And Then He Was Five....

Once upon a time, he looked like this...

...and now, he looks like this...

Excuse me while I take a moment to digest that....

Aaaaand, I'm back. The past couple of weeks have been full of party-planning, grandparent-visits and all manner of stellar behavior that seemed to scream "This is what 5 is going to look like. Prepare yourself!!!" like a pre-5 public service announcement that bore repeating over and over again.

Ethan turned 5 almost a week ago and someday when he looks back on this blog, he'll be able to tell his therapist that 5 years old is when I stopped blogging about his birthday on the day it happened, and therefore when my parenting skills hit the skids. Sorry, kiddo.

Last year, Husband and I threw the Beatles themed birthday party, complete with a home-made Abbey Road, foam ball & pipe cleaner octopus' gardens and themed foods like the Sgt Pepperoni Pizza for the kids, and the Eleanor Fig-Brie platter for the grown-ups, and two cakes--one a drum and one a guitar. This year, I paid some bounce house place an ungodly amount so that all of Ethan's friends could bounce and slide and jump for an hour and a half before eating pizza provided by the bounce house place & a cake I bought at Safeway. Then we went home, Ethan got to open a few presents and it was time for bed. Yes, we made him go to bed before he'd opened all his presents because he had school the next day. Again, Ethan will have a lot to tell his therapist.

On Friday, Ethan was the Shabbat boy at his school, which means he got to carry the torah around during services (and by "torah," I mean the little plush stuffed-torah used by the preschool so as not to risk desecrating a real torah with preschool snot; the passing of the torah is a germophobes worst nightmare, complete with an entire preschool's worth of germs passed around with it every Friday. Probably every illness in our house over the past 2 years is attributable to our child's preschool's religious observance. But it's wicked cute when he sings in Hebrew, so totally worth it.

Pictures? You want some pictures? I can do that...

The birthday king (in his embarrassingly dirty socks, which in my defense, he'd already had off on the bounce-house lobby floor for several minutes when this picture was taken, and they were NOT that grungy when he left the house. And there are shadows there. And I should have just cropped the damn picture), watching the video of the rules before commencing with the birthday bouncing. So that he could promptly forget them all in the dizzying mayhem of the giant slides and jousting-rings.

on his giant inflatable throne; eat your heart out Prince William...

And putting the candles on his Star Wars cake with the frosting so blue that 24 hours later every child (and erm, adult) who attended his party was pooping blue.

What birthday king doesn't love to eat cheese pizza on his giant inflatable throne?

We were able to light the candles on Ethan's cake after prying the swarm of cake-crazed preschoolers away from it. It was seriously like a scene out of Lord of the Flies until we convinced them that there would be "NO CAKE FOR YOU!!!" unless they were each seated in their chairs. If you squint, and hold this picture in the right light, you night be able to actually see Ethan's expression. Please note that he looks as though he's never seen cake before.

And as Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader battled atop the cake, Ethan turned into a giant blur and blew out the candles.

I just love the look on his face in this picture.

The next day, Ethan chose to wear his newly acquired pirate garb to school, thus transforming himself into the Sabbath pirate, a little known Jewish super hero. No? Okay, I tried.

Arrrrgggh!! Shabbat Shalom, mateys!

At school, Ethan wore yet another crown, made by himself, covered in stickers of things he likes. Which are apparently America & cars.

He wore his birthday crown in lieu of the appropriate head covering while in a synagogue, but I'm guessing G-d gave him a pass since it was his birthday.

Ethan singing the Shabbat prayers and make no mistake, he is trying to wrestle that microphone right out of the rabbi's hands.

After services, it was time to switch out costumes again (Lady Gaga, is that you?!) and switch back to the pirate bandana.

And then it was snack time, sponsored, naturally, by the birthday boy's family. Last year, I sugared them up with cupcakes that they got to frost and decorate themselves. The teacher really appreciated it. So much so that this year, in September, she made a "please try to make birthday snacks as healthy as possible" plea. I have to be honest, I thought of bringing cupcakes again because damn it! It's a birthday snack!!! But I didn't. Husband and I brought graham crackers, cream cheese and an array of fruits for the kids to make "smiley faces." Of course, in this picture, the kids are eating bananas & challah bread, so clearly my snack was superfluous.

And it's probably a good thing because while the idea for the fruity smiley faces is genius (and I can't take any credit for it; I totally stole the idea from a friend with a kid in a different class), we didn't realize we needed to buy whipped cream cheese. Watching a bunch of 4-5 year olds trying to spread regular, cold cream cheese on a graham cracker is basically watching an exercise in snack food demolition. So basically they had bananas, challah bread & bits and pieces of graham cracker piled high with globs of cream cheese and raspberries for snack. Awesome.

At home we opened birthday presents (and apparently watched golf)...

Please note his love of the Beatles rages on...

Also note that, given the change of clothes, we opened presents on three different days, making it officially a weekend of birthday for Ethan. Dangerous precedent, I know. But that's what happens when mama can't get her act together and get all the presents wrapped in time. I'm awesome that way.

In true little kid form, Ethan's last question for me before he fell asleep on the night of his 5th birthday? "Mommy, when do I turn 6?"

Sigh. Too soon, baby. Too soon.