Happy (Belated) Birthday, Baby!

Posted On August 18, 2009

A day late and a dollar short. Such is the story of my life.

I meant to post this YESTERDAY, which was actually Boy #3’s birthday, but true to my form, I am just getting around to posting it TONIGHT. (And most of you, I am sure, won’t get around to reading it until TOMORROW.)

This is what happens to the third child, right? Along with no entries in the baby book. Guilty as charged.

So if you haven’t already guessed, my baby is now 5. No longer a baby, well technically anyway. But considering he’s still scared to go to sleep by himself and wants me to carry him everywhere, I think he’s milking this “baby” thing for all it’s worth.

I think he had an enjoyable 5th birthday, though, considering it was two days before school starts and his mom was feeling a little panicked and overwhelmed. We all slept in a bit. Then apparently he talked to his grandma on the phone and told her that it wasn’t really his birthday yet because “Mommy and Daddy have to take a shower first.” Hopefully Grandma didn’t take that as we were showering together.

He opened his presents, which included a “Super Cooper” cape and mask from one of my very favorite etsy shops, Fancy That! (I’ve now purchased 4 superhero capes from her and can’t wait to order more! They’re fabulous!) He also was excited to get a Nintendo DS. This was a bit of an impulse purchase on my part because I had just listened to Boys #2 and #3 fight over Boy #2’s DS for two days straight. And of course, instead of trying to teach them about the virtues of sharing and working out their problems, I just got them each their own to play with. Problem solved. We did get the DS used from Gamestop, which was a fairly good deal considering it looked nearly brand-new, not all beat-up with scratches and the occasional bite mark like anything looks after spending 5 minutes at our house.

After opening presents, I went to work for a couple hours, and the boys did what ANY 5-year-old wants to do on his birthday—got haircuts! All 4 of them! Honestly, do we know how to celebrate a birthday, or what?

For lunch, we ate at—you guessed it—McDonald’s. And not just any McDonald’s, mind you. The McDonald’s with the Play Place. I had to face away from the play equipment while eating my cheeseburger in order to not vomit, not to mention hold my nose. I’m pretty sure the play equipment has not been cleaned once since installed, evidenced by the thick dust encasing the outside of the plastic tunnels, as well as the black bottoms of the McSocks that we had to pay $1 each for after forgetting to bring our own. Boy #3 managed to make a new friend while we were there. His name is Nolan, and throughout the day, Boy #3 would say, “Hey, remember my friend Nolan . . .” and then just trail off, leaving us hanging. Funny thing is, Husband and I saw Nolan, who we’d never seen before in our life, at WalMart that evening when we went to pick out a birthday cake.

(Yes, you read that right. I just said that I bought Boy #3’s birthday cake at WalMart. On the night of his birthday. And it wasn’t even one I had ordered specially. It was a generic chocolate birthday cake. I guarantee this birthday party will not be making it into the Martha Stewart Kids’ magazine this year . . .)

After our delicious (and nutritious!) lunch, we headed to the mall to play some indoor glow-in-the-dark miniature golf and shop for school shoes. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone. We hadn’t been to the mini golf place before, and it was definitely not the Augusta National of miniature golf, but for a newly turned 5-year-old it was pretty fun, so I guess that’s all that matters. I swear, though, that place had to be making a killing. We paid $28 for the five of us to play, and considering the holes were basically put together with scrap wood and were each about 7 feet long, and the fact that the one “worker” was sitting behind the counter reading comic books on the Internet, it had to cost them about 13 cents in overhead for us to play. Genius.

The evening ended with cheese pizza for supper, the delightful WalMart cake, and abbreviated arguing before bed. Not too bad as evenings go in the Boogers & Burps world.

So Happy Birthday (a day or two late) sweet Boy #3! Mommy loves you!