Kelsie's 5th Birthday

I can't believe it's been 5 years since I was introduced to the wonder of the epidural. Kelsie is very proud that she is now the only 5-year-old at her school (which of course means she's in charge, according to her). Of her 5 birthdays so far, I'd say this was her best. We brought donuts in to her school for a little celebration and dance party there. Then a couple days later we had a laid back birthday party at the playground.

Birthday celebration at her school: Her main present from us was this scooter, which she says is her "favorite thing in the whole wide world." She asked me to take a picture of her looking surprised: We also gave her a fish, which she has named Blue Purple Star. She has completely disowned our other pets in favor of this one. We have since learned that we were overfeeding the fish, as you can see by all the food at the bottom of the bowl that is making the water cloudy. Oops.
And now to her birthday party. We had a party at our "secret park," which she so named because it's at the end of a dead end street and no one knows about it. It's small but nice and completely fenced in, which made it an easy place to let a bunch of preschoolers loose. The kids played on the playground and with our bubble machine, sidewalk chalk and pinata, while the adults enjoyed wine and cheese and crackers. Turned out to be a really good day for everyone.

Amazingly, no one got hurt. Even with the pinata:


She was insistent on having an M&M cake. No clue where she got that idea, but it turned out to be a good one. She nearly had a major meltdown when the other kids were blowing out the candles before she got a chance, but it worked out. Dylan had other ideas for the bubble machine: Not his manliest moment:
Great day. She's still on overload from all of the great presents she got. We even hid several of them to save for a rainy day, but it's still enough to completely throw off her routine. She has pitched a fit every evening this week because she wants to play instead of go to bed. Hoping we'll get that back on track this week. Wish us luck.

Proud Parent Moment #6

We invited all of Kelsie's classmates to her birthday party and the RSVPs have been incredibly touching. Many of the parents' RSVP emails have included stories about their interactions with Kelsie at the school. A recurring theme seems to be that Kelsie acts as the comforting parental figure for new students. Here are a couple of the notes:

"Kelsie was so sweet to Evan on his first day at Park Prep (back in January). She said she was going to watch out for him :) so sweet and adorable!"

"I really do have to tell you how sweet Kelsie is . . . Abigail had a difficult transition into school (lots of crying when I dropped her off). One day Abigail was about to cry, saying "do you have to leave mommy?" and Kelsie, bless her sweet little heart, chimes in with "don't worry Abigail, we won't leave you, we'll stay with you all day" (or something very similar if I'm not getting the exact wording ;-) I also almost fell over when I heard her READING an entire book one morning! Sooo impressed!!"

And we know that since Kelsie rarely naps the teachers get her to help the younger kids who have a hard time napping. They put her next to them so she can read to them or just lie down next to them to set an example. And apparently it works!

At the risk of bragging, I am so proud of her. If we can just manage to harness her book smarts and her nurturing instinct, she may just accomplish amazing things with her life. We'll do everything we can to encourage that.