Jonah's Birthday

I sat down to write a post about Lila's birthday and then realized I'd completely forgotten to recognize the birthday of my newly 6-year old, Jonah. I figured that might come back to haunt me one day when he reads this when he's 25 and then has concrete evidence that Lila was, indeed, our favorite.

But I kid. If there's a cuter, smarter, more creative 6 year old out there I'd like to meet him.

Jonah's birthday was, as usual, a long drawn-out affair, and again, as I do after every birthday, I wonder why we, as parents, subject ourselves to such self-inflicted misery. You know, the kind of torture that involves spending hours planning, preparing and paying for a spectacular birthday party of the kid's dreams, and then hearing how it didn't go quite as they expected. Except with more yelling.

Jonah's birthday started with the obligatory breakfast in bed, which he barely touched. We tried. You'll notice that this year, as per his request, he had strawberries, powdered donuts, and grape juice. Perhaps we should abandon this tradition until the kids get older? Or until Jonah wants to eat breakfast within 2 hours of waking up.

He had school that day and a baseball game later that night, so in order to avoid any birthday present meltdowns, we opened presents in the morning. His birthday presents included: zhu zhu pets (why oh why was this the one and only thing he wanted for his birthday??), a hot wheels track, books, a couple of wii games and these beautiful wooden blocks that he didn't ask for but which made me feel better about purchasing the zhu zhu pets in the same Amazon order. And for the record, the blocks get more use than the pets.

The tradition is the boys get to pick where we eat for dinner and, no surprise, we ended up at Noodles for a bowl of mac n' cheese.

Here is Josh's first "cake." Now that I think about it, I actually made these. I don't know what possessed him to choose these for his birthday, but I imagine it had something to do with a worm coming out of his cupcakes that intrigued him.

We were lucky to have family visiting the weekend after Jonah's birthday. So we booked a bowling lane for his randomly-chosen BOWLING theme party. This is where things got a little dicey. The boys had fun, and we loved having my mom, grandma, sister, aunt and cousin for the celebration. But then somewhere along the line, they started melting down. And the walk back to the car, I'm quite certain, consisted of a conversation involving lines such as: "Why are you such an ingrate!?!" and "Next time we won't have a birthday party!" and "Why is it never good enough for you?" or something like that. But, that being said, the cake was delicious and clever and the gifts were thoughtful and well-received (thanks family!).

Here are SIX fun and interesting facts about 6 year old Jonah:

1) He has serious rhythm. It's perplexing. Josh and I dance as two middle-aged, tall, self-conscious people would dance. . .which is to say not well. Then here comes this seemingly- reserved child/dancer in the making. Last night, he performed a t-rex inspired lyrical piece that would make Mia Michaels proud.

2) He's as smart as a whip. I know every parent thinks that, but this time it's really true. He reads. He writes (he spelled "ostrich" today, for heavens sake!). And the most annoying thing is he argues like a champ. And he has really good points. And it's hard not to give up when you see those cute little eyes behind those cute little glasses pounding your argument into the ground.

3) He's an insomniac. We put him to bed at 7:30. He wanders the house until 10. Admittedly, it's a little light when we put him to bed, but I think he really enjoys the time to explore and relax and do his own thing. After the 14th trip to the bathroom for a drink, we tend to lose our patience the teensiest-weensiest bit.

4) He's up for anything. He loves doing things. And he doesn't mind doing it on his own. He's done sports classes and art classes and is SO excited to be signed up for Zoo Camp in a couple of months. Right now, he's big into baseball, where he tends to be embarassed anytime Josh and I acknowledge him in any way:

and he's taking a martial arts class. How cute is this?

5) He builds cities. He loves to get out his blocks and legos and train tracks and create giant, intricate cities (which he then insists on keeping set up in his room, as I swat away his little sister and gingerly avoid crushing to put away laundry).

6) We adore him. He makes us proud every day. He has a big heart and is the most earnest child I've ever met. And I hope that even when the day comes that his earnestness may be perceived as a wee bit nerdy, he'll continue undaunted to become the success that he is sure to be.

We love you, Jonah!