High Five

There's a saying that goes, "days and weeks are long, but months and years are short." Whoever said it wasn't kidding. I feel like we've gone from this...

...to this in about 5 seconds. Not 5 years.
My sweet C turned 5 today.

 I took a half day off work to spend the morning with my girl. I always said I would take some part of my work day off on their birthdays to spend time with my kids on their special days. B's birthday falls so close to Christmas that it's usually while I'm on break. C's 4th birthday was on a Sunday and her 3rd while I was on maternity leave with B, so I haven't taken a day off for her birthday since she turned 2.

Her gifts included the traditional new outfit (so you look awesome on your day), a Mario and Luigi shirt (she loves Mario; I'm not even sure why), a puzzle, some story cards, a Leappad, and the Brave game for her Leappad.

 We sent her on a treasure hunt around the house for her clues. C has quite a few sight words and is great at sounding things out. She needed some help with the clues, but recognized enough words in each clue that she knew where she needed to go to find her next present.

 She calls her Leappad her "iPad." And other than when she was at school and when she took a nap (One Ordinary Dad has gotten her back on a napping schedule-- she takes a 20-30 minute power nap almost daily-- he is a saint), she has done nothing but play Leappad.

 Her restaurant of choice for dinner was McDonald's. She loves the indoor playland at the one near our house. I bought some cupcakes for after dinner and we'll probably do her puzzle before bed and use her story cards to create a bedtime story. She wants to wear her Mario shirt to school tomorrow.

Saturday will be filled with parties. One with her friends in the morning at a local giant inflatable playland and one in the evening at our house with family. I make the kids' cakes for their birthdays and C has requested an Angry Birds cake. I ended up buying the tabletop Angry Birds game and plan to use the pieces from that to put on her cake. The game was only $1.50 more than the Angry Birds cake decorating set, and I know she'll play the game in the future.

It's going to be a busy week, but I'm glad I got to steal a few quiet moments with C this morning before school and I plan to steal a few more tonight.

Happy Birthday, Sweet C. I can't believe you are a whole-hand-full-of-fingers old today!

Love,
One Ordinary Mom :-)

PS: Sweet C could use your prayers for peace. We thought she was doing okay with the transition to a pet-free home. She hasn't brought it up much at home or really acted like she missed them. However, she acted out at school quite a bit last week and exploded yesterday when she didn't want to share, yelling that "everyone is taking things from her like her pets." Her teacher assured us this is normal processing for her age and circumstance, but it still breaks my heart. At school she has also been drawing our pets a lot and talking about them. We checked a helpful book out from the library (which a guidance counselor at my school suggested) and are working through it. I'm really hoping that the birthday celebrations and gifts are a nice distraction for now and that God will continue to heal her broken heart and give her peace about it. On the bright side, we have noticed a pretty significant decrease in her snoring (which was part of it, apparently). She used to saw logs and you could hear her from the hallway. Now, it's barely audible unless you're close to her.