The Big 0-5

Remember in the movie, 'Cars' when all the cars raced through the water park and 'Mater was launching water balloons with his tow-hook?

Neither do I because I'm pretty sure that never happened in any of the Cars movies. But when you're 4 and planning your 5th birthday party, reality is sort of an after thought, like napkins to wipe all the cake off your shirt.

So it went then that G, -having missed a 4th birthday party due to it being the day we moved into the Cold War Dream House and the previous and following weeks being filled with all the pomp and circumstance of remodeling and selling and buying and remodeling homes,- had a good one coming for birthday number 5.

His plan was a Lightning McQueen themed party with his blow up slide, swimming pool and Slip'n Slide. Given that our yard has multiple elevations, the layout of it all would be awesome for sure. I envisioned a wave of water from a popped inflatable swimming pool washing a fence away at least. Possibly flooding a neighbor's basement. Certainly there would be some crying kids. To make sure that last one would happen, G insisted we also have plenty of squirt guns.

Then the coup d'etat request; A Tow Mater pinata. The Lightning McQueen paper plates, napkins and Disney Cartoon shaped cake were all optional. Finish line flags, NASCAR references, Jeff Gordon look-a-likes were all unnecessary. But the 'Mater pinata was the key to the whole party. According to the 4-year old.

G's birthday represents more to The Newmaforma than just a kid turning a year older. Without getting sappy or rehashing details, his birthday is a day of celebration of family and health. A lot went down before and after G was born and we are each blessed to be here as a family. So we celebrate.

This year celebrating as a family meant making a pinata. Earlier this summer I went to a paper mache' party where I wrapped a balloon in soaked, torn up newspaper and was "allowed" to leave the party early because I sucked at making a balloon shaped paper mache' thing.

We all sat for 3 nights after dinner at the kitchen table working on Mater. I roughed up the basic frame work. A did most of the paper mache', knowing of my previous balloon aberration. G painted with mostly a brown pallet. The funnest part, the late-night Mom and Dad time building Mater's details were the time that A and I had to really enjoy.

It's amazing what skills surface when you have kid projects to do. Before G, we didn't really roll with the paper mache' crowd. Cargo-bike family fun, riding from park to park wasn't really our thing either. Nor was staying up till 2 a.m. reminiscing about how we used to  sleep for gluttonous hours at a time.Yet, it was quality time to reflect as she painstakingly made Mater's eyes and I wrote his name on the doors. We eagerly showed each other our detailed work and then basked in our completed project before reminding ourselves that some little pre-school kid was gonna destroy Mater with a wiffle ball bat.

In the end, Mater was as G had insisted all along, perhaps the best part of the whole party. Each of the dozen kids got a few swings. Mater was torn from the string hanging him by a slightly taller-than-average kid and this fool had to get his hands all into the hard end of the wiffle ball bat to keep the pummeling for candy at peak interest. G, going last, was able to purge his energy into destroying the 12 hours or so of his parents' handiwork. The kids fought en mass ripping the candy from Maters' innards and from each other before ingesting as much as possible before their own parents confiscated what was unable to be gripped in their tiny little hands.

Happy birthday G.

Hook, Line and Sinker

G thirsts  for a single activity. Granted he still practices his "moves" (read: flips, spins and flying kicks) on the couch and needs a daily dose of tire swing. He mostly just wants to ride his bike. So much so that last Sunday he asked for a long ride (20-mile loop) to the river on the tag-along for his first real ride on it, followed by a family ride, each on our own bikes to the DQ 5-miles away. Included in that ride was an hour or so at the park across the street from the DQ. Don't fret that he's becoming one of those one dimensional performer kids. I'd make a lousy Pageant Mom.

After some arm twisting during some pretty awesome recent outdoor riding weather, I conceded and took him back to the Lumberyard where he decided being the only kid on a Skuut bike was no longer cool. Much crashing, tears and firm words to his bike to cooperate, "Stop being cross with me and just obey, bike!"  Led him to managing the Green Line with the grace of any 4-year old on a 12" wheeled Monkey toy.

 

Progress of course is bitter-sweet. With the gains in confidence and the self-motivated move to his 16" wheeled bike, G is more interested in the wondrous independence that the bicycle brings. This is exciting and certainly a happy diversion from trying to teach him to wipe his own butt, yet I was a little sad when I put the Thomas up for the summer and traded it for the boat on the cargo-bike. G will be too big for Thomas come Autumn and soon, the joys of the tag-along will outweigh the rides in the boat that have been about 90% of all my riding the last 4 years. The good news is that now I can officially start dreaming of a tandem. But in all honesty, I've loved riding the Bullitt so I'm sure it will still get plenty of attention.

These days are about over!