Episode five

Last week, Oliver turned five.  It was an exciting birthday for a lot of reasons.  He's now old enough to know when his birthday is and get excited about it.  There's the anticipation of the day, the birthday shirt, the cake, the presents, and just the narcissistic nature of the day.  And this year, Oliver got his first real birthday party.  I did a party for Oliver's second birthday, but it was more like "hey friends and neighbors, come over and have a cupcake and ohbytheway, it's Oliver's birthday."  (In fact, that might be what the invitation said.)  This year was about him -- he picked the theme, and we invited his friends from daycare.  It's the last year he'll be with them, so it seemed like a good point to let him do a real birthday party.  They know each other well, and the parents usually know who at least some of the other kids in the class are.

We had planned well in advance for this birthday, and so my parents and my sister and nephew were able to come for the event. I had made the invitation to my sister somewhat jokingly -- to see if her husband would come and help with Jedi Training Camp for Oliver's birthday -- and she happily surprised me by saying they'd love to come if possible.  This is the first time any of my family has been in town for one of the kid's birthdays.  We usually don't make a big thing out birthdays, so it's not something worth traveling for.  And none of their birthdays happen over a break of any kind.  But this was fun.  And exciting.  And extremely well planned (I mean, my sister and I were doing, so of course).  And so we were all able to come together on what turned out to be an absolutely beautiful fall day.

Oliver's actual birthday was on a Thursday.  The night before he and Emmeline helped me make sugar cookies shaped like the ships in Star Wars (thank you, Williams Sonoma for the cookie cutters) for him to take for snack the next day.  He also got to wear his Little Mermaid Ariel birthday shirt.  On Thursday morning, Wes and I let him open one gift since Wes was not going to be home that evening.  He opened his Yoda watch, which he also proudly wore to school.  We measured him on the stick that shows his height at each birthday, and his growth from last year was pretty clear.  (He'd been to the pediatrician the day before for his well-child checkup, and I learned there he'd grown almost 3 inches in the last year).

That afternoon, after a huge thunderstorm that wracked the city during go-home traffic, Oliver got the Skype with aunt and uncle and cousins in Florida while he opened up their gift, a Lego Star Wars book that he now looks at every evening before bedtime.  Grandma Kay came over to have dinner with us, as well as a small ice cream cake I got from Ben and Jerry's.  We wore party hats, sang happy birthday, and Oliver opened his gifts from her -- two Star Wars action figures.  And at the end of the night, after all the excitement was over, he went to sleep on his new Star Wars sheets.  (Are you seeing the theme here?)

Friday saw the beginning of several days of beautiful weather.  My parents arrived in town in the early afternoon, and Laura and Maddox arrived by plane a few hours later.  A few of us took Oliver to baseball practice, followed by dinner.  Laura and I sat up late into the evening making light sabers out of pool noodles and duct tape, naming our light saber moves for training camp, and coming up with ideas for the few activities and making a schedule to get ready the next day. My mom made the chocolate cupcakes and icing.  And fortunately everyone fell asleep easily.

Saturday was a busy day.  Wes and my dad took Oliver to his baseball game while my mom baked the birthday cake and iced it, and Laura and I got the backyard ready for about a dozen of Oliver's friends and their parents.  The kids had a brief rest after naptime, and we got the balloons up on the mailbox just in time for the first birthday guests to arrive.  My mom made Oliver a real Jedi robe for this birthday, and he wore it during his party.  (Actually, Oliver wore Emme's, which she was afraid of.  The length was better for him running around.  And I wore Oliver's.)  When the kids arrived, they colored Star Wars pictures at the picnic table and played on the new swing set.  Then Laura and I ran Jedi training camp.  We taught the kids three moves -- the swing and slash, the step and stab, and the no-look toss and turn.  (I included the last one because I thought it would be hilarious to see the kids trying to master it!)  All of them were really into it.  Some had donned their training tunics that Laura cut out of brown fabric earlier in the day, and they all looked adorable with their green light sabers.

Once camp was done, we went on our first mission around the front of the house to find Stormtroopers.  Laura and I had hung black and white balloons on our trees with Stormtrooper faces on them, and the kids used their new skills to beat them into submission.  When we were making the turn around the front of the house towards the back, where the balloons were hung, my dad growled at the kids from back by the trees, and two of the little guys were ready to turn back and find their moms!  The second mission was an obstacle course, and at the end of the course was a basket with lots of items, including pictures of Princess Leia.  So the kids had to complete the course and "save the princess."  The third mission was to shoot water with a water pump through either a hula hoop or, for those skilled enough, one of our baby floats, both hanging from a tree limb.  We told the kids they were practicing their X-Wing shooting skills so they could blow up the Death Star like Luke did.

The finale of the planned activities was the kids using the Jedi force to get the garage door to open.  Behind it was one of our friends, dressed as a Darth Vader with his red light saber.  He came out, and the kids who weren't ready to run in fear pummeled him with blows!  We had to finally stop them, lest Sean suffer actual damage.  They thought it was great.

Afterwards, we did cake and ice cream.  The kids could choose between the dark side (chocolate cupcakes) or the light side (vanilla cake).  I'd asked people not to bring presents, which meant the kids could just enjoy themselves (and he got plenty of gift anyway, including two Lego Star Wars sets from Aunt Laura).  The kids all played for another 20 minutes or more before their parents hauled them off, probably good because the level of light saber play was getting a bit violent for me.  Clean up was quick and easy, and everyone was excited to put their feet up and watch college football until bedtime.

It was thrilling to watch Oliver at his very first party.  He was gracious, though he did start to melt down by the end, likely very tired after the baseball game, no nap, and then anticipation of the party.  He can be a little socially awkward in new settings, but he does great with those he already knows.  I cannot say that I'm in disbelief at having a five year old.  I've seen him grow from a tiny baby to a happy toddler to a thoughtful preschooler, and I know just where the time has gone.  And I cannot say I'd wish him back to babyhood.  He was my easiest, for sure, but it's just too much fun getting to talk to him, see him learn, and enjoy his fresh perspective on the world.  Happy birthday, Buddy Jeeps.  I can't wait to see what the next year bring us!

Another reality

This morning the whole family took a walk at Edwin Warner Park, one of my favorite places to go with the stroller.  Oliver walked almost the whole way, and Emmeline did a bit of jogging alongside the stroller, too.  Zola fussed, then played with a leaf, then napped for a bit.  All of us went down to the creek at the end of the walk to throw rocks (which the other dogs then tried to find in the water) and let Lucy get a nice long drink.

About midway through our walk we heard the sounds of a nearby train.  There are tracks on the others side of the main entrance from the park, which the kids have often commented on, so we knew where the train was.  We were just walking down into a curve on the path, and Wes asked Oliver if the train was going to come around the corner and run into us.  I kind of giggled, but at the same time, Oliver got really nervous and moved over near me on the side of the path, looking anxiously to see if the train would come.  Wes and I both quickly asked how we would know if the train were coming, but then sensing his anxiety, assured him it wasn't.  Once Oliver realized there were no tracks -- and that the train would need tracks to come our way -- he calmed down and started to understand why he need not worry.

I've been reminded several times recently that as smart as Oliver is, he's still a little boy and cannot always tell reality from fiction.  He and Wes and Grandma Kay were talking last night about their favorite Star Wars moving in the original trilogy.  Oliver always wants to watch Star Wars itself, and last night -- on the verge of tears -- he told us that he doesn't like The Empire Strikes Back because Darth Vader chops Luke's hand off.  Poor kid.  I remember having nightmares about the Emperor myself.

A line between

This is Oliver's first (optional)
homework assignment he got from daycare.  Wes's oral directions were "draw a line between" the adult and larvae/nymph. My child is VERY literal.

Sleepytime tea

A few days or weeks ago, I posted on Facebook: "Pondering the dissolution of bedtime. You can "make" them go to bed, but you can't make them go to sleep. Maybe I just need to go all Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle on them."  I loved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books growing up.  I think I still have one.  She was the wise older lady who gave great advice to parents whose children were misbehaving.  Like the kid who wouldn't take a bath.  She told the parents not to make the child bathe.  To cover him with a fine dirt and sprinkle seeds.  And after a few days, plants started growing on him.  And then he would take a bath without complaint.  Or the kid who wouldn't pick up her toys.  So her parents didn't make her.  And then she got trapped in her room and couldn't get out when Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was taking the children on a parade around the neighborhood.  So she cleaned them up and learned her lesson.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was wise like that.

I think the sleep example I'm thinking of may actually be The Cosby Show, though.  When Rudy wants a later bedtime, so her parents say she can stay up as late as she wants.  And eventually she's so exhausted that it's affecting her at school and she can't enjoy the rest of her life.  But regardless, we went through a period of weeks when it seemed none of our children would go to sleep.  And somehow, we got to the other side.  Some of these things we did, I think.  But others were probably a result of those phases that kids go through.  Who knows.

Zola has always gone to sleep well.  I (with help from my mom, while I was on a trip) had to get her to sleep through the night, but she's never cried at bedtime.  She got her pacifier, laid down, grabbed her blanket, and went to sleep -- on her belly with her but in the air.  That was it.  She hardly moved all night.  But then a month ago I decided she needed to get rid of the pacifier.  We went cold turkey.  I did the first two nights when Wes was working and wouldn't have to hear her cry.  I rocked her, sang to her, and put her down.  I went down every 10-15 minutes to calm her down.  After 60-90 minutes, she would give in and go to sleep.  And for at least four weeks I tried this.  Every 4-5 days, I would get a night when she only cried for 20 minutes.  Or a few when she would cry for 3 and then go to sleep.  Some nights I would stay down there and just talk to her when she cried.  Some nights I would pat her back, which kept her from crying, and left my hand on her until she fell completely asleep and I could tiptoe out.  I don't know exactly how that's better than a pacifier, but I was giving it a go.  Then my family came into town for Oliver's birthday.  One night she fell asleep faster than ever before.  The next night she was screaming at the top of her lungs for 20 minutes before I got her back up.  My mom held her, and she finally fell dead asleep and went down.  Some days after that, decided I just couldn't do it.  Letting her cry for at least an hour every night just seemed dumb.  For a whole month, she never had a pacifier.  I never caved and gave it to her.  I never let her have it at nap.  In fact, she'll go down in the very same crib at naptime and not cry.  But bedtime was different, and no amount of "sleep training" was working.  Hearing her cry every night made me physically tense.  I was angry at her for not going to sleep.  I was tense with the other kids.  I was mad at myself for not being able to fix the problem.  So I've gone back to the pacifier -- for now.  I'll try again when she's 18 months, and I might try some kind of intermediary like I did with Emmeline -- a gumdrop pacifier in her case, to give her something to soothe but that wouldn't stay in as easily.  For now, I think it's better for all of us.

Emmeline, on the other hand, has never easily fallen asleep.  When she was a baby, she nursed and rocked to sleep and used a pacifier.  Then I stopped nursing.  Then we got rid of the pacifier.  For a few days and weeks, she would cry for about five minutes and then fall asleep.  But she never just went to bed.  And she still doesn't.  She talks and sings and squirms around in her bed.  When we moved to the new house, we had to put a lock on her door to keep her in her room because she wouldn't stay in there.  She'd come out with 15 requests and questions after bedtime, and before we knew it, it was an hour later than when we laid her bed.  Sometimes she'd go into Oliver's room.  Sometimes he'd tell us, but usually they'd just play until I heard them down there.  I tried sitting next to her room for as long as it took for her to go to sleep, just to keep her in bed.  But once I stopped, she began again, and so we did the lock.  Now she doesn't try to come out, and we don't have to put the lock on.  So long as I put her on the toilet right before bed, she usually doesn't have an excuse.  She still sings and talks, but we even seem to have minimized that.  We get the kids into bedtime soon after dinner now, and then we either play a game, read books, or watch 20 minutes of a show or movie.  But every night, I read Emmeline the same two books up in her bed -- Llama Llama Nighty Night and If I Could Keep You Little.  She knows every word but still wants to read them over and over and over again.  There's no decisions about what to read.  We read those.  If we read other books, it's earlier and on the couch in the living room.  Every night, though, is these two books in her bed.  Then I plug in a nightlight that projects the solar system onto her ceiling, turn out the overhead light, and tell her she can look at the books until she falls asleep.  And she rarely comes out.  I've never seen anything like it with her before this.

And then there's Oliver.  Who doesn't nap and hasn't in years.  Who went through a few weeks of sleeping in really late.  He gets ready for bed with his sister and reads or watches with her, but most nights he gets another 20 minutes.  We let him work on his Lego sets that have pieces too small for his sisters.  Or he works on his road track in his room until he's sleepy.  Or, like Emme, he looks at books in bed.  Most nights we even say goodnight and tell him to turn off his light when he's tired.  We go back 20-30 minutes later, and his light is out and he's asleep.  He was never one to get up much, and he doesn't now unless he needs to use the bathroom.

We've also taught Emme to come into our room -- not Oliver's -- when she wakes up, which means he's sleeping to a more reasonable hour than her.  Actually, 6:30 is pretty normal for a 2-year-old, just sometimes earlier than I'd like to get up!

I know as time passes their sleep cycles will change.  It's fall, the weather is beautiful, and the kids are getting plenty of outdoor time to wear themselves out.  Winter may be more challenging if they're too still.  But for now, it does seem to have improved.  And there does seem to be a commonality with the big kids that letting them "do something" quietly after tuck-in time lets them decide when they're ready to lie down and fall asleep.  That Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  She's a smart lady.  

A rough in the diamond

Today was "opening day" for WNSL fall baseball, which Oliver is playing this year.  Anyone can tell on the field that Oliver has neither watched older siblings play baseball nor spent really any time watching the game on television.  That's of course fine by us, but it's glaringly obvious when he's next to kids that have done one or the other or both (and may also just be better at the game!).  In his first game, Oliver played somewhere near third base.  He was the last one to hustle into the dugout at the end of an inning.  He never even tried to field a ball that came near him.  He got a hit one out of his two at-bats.  He didn't know to join the huddle at the end to do the "break" that athletes often do.  The girls and I spent most of the game walking around in the stroller and letting Emmeline pick flowers in a field near the game, so I didn't see it all.  Wes did, though, and has been at the practices and has voiced concern over Oliver being so very unlike his peers -- unsure about what to do, where to go, slow to follow directions.  He has admitted, too, that it's probably hard to see Oliver having such a rough time learning something that he was so very good at, even from an early age.

 And yet I love watching Ollie out there.  I don't expect him to be -- now or in the future -- great at baseball.  But I love watching him learn.  And he's at an age when none of the kids on his team feel uncomfortable about their own lack of skills.  Each one of them tries to hit the ball every time they get a chance and don't get upset when they don't make contact.  Everyone does their best out on the field, even if that means a ball rolls by someone who is watching the stream of jet fuel behind an airplane in the sky.  They are likely aware that some of the kids are better than them -- at throwing or catching or hitting -- but it doesn't stop them from trying.  And that -- that I love to see.

A first

Zola is now one.  I no longer have an infant in my home, but the toddler I have gained is something to behold.  She is walking, everywhere and all the time.  She is trying very hard to communicate, though there are no clear words there.  Today she was sitting in the yard, and I was in a chair on the driveway.  She got fussy and put up her arms towards me said, "Mama."  It's the clearest I've seen her direct a word, correctly, at something or someone.  She has clear wants and a temper that's come out.  When she's mad, she falls on the floor and throws her head back, sometimes with a whack that leads to a whole new set of tears.  She lovey and likes to be in my lap whenever possible, though terribly squirmy while there.  She likes shoes -- any she can find.  She still has a belly.

I decided to do a first birthday party for Zola for a few reasons.  I've done one for the other two kids, but that was at age two, when I thought they could understand a little more.  Plus I always had ulterior motives for those parties.  With Oliver, we had been in our house for a little over a year, had met a lot of neighbors, and we were finally settled enough to let people in to see what we'd "done" with the place.  It worked out as a chance to socialize with people we otherwise only really talked to in the front yard or in passing.  With that tradition in place, I tried the same thing with Emmeline.  We were about to move to our new house and ready to share the news that Zola was coming home to us soon.  Unfortunately, horrible weather meant that almost no one came, and we were left with hoards of cupcakes.  So when Zola's first birthday approached, I thought that the same setup -- cupcakes, no presents, invite the neighbors -- would be a great way to see more of our new neighbors, many of whom we hardly ever see, and let them see our children.  A lot of people came and introduced themselves to Wes while I was overseas with Zola, and I thought it would be fun for those same people to see that little girl celebrate her first year.  But it was more than that.  I don't have as many memories with Zola as I did with the other two at age one.  And more importantly, I don't have as many memories for Zola later in life.  I thought doing a party would be a great way to celebrate a day we weren't originally there for and to make some memories of her early childhood sooner rather than later.
Her actual birthday was on a Friday, and we did a few fun things then, too.  She wore her birthday shirt, a tradition I started with Oliver at age 3 and his little sisters have done from the beginning.  I thought it went just great with her tutu, and the teachers at daycare just loved it.  We put up the birthday sign, too, and Oliver and Emmeline were very excited to tell everyone that Zola was now one.  Since Oliver had baseball practice that night, and Zola is often in bed by 7PM, we didn't do anything special for dinner.  I did give her the one gift we bought for her -- a Fischer Price toy she'd loved at her cousin's house.  It talks and plays

music, and she'll push the buttons until she gets a song and then dance.

On Saturday, my parents came into town. I'd invited them to join us, knowing we were going to do a little party of some kind, and they were able to come.  I made the party a bunny theme, since that's Zola's animal -- her lovey named Lapin (French for bunny), the image on a t-shirt I bought for her before she even came home.  Plus our backyard is full of bunny rabbits.  Brown ones at that.  My mom and I made orange, strawberry, and carrot cupcakes, which seemed fitting with the backyard, bunny theme.  I made unsweetened tea and lemon water.  And the kids bagged snack sizes of Annie's Organic bunnies, in case anyone needed a snack.  The weather was beautiful in the afternoon, when we had it.  It was looking like rain, but the skies stayed pretty clear until well after we cleaned up.  Maybe a dozen people ended up coming, a few neighbors, a few friends from school and work.  The kids played hard, a few people brought cards and gifts, but mostly the adults just stood and talked. It was simple.  It was fun.  Memories were made.

Celebrating Zola's first birthday was something different than with Oliver and Emmeline.  It somehow seemed more important to do.  We are not big birthday people, and there was nothing about their first birthdays that made me feel like it needed special noting.  But this was a way to show her that of all the things we wish, we would give anything to tell her more about the day she came into the world and the first few weeks afterwards.  In reality, we don't know when Zola came into this world.  But every year, on this day, we will celebrate that she was.

Steps in the right direction

Steps.  Just one at a time here and there, so not a series of them or any real ambulation. But we definitely saw steps for the first time today. Wow!