Birthday Week

Jack's birthday was on a Friday, his party with friends was the previous Sunday, his party with family was the Saturday after, and he also went to two other birthday parties that same weekend. So it was a full week of birthdays.

His party was at "Kids U," which was basically a big gym with inflatable stuff to jump on and run around on. We got there first -- 10 minutes early after being 10 minutes late for his party the previous year -- and Jack and Kate ran around on their own. It was similar to another place they'd been before, so both were pretty comfortable. Then Jack's friends started showing up, and there were highs and lows. It was great when he came out to hug different kids; not so great when on one occasion he was suddenly in tears, either because he hit his head or felt he was being left out of the fun (an odd moment; one minute he was racing around with everyone, the next he was sad because they were in one area while he was in another; the next he was running and laughing with everyone again. Kids.). Best moment: in the midst of it all, with all of his friends running and jumping around (and this one little girl following him incessantly), I saw him stop, to help smaller Kate up onto another level, hugging her to him in his arms to lift her up high enough so she could climb up. And then he climbed up on that level, and did the same thing all over again to help her up yet again.

On his actual birthday, Jack had a snow day from school. We got donuts for breakfast, and in the afternoon, while Kate was napping, Jack and I made a snow dragon -- an honest to goodness dragon, lying in the snow, with an open mouth and wings and curly black leaves for toenails and teeth. It was a truly collaborative effort, something I'd always kind of wanted to make. Jack brought me snow for his legs, and branches to build his tail around, and dug in the snow to find more banana leaves for his toenails. He was beautiful and scary. Then we had Jack's meal request for dinner: chicken nuggets, mini-hot dogs, french fries and green beans. And cupcakes.

The family party had pizza. The party for his friend Olivia: also pizza. Even Jack didn't eat cake at that one, explaining, "I'm saving myself for Fudgie the Whale." (The ice cream cake we had for his party.) We will not be having pizza for a little while. Got Jack a pirate skull balloon and a big number 6. He approved. At night I put my 6-year-old son to bed; he went right to sleep. It had been an exhausting week of birthdays.