Evan through the years: Birth Day (part 1 and part 2), one, two, three, four, five, six, seven (oops, that one doesn’t exist?), eight

Happy birthday to my firstborn, who is somehow nine years old today even though I could have sworn he was born just last week. Now he’s NINE.

For the last nine years I have made an average of 253 mistakes a day, used my angry voice, yelled, threatened, failed to follow through, was incredibly inconsistent, offer the wrong kind of praise, didn’t enforce bedtimes, let him get away with bad behavior, couldn’t figure out how to make him eat most vegetables and pretended I didn’t notice he was playing on his tablet longer than he was supposed to. And yet somehow, Evan is still a wonderful kid. He’s sensitive and deeply empathetic – he cried during both Coco and Guardians of the Gallaxy Vol 2. He can be hesitant to try new things but he isn’t ashamed to be himself. He wants nothing more than to be treated as a responsible, trustworthy child who is allowed to stay home by himself for 30 minutes at a time. He loves small kids and babies and big kids and adults and everyone in between. He still fully believes in Santa, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.

There is so much more I am going to do wrong when it comes to raising this child, but let’s hope heaps and heaps of love is enough to balance all those mistakes. This is my first time raising a 9-year-old, it’s pretty scary and wonderful. Happy Birthday Evan!

Caroline is Seven!

Her favorite things are: cheer, dance, fashion, drawing, writing, reading, Wonder Woman, cooking, baking, her brothers, her friends, unicorns, glitter, Hamilton and making videos.

She is very, very smart, a wonderful friend, kind to everyone and makes me coffee in the morning. Caroline plans to have a streak of purple added to her hair over winter vacation. She cannot wait until she is old enough to officially babysit.

Happy birthday, my beautiful daughter.

I’ve been a mother for eight years now and I’m like 75% sure I’m not doing it right. It’s unfortunate that there’s no real way to tell until I’ve really screwed up. I need a warning sign somewhere between “isn’t always happy in group settings” and “burns down the house”, but right now I’ll have to settle for “says he’s part of The Dark Side but gives really good hugs”.

I can’t even begin to sum up Evan in a post the way I do for babies, because when you are eight you are a whole human person. He understands things like reading and math and sarcasm and other important life skills. He is old enough to be trusted with important jobs and responsible enough that I can tell him the rules and I am mostly sure he will follow them. We’re getting close to being allowed to stay home alone, which might be the most real milestone I can imagine.

He can ride a bike, read a novel, carry the laundry upstairs, pay for something at the store, make his siblings breakfast in the morning, do all the dog-related chores and work all the technology in the house.

And here is Evan in his own words. Happy Birthday buddy, we love you so much!

Today, my one and only baby girl turns SIX. She has grown both physically (why are all her dresses too short?!) and mentally (she’s already surpassed first grade reading and it’s not even half way through the year) SO much in the last year I’m often shocked when I remember she’s ONLY six. And then she has a rough, long, very tired day where she can barely make it to dinner without collapsing in tears and I remember she’s a tiny child and sometimes she just needs cuddles. She is delightful company, an amazing help around the house and with the baby, a budding chef and kind to people and animals. I could not be more proud of my Caroline.

After you turn 5 you don’t get a huge party anymore, but you do get a family fun birthday weekend. We did some shopping, some Caroline-chosen meals, a girl date with Starbucks, and she took cupcakes to school to celebrate. She said it was the best weekend ever.

It only took one take to do our birthday question video this year. (Links to previous year’s videos: 5 years old, 4 years old, 3 years old) No explanations needed, she’s got this under control:

If you’d like to waste time today and/or take a trip down “Suzanne spends way too much time and money on birthday party” Lane, here are some helpful links:

First Birthday Party (Winter sparkle wonderland)

Second Birthday Party (Winter woodland fairies)

Third Birthday Party (Princess party)

Fourth Birthday Party (Mermaid party)

Fifth Birthday Party (Nutcracker ballet party – my FAVORITE)

Happy Birthday to the amazing, unique, brave, smart, funny Caroline. It’s a pleasure and a joy to be your mother. even when you are driving me completely crazy.

Tonight we’re going on the Essex Steam Train which they turn into the Polar Express for the holidays. We went a couple years ago for Caroline’s 3rd birthday and it was straight up magical. She is a girl after my own heart and doing fun family stuff is her favorite, so an evening wearing matching pajamas and drinking hot cocoa with her brothers is the perfect celebration. Plus she already partied hard with all her friends last weekend.

This morning she told everyone at the farmer’s market it was her birthday. She loves to talk and has a special charm that old ladies can’t resist. She is never cold. She likes sleeping and swiming and dancing. She has been singing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town non-stop. She is going to start piano lessons in January because she’s pretty sure she’s the next Taylor Swift. Even when she’s being ridiculous or uncooperative she’s the sweetest and just wants everyone around her to be happy. Her teacher told me I don’t ever have to worry about someone pushing her around, because despite being the smallest kid in her class she has NO trouble telling anyone to knock off their poor behavior.

We made another interview for this year. Her 3 year old video is here and 4 year old video is here.

I have no idea why YouTube murdered the quality of this video, but I promise it didn’t look as bad as the screen grab when I uploaded it and it wasn’t that dark when I shot it.