Hip-Hip-Hooray

My little man is growing up. Yesterday he turned five, and it was the first birthday he recognized as more than the inexplicable appearance of gifts. A rite of passage has come and gone.

It felt like Saturday because we marked it off on the calendar as a day to celebrate.  He woke up singing 'happy birthday to me'; I could hear him in the other room.  Do you remember what that was like?  To be a kid on your birthday, in a house littered with multicolored balloons?

It was a day of his favorite things: cake-baking, lunch at the little bagel place downtown, the park, gifts and pizza and pixar, and a skype date so he could blow out his candles with my family, just like he would if we were home.

We bought him an inflatable pool so he could float his new pirate boat in the living room, a backpack because we're going home in just over a month and he likes to periodically pack up his drawer in preparation, and art supplies, because he's taking after his mommma.  He named the playmobile sailors Captain and Gary.  I'm not sure why.

Then, before bed, he informed me that he is not, in fact, five; he is 'twenty.'  So there you have it.  

Happy Birthday, kiddo.