Five.

{Warning: LONG post ahead.}

Yesterday our little guy became a big five year old. I'll spare you the I can't believe it and how did we get here and where has the time gone lamenting, but really I can't believe it and how did we get here and where has the time gone??

Okay now that's out of my system...

To celebrate his day of birth, we decided to take him out to breakfast (he wanted french toast) and then bowling before school. He was oozing excitement all morning, barely able to contain himself. He told pretty much every one we passed it was is "birfday" and you could see it was physically impossible for him to stop chatting and bouncing.

He was gifted an Angry Birds shirt and tie on Sunday and saved it for just this occasion. This picture pretty much sums up our morning:

When we got to the bowling alley we were assigned lane 5. How exciting for the 5 year old birthday boy! The guy working apparently has some social problems as he refused to say happy birthday to the bouncing birthday boy who was FIVE and put in lane FIVE!! This guy didn't seem to understand the magnitude of this coincidence. Nevertheless, the sourpuss behind the counter couldn't ruin our collective good mood so we went off towards lane 5 and got our bowl on.

Simon insisted that he wanted to play a second game, but by the third round he spotted the slushy machine and his interest shifted quickly and wholeheartedly in that direction. So despite the fact that we drove 20 minutes to our nearest Outpost after breakfast to buy natural food coloring for his birthday cake, we let him have a bright red slushy and he was very happy about this decision. 

I wish these last two photos would have turned out better...they showed so much of his excitement! Oh well. One day I'll learn the art of action shots :)

After our morning o' fun, Bryan, Simon and I went to work, school and Run Like a Mother meetings, respectively. I set myself up for a whirlwind after I returned home since we were having family over for dinner and cake, and nothing was done (presents were not even wrapped). To add to the self-induced chaos, I decided to juice a beet to make food coloring for the Angry Bird cake. It actually worked awesome, except it just added mess to my kitchen and the Angry Bird was bright purple rather than red. Simon thought it was super cool anyways. Thanks to a little editing, this picture makes it look like the right color...

The color in the below picture is how it actually turned out...the eyes and eyebrows were colored with cocoa powder and resembled nice little poop nuggets. Ha. It all tasted good, even it if didn't look quite perfect :) I must say my cake decorating skills (and patience for it) has really gone downhill over the past few years!

It was finally time to sing and blow out the candles, which was quickly followed by gifts and BED. Simon was lucky to have both sets of grandparents, all of his aunties and all of his cousins at his birthday party (only his uncle was missing) on his actual birthday.

I accidentally bought trick candles, which was a TERRIBLE idea seeing as it's cold and flu season. So I think we enjoyed a spit covered cake, hopefully not full of spreadable illnesses!!

All around it was a very full day, happy day. I think the boy enjoyed every second :)

--

So who is Simon as a five year old?

He....

• Is quick to tell his parents and sister he loves them and does this all the time.
• Amazes me with Cecilia. No jealously, just pure love. Seriously, best big brother ever.
• Likes to watch TV particularly in the morning. His current favorites are Johnny Test, Dragon Tales and Mario. Super hero shows might be on his favorite list too, but they are banned because he is influenced way too easily by them (he doesn't seem to miss them too much anyway).
• Loves to get caught being naughty; it seems to give him a genuine thrill which is slightly concerning. You should see his face light up when he gets caught stealing my phone. God, I hope this doesn't translate into an "adventurous" teenager (at the rate we're going, it feels like we're going to find out what he is like as a teenager in the blink of an eye).

• Goes to bed pretty easily, but sometimes will sneak downstairs and jump into the living room with nothing but pure "I got you!" joy on his face and he cracks up. Pouting soon commences when we tell him to go back to bed.
• Still has fits a toddler could learn a thing or two from.
• Picks out his own clothes and sometimes you can REALLY tell he did it himself, but I try not to mess with his vision too much. If it were completely up to him, he'd be in jammies all day and I can't blame him (as I sit here in yoga pants and a hoodie and call myself dressed for the day).

• Reads one to two books a day to me. I'm truly amazed at how far he has come since November. He went from reading a three letter word if he really tried to reading things like "Ten men went to the end of the land. Hand in hand they went," without a problem. Love.
• Enjoys running down long hallways, like at the Y or my grandma's apartment. He yells "EXCUSE ME!" if anyone is in his path and is confused about why they don't get out of his way because he said excuse me (I try to explain that people don't usually have time to process his words because he barrels through them too quickly so he should go ahead and STOP doing this). 

• Is 100% independent when it comes to going potty and surprisingly enough, we don't deal with many skid marks if you know what I mean.
• Will play with and talk with anyone young or old, but he is afraid to ask a person's name. His social anxiety starts and ends here as far as I can tell...he's a CONFIDENT little guy, just ask him.
• Likes to be "warmy" and will snuggle under a blanket with you any time.

• Loves to play with the neighbor kids and his cousins more than anything. 
• Jumps off the coffee table ALL THE TIME. Seems like something I should stop him from doing, but I can't come up with a great reason not to other than "just because."
• Likes to drink "lemon water" or "ice cold water" the most. In his unprompted words, "I think I'm allergic to soda because it gives me a tummy ache so if someone tries to give it to me I'll just say no." Atta boy :)

--

Simon, if I've said it once I've said it a million times...I love you more than you will ever know. You've brought immeasurable joy to our life over the past five years and I am so proud and happy and blessed to be your mother. 

Happy Birthday, Buddy :)