Taco’s Birthday Weekend + Virus Part 2

Our baby turned 3 on Sunday! 

How it started

How it’s going!

The weekend was mostly all about celebrating his golden birthday on Sunday - plus dealing with another sick kid. I swear our kids don’t like lick everything they come into contact with but it might seem that way. 

But back to the birthday fun! We have an arbitrary rule of no kid parties until you turn 5 so we just had a family celebration on Saturday night. We took the easy way out and ordered pizza since that is Taco’s favorite food.

I made a GF cookie cake on Saturday morning. This is the birthday dessert of choice in our house!

We let Taco open a gift on Saturday morning because he wanted to wear a Mickey shirt and he didn’t have one clean. He was thrilled to get 3 Mickey shirts! He is so obsessed with Mickey.

My parents arrived in the early afternoon and my mom decorated the cake! It was easy to come up with a decorating theme!

The decorated cake. I over-baked the cookie. It was still good, though. Just crisper than I prefer.

Paul enjoyed playing garbage with my parents but then he wanted to quit because he was tired. Which is odd as this kid loves games - and he was winning. Sure enough, he was running a fever within an hour. Le sigh. 

So he went upstairs and stayed in his room so as not to infect his grandparents with whatever he has (probably the Adenovirus Taco had?). 

Reading with his grandparents!

Taco soaked up the attention. We were so happy to see our spunky Taco return after a week of illness! 

He got A LOT of trucks!

The black food coloring really left its mark…

Sunday was a more low key day. We laid low since Paul wasn’t feeling well although the virus seems much more mild for him. When he woke up in the morning he said ‘my brain hurts.’ But his fever was pretty short-lived and limited to the evenings. So far.

Taco opened the presents from us after lunch. We got him a Mickey safari truck, a Mickey camping LEGO set (that he’s a bit young for but Paul can help him), and Paul picked out a semi-truck for his cars. 

Opening his present from Paul

This was the first time we had Paul pick out a present for him. I took him to Target on Friday and gave him a budget. It was really sweet to see him pick something out! 

We ended the day by changing him into Grinch jammies he received from my parents and looking at photos on my phone from the day he was born. What a world we live in - being able to search my google photos for a particular date is pretty amazing.

These young kid birthdays feel like as much (or more!) of a celebration for the parents as it is for the kid. There’s a ‘wow we made it through another year!’

I’m not shy about the fact that the toddler stage challenges me and pushes me to my limits, but I know I’ll look back at aspects of this stage of parenting and miss the cute mispronunciations, singing you are my sunshine while rocking my kiddos before bedtime, and the way our boys melt into our bodies when giving hugs! 

Birthday weekend recap

This past weekend was all about celebrating Paul’s 5th birthday! Some of his birthdays have been very snowy, like his first birthday when we got something like 15” of snow! But luckily we threaded the needle between snow storms. 

The party was on Saturday at 5 so Paul and I made his cookie cake after breakfast so it’d be ready to decorate when my parents arrived at lunchtime. We are solidly team cookie in this house, especially when it come to gluten free baking. In my experience, cookies turn out better and cookie cakes are very fun and festive. 

We finished making the cookie cake in time to do our usual library and gymnastics routine. The library had new toys out and a new search and find activity! 

My parents had arrived by the time we got home from gymnastics. The boys enjoyed having their grandparents around! 

Will is wearing Paul's shoes in this photo. His feet aren't THAT big!

While Will napped and Paul had quiet time, my mom decorated the cake. I am terrible at decorating so am glad she could do it! 

Phil’s mom came over mid-afternoon. Paul impressed his nanas by reading to them!

Around 5, my brother, SIL and nephew arrived and the party began. We ordered pizza and I made a salad. Paul opened presents in between dinner and cake. 

His favorite gift was this rover toy his Nana Joan got him from Lakeshore Learning. When he opened it he said, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this!!’ It is a very cool toy and very very sturdy! 

Then it was cake time! 

Our guests left around 7 and everyone played Uno while I did Will’s bedtime. My parents spent the night since they live about 3 hours away.

Sunday was quieter since we were recovering from the previous full, busy day. My parents left around 9 and I headed out for a 4 mile run (with YakTrax, of course, as many of the sidewalks are still treacherous). 

Since it was mild outside and our sidewalk was in good shape, the boys did some biking/scooting. As you can see, we have SO MUCH SNOW. 

The boys also played with Paul’s new birthday toys! 

It started to snow again around 6pm. It’s supposed to snow today, too, and there’s more snow forecasted Wednesday-Friday. Spring is never coming but at this point we figure we might as well go for a record snowfall for the season. We’ve had over 70”; the record is in the 90s so it’s definitely possible. Spring feels so far off! 

Has spring arrived where you live? I’m thinking we won’t see grass until April! 

Paul is 5!

Paul is 5! While there is something to love about every stage, I'm finding that 4+ seems to be the sweet spot for me. But before I dig into Paul at age 5, let's take a trip back in time to his previous birthdays!

Paul on his birthday! He's rocking a jaundice tan and is so puffy in this picture (probably since I was on IV fluids for days before he was born - his delivery was pretty complicated).

Paul at 1! I don't have great photos from his 1st birthday party as I stupidly scheduled his 1-year shots the day before... rookie mistake. He's crying/not happy in most of his birthday photos. But we had a fun brunch with my younger sister on his actual birthday!

Paul at age 2... This was March of 2020 - little did we know how our world would change in a matter of days!

Paul at age 3! Are you noticing the theme of cookie birthday desserts?

Paul at age 4!

Growth: He's still very, very petite - he only weighs 33 pounds. For context, Will weighs 28 pounds! Paul has been around the 5th percentile for weight since he was about 2 months, though, so it's not concerning as he has been staying on his growth curve. He has been asking when he can move into a booster seat, though, and that feels VERY far off since you need to weigh at least 40 pounds to move into a booster..  When will he be 40 pounds? Age 8? He wear size 10 shoes, 3T/4T tops, and mostly 3T pants. 

Words and phrases: He is still very chatty and talkative. His latest clutch phrase is to say "speaking of..." Like last week, we were talking about the US (I can't remember what exactly we were talking about) and Paul said, "Speaking of America, today was Presidents' Day!" He's starting to sound like a mini-adult! 

Likes:

- He loves being outside! When the weather is nice, his favorite thing to do is use his scooter. We bought him a bike last spring but he has only been on it a few times. I figure eventually he'll be interested in his bike. But for now he is very fast on his scooter and can handle 2+ mile routes. He also was more interested in swimming and water sports/boating last summer! Since we are in the midst of a brutal winter I should also mention that he loves sledding, making snow angels and playing in the snow.

- We introduced him to LEGO this Christmas and he is a BIG FAN! I'm a fan, too, so am glad we have a go-to gift idea for years to come. 

This was the start of a Spiderman character - it took us 3 nights to do this set!

- His favorite show is still Wild Kratts. He shares so many facts with us, like did you know the eyes of a giant squid are the size of a basketball? Or last week he told us he could run on the top of the snow like a snowshoe hare. I can guarantee I did know anything about giant squids or snowshoe hares at age 5!

- He still loves to read. We mostly read picture books but I've started to introduce chapter books, too. He is starting to learn to read. My MIL got him the "Bob books" for Christmas and he can read several of them on his own. 

Firsts:

- I've started to do some one-on-one adventures with him! Last fall, we went to a pumpkin exhibit at the zoo, saw The Grinch, and I took him to a winter light exhibit. In April, we'll take our first one-on-one trip to AZ to visit my sister. He's very very very excited. 

- He'll also have his first friend birthday party but we are going to wait until April or May when it's reliably nicer to have his party. We made an arbitrary rule that friend parties don't start until you turn 5. I love the way families celebrate birthdays at school - it's basically a big park play date. Everyone is invited, the invite says "no gifts" (and people comply!), and you bring birthday treats. It's "easy peasy lemon squeezy" as Paul would say!

Dislikes:  There is not much that he doesn't like. He is a really positive, upbeat kid! I will say he is obsessed with being first... Ideally he wants to be the first one to get dressed, first to brush his teeth, first to get in the car, etc etc... We are trying to explain that you can't always be first and that being the first one dressed really does not matter in the grand scheme of things but he hasn't quite accepted that. 

Eating: is still kind of a challenge... his pediatrician has assured us this will get easier. I hope she is right. He really loves carbs and dairy. His favorite foods are cottage cheese, yogurt, banana pancakes and pizza. And he definitely has a sweet tooth - he loves donuts and cookies!

School: He's in the Pre-K room at school. He has really thrived in this room and has come out of his shell quite a bit. He used to be so shy and reserved but seems much more outgoing and social in this room. He'll transition to the public school summer program in June and then starts kindergarten in the fall at our community school so he has a lot of change ahead of him! He is VERY excited about kindergarten!

His school photos from the fall cracked us up!!

Big brother adjustment: He continues to be a very sweet big brother to Will! He's had to be patient with Will quite a bit and he's handled it pretty well all in all. I love watching their relationship grow!

I can't wait to see what the future holds for our sweet, smart little guy! Last year he spent his birthday puking from a stomach bug so hopefully the celebration is MUCH MORE FUN this year!!

This is 42

Today I celebrate my 42nd trip around the sun! I'm writing this ahead of time as I'll be busy hosting my dear friend Kyria this weekend so won't have time to blog. But I anticipate that the days leading up to my birthday have been very wonderful since she's been here to make it extra festive and fun! She didn't intentionally plan to come for my birthday weekend, but it worked out that way! Besides the 10k snowshoe "race" we signed up to do Sunday (I'm using the word race loosely - I can't imagine we'll be fast with snowshoes attached to our feet!), I imagine we've gone for runs around the lake and have had time to really catch up on life since we last saw each other over 3 years ago! 

When I look back on the last year of my life, I can say it was a really good year. It was not without it's challenges, of course. But overall, it was a "normalish" year of life following the double whammy of having a baby/adjusting to a newborn while dealing with the pandemic. We still took a lot of covid tests over the past year but we were able to mostly do the things we wanted to do and see the people we wanted to see. 

We went on our first trip as a family of 4 last February and visited my younger sister and her family in Arizona while my parents were visiting her. 

Hiking with Phil in the Saguaro National Park 

We took several trips to my parents lake home and got to spend lots of time with my little sister and her daughter since she was home for 6 weeks while her husband was traveling a ton. I especially enjoyed going to my nephew's grad party with her as we had lots of time in the car to catch up! Besides seeing my sister, I saw all of my siblings, nieces and nephews over the course of the year. I'm just extra glad that I saw a lot of Abby as we are 2 peas in a pod and have similar-aged kids (Will is 2.5 months older than Maddy) so are in the trenches of parenting together!

I started to travel again for work in April of 2022, and logged trips to Kentucky, DC, Charlotte, NYC, and went to Chicago twice. 

Running along the Mall in DC before giving a presentation later that morning!

I recognized that training for and running a 10 mile race in 2021 was too much in this stage of life so I downshifted and focused on the 10k distance. I logged lots of miles with my awesome neighbor/running partner/best buddy and ran a strong 10k race with her in early October. 

 Our shirts matched the sky that morning! We saw lots of sunrises that stopped us in our tracks!

We survived an epically bad family photo session that is sort of funny to us now... And were amazed by the shots our photographer captured. They are worth the pain of that photo session!

Phil and I grew as a couple and learned how to better navigate being a family of 4. I came up with a Saturday routine that has served us well. We figured out how to give each other breaks by taking turns getting up with the boys on the weekend and giving the early morning parent a break during naptime. 

And we finally went on a kids-free vacation after talking about wanting to for quite awhile. The getaway was a win-win for everyone: Phil and I enjoyed reconnecting while soaking up some vitamin D, and my parents and the boys had a wonderful time together! 

 

I'll celebrate the start of a new trip around the sun in a mellow way, which is what I prefer. Kyria and I will run this morning and I'll enjoy a free birthday drink from Starbucks. I took a page from Suzanne's book (who also has a February birthday) and will get a massage after I drop Kyria at the airport. We'll get Indian take-out tonight (no, the boys won't eat this which is fine - more for me!).

I know there are people who don't like their birthday - but I do. I'm not over-the-top with my celebrations (not that there's anything wrong with that - it's just not how I celebrate things generally), but I enjoy my birthday - because I am happy to be alive and to have such a rich, beautiful life. I've watched people my age and younger battle cancer or other awful diagnoses, and I know of people who have passed away by this age. A long life is not guaranteed so I try to remember that each day on earth is a gift. That doesn't mean I don't have hard days and wallow a bit at times. But overall, my sentiment is "how lucky I am to be alive." 

My birthday wish is that you'll consider leaving me a comment and tell me how you like to celebrate your birthday! For those who don't typically comment, tell me a little bit about yourself!