

But, Jared thinks that sometimes I let them do too much. Well, in this case I forgot that there was a chocolate pie (thanks Sal and Edna!) on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, and sure enough, she pulled the whole thing down on herself, and all over everything.

Similar example below, where I left the applesauce (that she wanted nothing to do with off a spoon from me only minutes earlier) too close to the edge of the table. She LOVED it- was shoveling it into her mouth as fast as possible. So, I stuck her in her seat with the bib on to save what was left of her dress, and gave her more...

which she put in her hair...

More pictures....

This is on her birthday, in her birthday dress (thanks Aunt Allie!!)

Lastly, a year in review video.
If you don't want to watch it all, fast forward to the end to watch her have her birthday cake- though I am not sure which is more entertaining, her eating or the boys getting so excited about her eating.

Not shown in the video is how for three or four evenings Jared and I would just help her walk back and forth between us. When she would walk from Jared to me, as soon as she was "safe" she would whip her head around and give Daddy a huge smile, as if to say, "Did you see that? Did I do it Daddy?" She basked in his love and admiration.