Alexander's Fifth Birthday Party

Today we celebrated Alexander's fifth birthday at Chuck E Cheese! To be honest, I would have rather planned an at-home party (I love doing themes!), but Alexander really wanted a Chuck E Cheese party, so we went with that. Now that he has "school friends," he was SUPER excited to invite them to his party, along with a few of his other best buddies. It was uber crowded and chaotic, and there was one point where a few of us weren't sure our kids would ever come out of the tunnels. Alexander still won't go near The Mouse, but he still just loves the place. He had a wonderful time and we would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to the other parents who were brave enough to venture into Chuck E Cheese with their kids on a Sunday afternoon to celebrate with us. Thank you also for all the wonderful presents! What a lucky boy Alexander is! Thanks, all, and Happy Birthday Alexander! I can't believe my big guy is FIVE!

Hey, guys, we're at a party! Wanna look like you're having fun?

Mmmm, pizza makes us feel better!

Cake is even better!

Dancing and posing with Alexander's giggle partner Ava is the best, even with chocolate-smeared faces!

LIAR!

"No-No Jack and the Speech Therapist" (or, "Proving that Mommy is a Liar")

Me to Speech Therapist: It's strange. He says "Robin" all the time, but he's never tried to say "Batman."

Speech Therapist: That is strange!

Me to Jack, while indicating Batman: Jack, who is this?

Jack: Batmaah! (He even actually pronounced the "t," which is quite impressive for him. He rarely pronounces a second consonant in a syllable)

Me: Okay! Way to make a liar out of me!

Speech Therapist: Why don't you tell me more things he doesn't do? *laughs*

Mmmm!

Last night, while eating Parmesan garlic chicken...
Alexander: Mmmm, this is my favorite kind of beef!

Science!

Uncle Matt and Uncle Harry were, as usual, very generous towards the boys this year for Christmas. One of the things they got for Alexander was this science kit, which we started into the other day. There are about 15 different experiments that you can do! The real lessons of the experiments are probably above Alexander's head, although I went ahead and explained the basics anyway. In any case, even with no understanding of why things are happening, it's still realy cool to watch things bubble and change and to make goop! We did the "underwater volcano" and the Non-Newtonian fluid, then called it quits for the day because all our hands were blue.

"Mom, the goop turned my hand blue." (Alexander's were way worse but I didn't get a picture.)

For bonus points, can anyone guess what wording I find inappropriate on the back of the box? I do apologize for the bad photo, I could not find an image online since it's the *back* of the box. The flash mark does not cover the part I am referencing (that would be cheating), and I don't mean "inappropriate" in a leering, creepy old man sort of way, rather in a sort of "that's contradictory" sort of way. Ish.

First Love Song

Alexander likes the hard-to-get ones. Or, rather, I think he just wants everyone to like him, so he feels he has to work extra hard on those who don't warm right up to him. He spent a good twenty minutes this morning telling me about how one of his schoolmates doesn't know that he cares about her. He said that he makes her gifts all the time, but she still doesn't believe that he cares about her. So, the next time he goes to school, he plans to make her the sweetest gift of all, so that maybe she will know that he cares about her. He explained that the gift would be a picture of all the classmates and their teachers singing a song to Rylee (the hard-to-get one). Then he sang me the song, which started out something like this, "Oh, Rylee, you don't think I care about you, but I do! I don't just care about my babies; I care about you!" In fact, the song was a duet, because then he said Rylee would sing this part, "Oh, you don't care about me; you only care about your babies." Then, Alexander again, "Oh, no, I care about you!" The song went on and on, and involved them going to the dress-up center where Alexander would dress up as Luigi and Rylee would dress up as Princess Toadstool and their other classmates would dress up as Mario and the mushroom-headed guys. It was quite elaborate. When I asked him if he would make any gifts or songs for his other classmates he said, "No, because they already know that I care about them." Poor, sweet boy!

T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Alexander: Mommy, nothing is safe when I'm around.

MORE babies?

The other day, after Justin put Alexander to bed, he came to relate a conversation he had with Alexander.

Alexander: While we were playing play-doh, Mommy was putting more babies in her belly.
Justin: Oh yeah, did the mailman stop by?

So of course Justin was wondering what would have made Alexander say such a thing. Too bad it was because of HIS own sick sense of humor. I reminded him," Don't you remember the other day when I was giving myself an injection? Alexander asked what I was doing and you told him that I was putting more babies in my belly! [The injections go in my stomach.] I gave myself a shot while they were doing play-doh this morning!" "Oh yeah." lol. Now you have to wonder what Alexander is telling people at preschool!

Yeah, that's Justin's kid

Me: Alexander, can you think of a part of your body that starts with the letter "b?" (expecting belly, back, or even butt)

Alexander: Hmmm.... blood!

Earlier that day he had also "colored" in a picture of Pooh with just lines running around the inside of Pooh's body and told me, "I only colored the blood." I am in for some parent-teacher conferences, aren't I? Thankfully he also explained that the blood was inside Pooh's body helping to keep him healthy.

Awwww.....

Sunday night:

Alexander: Daddy, is vacation over?
Justin: Yes.
Alexander: So you have to go back to work tomorrow?
Justin: Yep.
Alexander: *sigh* I guess I have to go back to missing you.