This was probably the first year Eli truly appreciated his birthday. It may have had something to do with the chocolate cupcakes he got to eat with his Sunday school class, and also the chocolate cupcake in the car on the way to dinner, as well as the chocolate birthday dessert at PF Chang's. Maybe. Our Eli is becoming a big boy in his book and even though he's been four years old for barely two weeks, he now begins sentences with, "When I was just three years old..."
He still maintains some of his trademark qualities, like his love for blanket & monkey, his preference for mommy, and his hoarding tendencies to name a few. These days I let the boys keep some of their toys in a corner of the family room behind our couch. They have fun together in their little man cave but I gotta tell ya, it takes everything in me not to clean that space up each night. It is a mess. Yet Eli insists it is a purposeful and organized mess. If you were to enter that corner right now, a towering mound of teeny tiny lego pieces, old school art, and hotwheel cars would bury you alive, and instead of checking to see if you're still breathing Eli would cry, "You're messing up my stuff!" But as with each of my kids, I'm sad he's growing up and I treasure the moments I see his childlike innocence. The morning after his birthday, he ran into my bedroom wide-eyed to tell me, "Mommy! For my birthday, Halmonee (grandma) bought me a DOLLAR!" And I love when he still pronounces a word with one letter off-- like when he's freezing and says, "Grrrrrr...."
And Wednesday was Jude's 6th birthday. We went to Las Vegas last weekend to spend some quality time as a family and as usual Jude did NOT want to come home. As shy as he is, the boy is a Party. Animal. He may not want to be the center of attention, but he loves to have a good time. I can't think of a time he grumbled because we kept him out too late. I think he only gets grumpy when he's hungry, a characteristic his father says was inherited from me. Hopefully, Jude also inherited my excellent ability to disregard wildly erroneous accusations.
There are times I know Jude doesn't like being the oldest child, like when the boys go outside to play with the older neighborhood kids and I tell him to take care of Eli and keep him close. But I'm thankful he is my oldest, because there is a thoughtfulness I see in him that I don't really see in Eli. It isn't displayed often or even very noticeably but it's there. Last weekend before heading to Vegas, Kwang and the boys took the car in for an oil change and he brought along their Nintendo DSes to keep them from getting bored. There are few things more thrilling to them than playing their DS, probably because I don't let them most of the times they ask. When they got to the car shop, Kwang first gave Jude his DS and then pretended like he forgot to bring Eli's (don't ask me why my husband gets a kick out of doing things like this). Eli fell for it and when Jude saw how sad Eli was about to become, he quietly closed his DS, handed it to Kwang and said, "I'll just play it later at home with Eli."
Making his requested birthday cupcakes together at home:
The other week a coworker of mine suggested there is no good reason to have more than one child. And if I dwell on the fact that I've had to change poopie diapers everyday for over half a decade or the good times I have each night flossing and brushing three extra sets of teeth, I might almost agree. But as difficult as it is for me now, my hope is that my kids will be grateful to have each other like I am to have my sisters, that they will develop relationships so strong it won't matter if they have nothing but their parents in common. There's something different and special about siblings. Someone once said siblings are lifelines, people who were there to see everything that made us who we are. They are ones we would sacrifice anything for even though our relationships aren't perfect. The possibility of that kind of friendship among my kids is something I hold onto.
Eh, at the very least they will have someone else in the world who will fully understand just how crazy their mom is.
