Everyone wants to give their kid a special birthday, right? We are pretty low key about birthdays around here, and our kids are very happy to have a meal they like, dessert, and presents that they don’t have to share for the first few days. Its a relaxed, happy time for everyone, and we all love it.
Yesterday being Rowan’s birthday, we tried to choose food that we thought he’d like. We don’t usually tell the kids whats for supper in advance, just to avoid whining, but when I whispered to Rowan about the anticipated popcorn chicken and fries, he screwed his face up a bit and said he didn’t want that. I pressed a little, to see what he was hoping for. Turns out he was fine with the popcorn chicken (as long as it came with honey mustard for dipping) but he wanted orange macaroni instead of fries. We decided to go for it and make a pot of mac and cheese for the kids, while we and my parents would likely prefer french fries. What a huge win that supper was! Lots of happy kids eating their body weight in dip 🙂 Haha! Success!
We wrapped up supper with his birthday cake. And by “cake,” I mean donuts. As I’ve mentioned, Ro doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and we knew he wouldn’t want cake. We wracked our brains and tried to think creatively. Rice Krispie square? Cookies? Ice cream sandwiches? Nothing hit home. But we had eaten donuts not too long ago and I was pretty sure he had eaten at least some of one. So donuts it was! And he was SO happy when he saw it coming!!
We all sang and he smiled and soaked it all in, just loving the attention! When it was over, we told him he could blow his candle out and he tried to put it out with his fingers 😮 🔥 We tried to stop him, but he figured it out before we could. No big burn, just a surprise. He opted for the conventional way to put out a candle next, and blew it out. He went on to grab it by the wick, and again, burned his fingers a little. We helped him know how to pull the candle out and he proceeded to pull it out and take a bite off the end!! Once again, we tried to stop him, but nope. We did, thankfully, manage to stop him before he got his second bite. Yes. He went in for a. Second. Bite. That kid, though…
As you can see, he had a swirly donut, but we exchanged it after for a chocolate one with a skinny line of sprinkles down the middle. He ate maybe three bites of it, picked most of the sprinkles off, and was done with dessert. Perfect. I’m not going to force the kid to eat dessert! He was happy with his birthday food, and so were the rest of us.
We extended Rowan’s birthday to today, and had my parents over once again, as well as Jerilee, for a waffle brunch. The plan was chocolate chip waffles, breakfast sausage, and some fruit. Just simple and yummy. Last night, however, we decided to switch sausage to bacon since I remembered that Ro likes bacon better. Then, this morning, in reminiscing how yesterday’s dessert had gone, I asked Rowan if he wanted chocolate chip waffles or just plain waffles. “Plain,” he answered, without missing a beat. Plain it is! Frankly, with the whipped cream, icing sugar, and syrup available to the group, we had more than enough sugar! We also kept it classy with canned peaches, which everyone seemed to enjoy. I don’t know, does that scream “childhood” too anyone else? We LOVED canned peaches as kids! They were such a treat 🙂 Still are.
So brunch was pretty wild, with a LOT of energy and yelling and sugar, and ended with ALL FOUR KIDS napping off their sugar crash. We have some exciting stuff happening this afternoon, but I’ll tell you all about it in tomorrow’s blog! Until then, I’ll just say that today was the day, three years ago, that Rowan came home.
From the moment we checked into the hospital to the moment we were checked out, our hospital stay clocked in at 25 hours. He was our shortest hospital stay, we had the nicest room, he slept the longest stretches, and I needed the LEAST *ahem* repairs *ahem* done out of all of my babies. Pretty amazing experience it was, having this little boy! I can’t believe he’s THREE! But I also totally can. He is the BEST three year old I know!!