My baaaaaaaaaby isn’t a baby anymore. He’s not even a toddler. He’s *almost* a preschooler.

Now if only I could get him to potty train. (It’s fine. He won’t go to elementary school in diapers, we’ll figure it out. I just hate the part where I can’t ever sit down because I have to walk him to the bathroom 400 times a day.)

Finnegan is a real sweetheart most of the time. He loves people after he pretends to be shy for a few minutes. He’s super brave and a bit of a daredevil, so he hurts himself regularly but it never slows him down. He has a great vocabulary but still a baby voice, so sometimes he’s hard to understand. He’s very smart and has a looooong memory. He can be a real jerk when you’re mad at him, because he’ll just laugh in your face and DGAF about your consequences.

Don’t ask when he’s getting a haircut because he’s not.

Apologies for the wind blowing background noise on the video, we did it at the lake and I didn’t block the microphone well enough.

Oh hi hello today my first-born turns TEN which means I’ve been a mom for a decade.

Evan’s birth story post part 1 and part 2 / Evan’s First Birthday / Second Birthday / Third Birthday / Fourth Birthday / Fifth Birthday / Evan turns six / Evan turns seven (I didn’t blog this? weird) / Evan turns eight / Evan turns nine

Getting pregnant with my first baby is what inspired me start this blog, and why it’s called bebehblog. The 2008 internet was a much different place than the 2019 internet, and blogging my thoughts about pregnancy and new motherhood was often my only connection to ANYONE who had been through those things. I didn’t even own a smartphone when Evan was born.

I am incredibly thankful that I have the last decade documented, even the super TMI embarrassing stuff. The older Evan gets the less he wants shared in this space and I am totally find with that. Ten seems REALLY old – I clearly remember my own tenth birthday party and my thoughts and fears and inner dialogs and how I started to worry so much about social situations and clothes and all that stuff. I’m hoping Evan is spared some of that because he’s a boy, but I want to be prepared and available if he does start to feel anxious.

At ten, Evan is a soft-hearted weirdo. He loves to read and build Legos and play video games. He takes trumpet lessons at school and he’s excellent at karate. He has zero fashion sense and couldn’t care less about his hair. He is very kind to his brothers and sister and still loves to cuddle.

This morning when I went into his room to say “Happy Birthday!” I made a point to pick Evan up, like he was still a toddler, because I once read something that said “One day, you’ll put him down and won’t ever pick him up again” and I figured I didn’t want that day to be anytime before today. Having a big kid is both amazing and terrifying and I am looking forward to being his mom for many many more decades.

One of my rules as a parent has been that I don’t throw big birthday parties after the kids are 5. It gets too complicated with school friends and activity friends and mom friends and far away friends and long term friends. My house isn’t big enough for that many friends, and a party bus is what floats in mind to accommodate all of them.

But Caroline fell in love with ice skating a few weeks ago after just one trip, and when she asked for a party at the rink it sounded so fun I broke my own rules and threw Caroline an ice skating birthday party on December 15th.

We only had the room space for 3 hours, with about 15 minutes to set up and 20 minutes at the end to do cake and presents, so it wasn’t my fanciest or most Pinterest-worthy party. Not even close. Which means I feel a little bit like a failure – I’m usually really good at making magic but when one wall is painted bright red, one is bright yellow, and I can’t reach the ceiling, the decorations are really limited. I had also never seen the room before, and was picturing a much smaller space so I was woefully unprepared.

Luckily, the actual ice skating part was so fun no one seemed to mind. I also brought my Keurig along to set up a custom hot cocoa bar, which was a big hit with the kids. I bought travel cups with lids and sleeves from Amazon, and had candy canes, sprinkles, whipped cream, cotton candy and other stuff to put in the drinks. The rest of our menu was just cookies and candy I made (the biggest hit was the cream cheese mints, which are also my very favorite Christmas candy). I copied almost all my food from Caroline’s first birthday menu.

As favors we had jingle bracelets from Oriental Trading and cute fuzzy gloves from Amazon. We’ve been seeing our friends wear them ever since the party and it’s nice to have given out something so useful!

Thank you to everyone who came to help us celebrate! Caroline said it was the best day of her life so far (of course, earlier that morning we also got a puppy, which might have helped).

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.