This Is the Birthday That Never Ends

After a few years of convincing our children that a visit from Grandma and Grandpa totally counts as a birthday party, we decided that we owed them a wee bit of a blowout. 

And so in accordance with our local traditions, we set two dozen or so children loose in a local inflatable thunderdome for a couple hours. 

Not to brag or anything, but this was THE birthday party to be at, at least between the hours of 1:00 and 2:45 pm. The next party started at three and was probably pretty much the same.

Slides, climbing, jumping, bouncing and the sounds of shrieking sweaty children hurling their bodies in every direction because everything is soft and squishy and WE ARE INVINCIBLE UNTIL SOMEBODY FACEPLANTS ON THE CARPET.

(So not kidding about the sweaty part. By the end of the party the children all looked like they'd just run through a car wash.)

Ike, who is — surprise, surprise — turning out to be absolutely FEARLESS, charmed our party hosts into taking him on every piece of equipment approximately 100 million times. After awhile they were just tossing him down the slide free-fall style while he shrieked in delight. 

After a couple hours it became clear that everybody was in dire need of a shitload of sugar.

Luckily we had some on hand. 

So. Okay. We decided on two cakes because 1) it would let us cover both sides of the oft-brutal chocolate vs. vanilla debate, 2) I was not sure I wanted Noah and Ezra crowding and elbowing each other just inches away from open flames, and 3) the bakery described these as "two small rounds," so why the heck not?

They ended up being easily twice as big as we were expecting, but also twice as BADASS AWESOME LOOKING.

Every little boy in attendance (and several of the girls) shrieked at the sight of GREEN NINJA CAKES and I was like, WINNING AT PARTIES AND PARENTHOOD. OR AT LEAST ORDER FORMS AT BAKERIES. 

(Ten minutes later one of those boys pointedly ask me why Noah "chose" to put a bunch of lame erasers in the goody bags, which of course were something I chose, so all coolness points were obviously immediately lost.)

(Though nobody can take away my awesome they-don't-make-licensed-Ninjago-party-merchandise sticker-application skillz.)

We killed one whole cake and about a third of the other. All the leftover slices are vanilla, which of course means they are naturally part of a balanced breakfast. 

So now the High Birthday Season is officially over around here. Until June, anyway, but luckily Ike still doesn't know that many people. Except Grandma and Grandpa. Those guys know how to party. 

Also:

Noah is in heaven. I am in some heavy-duty reinforced combat boots and mourning the official loss of the last uncluttered surfaces in the house. They belong to the Legos, now. Save yourselves. Have some cake.

Eat Like No One's Watching

It's easy to get a little melancholy around their birthdays...I spend a couple days going through photos and videos, watching them grow up in fast-forward mode, feeling alternately proud and wistful while absent-mindedly tugging the sagging, aging skin around my jawline over and up, like a fake facelift, because FOUR. He's FOUR. My baby is four.

So it's good know that some things haven't changed. Much. Yet.

That boy still enjoys the hell out of a good cupcake.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-chip cookies on top. Young minds, BLOWN.

And there it is.

It's like a choco-riffic autopsy.

However, he IS four years old now. So. You know.

Manners.

(Bonus flashback:)

(Aaaaaannnnndddd there's that melancholy all over again. Dang it. Somebody get me a cupcake.)

Four Going On Awesome

Today is Ezra's fourth birthday. Happy birthday, my funny little wonderful Zahbaby, and thanks for still letting me call you that.

He woke up insisting that no, he is NOT four. He is six and a half. He has been waiting his whole life to be six and a half, like Noah was. Apparently he thought once Noah turned seven, he could move into the six and a half spot, like claiming an older sibling's room once they head off to college. 

He's still a little grumpy about the whole topic. 

Which means it's time for me to queue up his favorite song in the whole word and dance with him around the kitchen to it, and then swing him around in circles until we're both dizzy. Then he'll wrap his body around my legs like a baby monkey and hug me as hard as he can, and I'll fall over, and the song will end and he'll leap on top of me and say, "AGAIN, MOMMY! I LOVE YOUR SHIRT AND THE GREEN NINJA AND NOAH AND I HAVE ON MY FAST SHOES. AGAIN!"

Works every time. 

Ezra's Fourth Birthday from amalah on Vimeo.
Ezra's Favorite Song in the Whole Word: "So Long" by Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward (from Winnie the Pooh) 

What's Black & White &...aw man this sucks

Well, which IS it, Cereal Box? WHICH IS IT?

Not all black and white? Or pretty black and white. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. STOP TOYING WITH ME. 

Especially in light of the National Zoo's devastating loss of the newborn panda cub this weekend. Which: No joke or snark, I am UPSET. I am feeling genuine feelings of feelingsosity and I don't like it. This goes against every word I've ever written about The Fucking Zoo and how it Fucking Sucks because it's Outside and Full Of Nature and Pooping Things and also Uphill In Every Possible Direction. But there it is. I am really terribly sad and bummed about the poor tiny wittle baby panda and the poor sad mama panda and DAMMIT, NATURE. YOU REALLY ARE THE WORST.

Also the worst: Me, for deciding to tell Noah about the baby panda yesterday morning, while he pondered the above cereal box and asked questions about pandas and hey! Speaking of pandas! There's a brand-new miracle panda baby at the zoo that we can maybe go see in a couple months!

And of course Noah — since he is NOT a bitter jaded Zoo-person like his mother who thinks the pandas are kind of overrated and not worth the line because they just SIT THERE and chew on leaves while the tourists are all OMFG PANDAS PANDAS PANDAS — thought this sounded excellent! Very exciting! Can we go today? Tomorrow? Today? 

I totally jinxed that poor baby panda and I feel terrible about it. And now I have to decide between telling my child the truth or inventing a cover story about how the baby panda went to go live on a nice big wide-open bamboo farm in China. 

***

Ugh. This is too depressing for a Monday. Let's look at some pictures instead, from earlier in the weekend when life was happy and fun and baby pandas lived forever.

BONUS OF WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING HELL, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, NOT-SO-BABY IKE:

The Inevitable Zag

As in, just when you expect them to zig...

They zag. In the most dramatic, bone-meltingly way possible.

I took Noah and Ezra to the dentist this morning — usually I only attempt one child at a time due to my lack of seventeen arms and super-human strength, but thanks to some scheduling weirdness the boys ended up with back-to-back appointments.

But last time things went pretty well, and everybody knows that things like childhood visits to the dentist always move in a logically linear, upward, it-can-only-get-better-from-here direction. Right?

(AH MAH GAH.)

Monsters. Both of them. Boys, I adore you both and am no big fan of the dentist myself but MY HEAVENLY WORD, you were completely ridiculous today.  And are maybe kind of lucky that I did not abandon ship at some point during HOUR TWO of the x-ray protest and leave you there. 

There was a Chipotle like, two minutes down the road. Don't think I wasn't tempted. 

Ezra, being three-and-three-quarters, basically behaved like he was three-and-three-quarters. Everything was suspicious and he refused to cooperate and kicked and thrashed around while the hygienist calmly completed the cleaning like it was no big deal. Sure, I will willingly stick my fingers in the mouth of this small raging helldemon. Do it all the time, whatever.

Noah. On the other hand. *presses temples with fingers, scrunches eyes into permanent wrinkles*

I think Noah kind of...broke her, a little bit. (And yes, this is a practice that specializes in special needs.) He kind of broke ME. At one point the hygienist excused herself (probably to take a breather, as I assume throttling your patients is probably looked down on in the dentistry field) and I put my head in my hands and sighed. 

"Are you sad, Mom?" he asked.

Oh, God, child. I sighed again and admitted that I was a little disappointed in him, and embarrassed over his behavior, even though I really understood that this wasn't fun for him. But he needed to sit and get the x-ray done, and that was all there was to it, and I couldn't change anything about it, and we couldn't leave until he agreed. So please, buddy. PLEASE. JUST LET THEM TAKE THE PICTURE IT WILL TAKE THREE SECONDS I PROMISE.

"NO! I DON'T LIKE YOU." he screamed, and took off down the hall. 

(I should note that this was NOT his first-ever dental x-ray, and that the last time he had one done he behaved ABSOLUTELY IMPECCABLY. Because. I. Just.)

(HEADACKSPLODEYVILLE.)

Eventually I simply picked him up, sat down in the chair myself, wiggled a protective cape on underneath his protesting, crazy-strong 50-pound body, and locked him in a full-body death grip while the hygienist slapped another cape on him and finally, FINALLY got him to open his mouth and bite down on the film.

*click!*

But hey! No cavities for either of them! So we're good for another six months. Except for Noah, who has to go back in three for a panoramic x-ray.

(He's got an adult tooth that's refusing to cut through, probably because there's not enough space. Which I had too! Which lead to this story. Which is something you probably DO NOT want to read about and oh God, OH GOD if Noah has to go through what I did I would just like to go ahead and quit life right now. Or scream "NOT IT!" and make Jason take him to the appointment while I weep at a nearby Chipotle,)

"That x-ray isn't nearly so bad," the dentist assured me. "We could do it today but I think...I think we've all had enough for one day." 

Speak for yourself, man. Imma take these kids out for extra immunizations and tattoos this afternoon, just for kicks. Maybe after that I'll stick thermometers in their ears while force-feeding them brussels sprouts. 

MOTHERHOOD IS SUCH A RUSH SOMETIMES.

Little Boys All in a Row

People, this happened. This happened and I need to thoroughly document that this happened.

Because it will probably never happen again for at least another three years.

All three of them!

Sitting together! 

For multiple willing minutes! Making physical skin-to-skin contact without howling about being pinched or bothered or mortally wounded by their brother's knee because it's touching me and it burnsssss! IT BURRRNNNNSSSSS!!!!

Sure, they are obviously deep into video-stare mode. On a school night. Fine.

(They are watching Ratatouille in speshul celebration of Noah eating pork tenderloin and mashed sweet potatoes and LIKING THEM BOTH, OMG. Because Remy taught him that it's okay to taste things together and he's suddenly been all "cheeseburgers! steak! things with sauce on them!")

(And yes, Ezra donned an apron for the occasion.) 

(Ike's all, meet me on the holodeck, ladieeeezzz.)

WHATEVER. POINT IS, my multiple children sat together long enough for me to frantically take multiple photos of them before...

Crap. I've been spotted.

The hamming-it-up-for-the-cameras has begun and...

Gotta go rescue baby before Extreme Hugging To The Exxxtreme devolves further into wrastling and screaming. 

BRB.

Port Chaos

I feel like we're maybe starting to get our sea legs back, a little bit, when it comes to taking our herd of children out into the world. The addition of a third baby was no big thang at first, back when he was more like an easily-portable, wearable meatloaf. We could still go places and do things — one of us could strap the baby on our back and we'd each take responsibility for one other child. (Though we definitely had our fair share of BUT I THOUGHT YOU HAD EZRA ZOMG moments.)

But now Ike is a third wholly-formed child; a third independent sentient mobile walking/running vulnerable disaster area. Now it's zone defense. It's taking calculated risks that Noah doesn't need constant monitoring on the playground or is continuing to walk behind us at the aquarium, or that Ezra will stay put at the front of a store for five goddamn minutes if you hand him an iPhone. With Ike, you cannot take such risks. Turn your back on him and he'll have found something disgusting to eat on the floor OR have managed to pull over a jewelry display and leave you on the hook for the world's ugliest broken piece-of-shit plastic necklace that still costs EIGHTY FUCKING SIX DOLLARS.

(True story!) 

But still! We try! We took the kids to a children's museum yesterday and had an AMAZING time, but oh sweet baby cashew Jesus, it was exhausting. I lost Ezra three times. I went 20 minutes without a Noah sighting as he disappeared deep within a tree-story treehouse. I carried Ike up and down flights of stairs and chased him around hallways and exhibits, and at one point sat in front of a woman dressed like Mother Goose who was singing me (and only me) a song because all the babies (including mine) had lost interest and crawled away but I didn't want to be rude. 

I finally excused myself because Ike climbed on top of a bench and was throwing blocks at a nearby pack of non-mobile floor-infants. 

Jason and I took turns so we each got to do one exhibit one-on-one with each individual kid. I took Noah through a puzzle house and let Ezra cook me lunch at a play diner.

I'm not sure Jason tolerated a sit-down with the Lonely Mother Goose Lady, though. I think his designated Ike Activity involved an empty hallway. Ike went APESHIT over that awesome, mind-blowing hallway, man.

After the museum, we celebrated the usual way, with mediocre tourist-trap food, eaten in an exhausted, glazed-over manner. And Ike demonstrated his new favorite communication technique:

Your Offers Exhaust Him from amalah on Vimeo.

Mr. Montessori, Year Two

This was Ezra (and his face) on the first day of school last year, on his very first day of school ever:

He was a little unsure that things would be great.

(SPOILER ALERT: Things were pretty great.)

Now it's this year:

School didn't start until 8:45. He started impatiently dancing around the front door around 7:45. 

By 8:15 he was officially mad at me for not taking him to school already. What the HELL, woman? That trinomial cube ain't gonna assemble itself, you know.

At last year's classroom visit, he was a Human Ping Pong Ball of Destruction. This year, he played quietly with his favorite materials and created an elaborate tableau using the Farm Box and the Land & Water Forms. His teacher and I chatted about good places to buy kid-friendly area rugs. (I suggested Ikea, because I am mean like that.) When it was time to go, he happily put away SOME of the things, but then insisted that he wasn't finished with the farm.

"I not FINISHED." he said. "I clean up when I FINISHED. That's the RULES."

His little sense of Montessori justice was being gravely wronged and he KNEW it. His teacher and I tried to explain that today was a little different because we were just visiting, and once school started for real he could absolutely work with the farm until he was really and truly finished. 

He stood there for a little bit, his face clouding over like an incoming storm and I braced myself for the tantrum. Instead, he folded his arms and stomped towards the door. He was leaving. He was leaving and he was not cleaning up, SO THERE. 

But then he stopped, grabbed the hallway pass from its spot on the wall and marched out in a huff. Because that's the RULES.

It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen. And I've seen some pretty cute things. Oh, Zah.

Almost Four But Not Quite Yet

Ezra, on the other hand, has one more week of summer vacation before he goes back to school.

He didn't realize this. He was so disappointed. 

Back to the manual labor grind, then.

(He takes this task very seriously, in case you couldn't tell. We have the watered-est garden in at least three counties, I'd reckon.)

Ezra will be four years old soon, which is weird. Not in the "OMG FOURRRR?" sense, but in the sense that...really? He's not already four? Or five? 

I sometimes forget that he's only three, usually right up until the moment when he suddenly lets his three-ness show through in the most spectacular three-like fashion. And then I remember how small he still really is, and how relatively easy we've had it with him. He wants to please and help and do things and make us happy. He waters the garden, he helps with the dishes, he cuts Ike's banana into perfect slices for him every morning, he puts groceries away. 

He is the reason I found a brand-new container of chicken stock in the freezer, frozen solid. 

He gets jealous of Ike, naturally — if you stop to coo over him in public you can expect Ezra to immediately jazz-hand his way back into the center of attention. "I GOTS MUSCLES! I'M SUPER FAST! ONE TIME I ATE A BUG!"

His jealousy is mostly unwarranted, because he's openly the favorite of just about everybody he meets. Noah likely isn't interested in anything you've got going on (unless your forehead is currently screening an Adventure Time marathon, that is), and Ike is too enthralled with walking and climbing to cuddle much these days, but Ezra...oh you best believe Ezra is up for some cuddling. Ezra will cuddle you SO HARD your heart just might explode a little bit. 

He attacks our legs and necks dozens of times a day and hangs on our bodies like a little rhesus monkey, happily shrieking MOMMY I LOVE YOU! while I try not to fall the hell over. And try not to get annoyed by the sudden assault on my balance, and remind myself that yeah, I WAS trying to unload the dishwasher but it can wait. One day he's going to stop doing this and I will miss it. 

Oh, I will miss it. But I also can't wait to see what this kid will do next.  

P.S. Do you think I should remove the blue sparkly toenail polish (that he insisted on) before school starts? 

I dunno. I think he makes it work. 

While You Were Sparkling

So I was going to write about Sparklecorn today and how it all went down. Picture nine straight hours of rolling anxiety attacks...several honest-to-God crying jags alongside the ladies of the CheeseburgHer party... the prospect of partying in the equivalent of a flourescent-lit produce aisle at Wal-Mart...begging for decorating help via text, email, Twitter, a bullhorn on Times Square...a cake that got stuck in traffic...missing keys to electrical boxes...getting personally singled out and screamed at by the first irate party guest who walked in the door (because we started late) and crying again because oh my God I'm all sore muscles and exposed nerve endings, stop yelling at me, YOU KNOW THE USUAL. 

But then I looked at the first batch of photos and all that bullshit up and fell right out of my brain. I can barely remember a minute of it now. You guys are just that pretty, I guess. 

***

This bullshit, on the other hand:

I don't know what this child ate while we were away, but look at him. Standing there, reorganizing the spice rack. On his LEGS. 

BOY LEGS. With kneecaps and shit, instead of gnocchi-chub-pillows. 

He's walking everywhere now, officially, picking up more and more speed by the minute. Talking too, or at least trying to. "Eat? Buh? Eh? Cat? Meh? Yite? Gog?" 

If you guess incorrectly at what he's trying to say he will give you a withering look and sigh. "Hmmphf" apparently translates to "I pity your feeble brain, but I believe I asked for some Cheerios. Chop chop."

(Though I'm getting pretty good at understanding this age: today I asked him if he was crying because he tried to taste an antibacterial wipe he found in my purse. He tried to deny it for awhile but I knew the truth.)

At least he still looks a couple years younger than Noah, right? Who is all, suddenly, six-going-on-12.

And Ezra is three-going-on-what-the-hell, weren't YOU just a baby five minutes ago?

Sigh. It's never going to stop, is it?

(I don't know who is more underwhelmed by that thought, me or Ike. MO-O-OOM!)