kid fun

Ellis's birthday was yesterday, but basically he's been celebrating his birthday for the past three weeks. I explained to him that first, it was Marlowe's birthday, then his, then Daddy's (whose bday is in a couple of weeks). As soon as M's birthday was over three weeks ago (they are exactly three weeks apart), it has been E's birthday. This past weekend was the real party, though.

Saturday was birhtday party day. This is the first year that Ellis has truly grasped the anticipation of his birthday. After he went to bed on Friday night, I decorated the kitchen and set the table for his birthday breakfast. Marlowe woke me with plenty of time to prepare his chocolate chip pancakes before he woke up. So everything was perfect when he came out of his bedroom. Candles. Pancakes. Smoothies. It was like Christmas.

I found an album of his baby pictures and set that out for him. He loved looking at it. Pointing out all the pictures of baby Ellis. Finding the album was sort of an afterthought, but I thought it might be a fun tradition: birthday breakfast and looking at the baby pictures.

After breakfast we went over to the arboretum to say hello to the trains.

Then we went to Grammy's house for the big birthday. Grammy and Poppy gave Ellis his presents in the afternoon so that he could enjoy them for a little while. A watch and a bike. He looks so grown up!

We planned a fun party outdoors, but about 10 mins before the guests were due to arrive the low rumbling of thunder told us that it was time to move indoors. My optimism ran out. Thus began the most chaotic hour of my life. Kids. Screaming. Running. Inside. I suppose if I had had a clearer head, I could've done more constructive activities. But to be honest, I had been concentrating on optimism that it wouldn't rain. But then we ate and let them watch Tom and Jerry. Which turned out to be a good move, because then the adults could enjoy each other's company more. And the kids had a great time despite it all.

We had a few church friends over, kids Ellis has grown up with. But this year we invited a couple of school friends that he gets along well with. Both of these boys come from Deaf families, so we had a lot of fun hosting our first mixed Deaf/hearing party. As Ellis has gotten older, sometimes big parties overwhelm and he retreats to the basement. But with his Deaf friends, he was so much more vibrant. It's been amazing to watch him develop socially like this. How, at four years old, sharing a common bond of language is already so important.

On Monday, his actual birthday, I sent brownies to school. He came home wearing a Happy Birthday sticker on his shirt. And we took him out to eat for dinner. I am ready for birthday to be over. I think it'll take a little while for him to ease out of it. We may just end up with a summer of birthday.

Mommy's perspective: A staggering cascade of sprinkles, which sends the cookie decorating venture up to carnage status.

Ellis's perspective: SNOW!

...for every Phillies Tshirt I saw today...

Yay Phillies! I must admit, though, it didn't even occur to me to watch the game last night. I think I may have heard that it was going to be played on Wednesday, but it didn't really compute. I was too busy watching Gilmore Girls. I'm up to midway through Season 5. But it is fun to be living in the winning city and seeing everybody be so excited. So. Yay Phillies!!

We went down to CHOP. In addition to our regularly scheduled speech therapy, E had a CI mapping. The audiologist wants to see him a little bit more frequently, because, well, Ellis just doesn't do that great with him. The audiologist has yet to get a really good idea of what's going on in Ellis's head. Thank goodness the speech therapist works in the same office. We're all pretty confident that he's hearing fine, but E just doesn't really do hearing booth, shall we say. But then he had a very, very good speech therapy session. In fact, he knew he was doing well, because he kept beaming and we kept cheering. So he marches to his own beat. Full of surprises that kiddo.

And tomorrow is Costume and Candy Day (otherwise known as Halloween, but we're really just in it for the extra dressups and sugar rush). So a costume must be had. And it's the Rule that we make our costume. And since E doesn't really know what's up yet, we still get to choose his costume. Chris had the great idea of Airplane. arms as wings, a propeller attached to a Tshirt. Hat. Glasses. Voila. The key is Simple this year. Ellis painted the wings this afternoon, and I've been doing the rest this evening. I can't wait for him to try it on. They have a little parade at school, so I wanted it super simple, since the poor teachers are going to get all their kids into their costumes. I don't want to give it all away. So I'll probably download the gagillion number of pics on my camera tomorrow and post some already.

My friend's crazy, smart 4 year old Gid sent Ellis some vmail. Gid is 4yo, is hearing, and loves ASL (he learned it from his smart mama who took it in college). Ellis is, of course, deaf. Couldn't resist posting Gid's mad signing skillz, esp the fingerspelling!