party of the century

I received a coveted invitation to join a small group of children to celebrate my dear friend's fifth birthday. We have been anticipating this party ever since the dad mentioned that his goal this summer is to master fusion cuisine. The party was yesterday afternoon (and it carried on well into the evening) and it was better than we could have ever imagined. There was a water slide and we all enjoyed it until a storm unexpectedly broke and we retreated indoors to play Lego and blocks and all things fun. And their house . . . it might just be our dream house . . . in our dream neighborhood.

The pinata was popular. One of the older girls broke it open after we all took many turns, spilling out balls, rubber stamps, lollipops, and helicopters.

And the cake. This beautiful cake was homemade by my friend's dad. It was constructed of three 9x13 cakes. The limbs, head, and tail were vanilla and the body was chocolate. It had the fluffiest frosting I've ever tasted. 

Although I haven't even told the story yet of my fun fifth birthday party, I am already looking ahead to next year. (All of the children are.) I want this exact party that my friend had!

let's talk about kindergarten

Since I am now five, people always ask me about kindergarten. ohhhh you must be about to start kindergarten. No, I am not. Since I attend Montessori, I have the privilege of being in a mixed-age primary classroom for three years so I have the opportunity to know my guides, my peers, and to master my work. Next school year, I will move into a leadership role and I am most excited about serving snacks to the little ones.  

Here is a photo of me bidding goodbye to my guide on the last day of school. I was so ready for a break from her - and school in general. 

This week, my school is moving from its crowded home of 23 years to a new 12-acre campus . . . with a top-notch outdoor education program. (Have I mentioned that before?) When I return to school, a mere two months from now, this is what my life will look like. And I have finally been invited to be a lunch child!

tornado weather

On Thursday when we went to bed the evening was still pleasant, if not miserably hot. And then came this to interrupt my mom's game of Words with Friends. Good thing she happened to be playing a game.

I was carted downstairs because the last place you want to be is upstairs during a tornado. I briefly woke up to ask what was going on. By then, the storm was fierce and loud and the winds were 80mph. All I knew was maybe a tornado. After an hour+ of being half awake but mostly asleep, the winds suddenly stopped but it was so eerie that it was impossible to know if the storm really had passed or if something worse was brewing. 

The next morning was beautiful and sunny. I was heartbroken to see that my grove of massive oak trees was mostly destroyed. The saddest part was seeing the tree with the crushed bird nest in it. In recent days, I have realized just how much shade those trees provided in the afternoon and they will really be missed this summer. 

We also lost part of our roof. Again. I had the honor of collecting the roof tiles that scattered across our yard. 

Our neighborhood suffered a lot of damage. A shed was blown into the middle of the road. (What?) Many yards lost fences. So many beautiful trees are torn apart.

My assessment: tornadoes are way too scary but interesting.
(And ours wasn't even a real tornado. Close enough though.)

five

On Tuesday, I celebrated my last day of being four with my first ever trip to Homeslice. (Clarification: Homeslice is closed on Tuesdays but thankfully their More Homeslice is open to peddle the best slices in the world.) I have long been addicted to Homeslice but have never had the privilege of going there. All I can say is wow. And it exceeded all expectations. 

Some fun plans were tentatively made for my birthday but everything fell by the wayside and I built Lego for 12 hours or so. (Best birthday ever.) I took a break only to go to Verdes for dinner and to play a bit of football on their back lawn which really isn't much of a lawn right now. It has become tradition to celebrate my birthday at Verdes with a nutritionally unbalanced meal of too much queso, glass after glass of lemonade, and a sundae that is bigger and more elaborate each year.

On our way out, I met a sweet older couple who immediately adored me as I began my story of how yesterday I was four but then I woke up and I was automatically five. I showed them my Lego monstertruck that I had brought along for the car ride to Verdes. I charmed them further (the woman raved about how much she loved loved loved my personality) and they regretted missing my birthday and not getting me a gift since it all just happened automatically. So my new friends gave me some money as long as I promised to go shopping for a birthday gift on behalf of them. I have no way to thank them.

birthday circle: a saga

Not only is this the last week of school but, tomorrow, it is finally my turn for a birthday circle. I am the last of the year. The birthday circles started out fairly lowkey and we would celebrate our friends with treats of fruit kebabs, juice popsicles, or popcorn but somewhere along the way, one-upmanship (amongst the children, not the parents) kicked in. I was going to bring the best treat ever: pink cakepops from Starbucks. This had been my plan for months. and months. and months. 

And then my best friend, the girl I am going to marry, ruined everything (by her mother's admission). They baked/brought giant, and I mean GIANT, cookies with chocolate chips and M&Ms. They were fantastic. We all loved them and we are still talking about it! Then the birthday circle rules were promptly and drastically rewritten. 

There went my cakepop plan. We then decided to order our cakepops from Whole Foods (made without refined sugar and, sadly, not pink) but they don't make them anymore. We visited three different Whole Foods stores and some other fancy bakeries trying to settle on a birthday treat. In the end, my mom made peanut butter cookies not rolled in sugar and with chocolate shavings instead of chips. They are precisely uniform in size with most of the chocolate intentionally hidden at the bottom of the cookie. 

And then there was the book. It is tradition to donate a book to my school in honor of your child's birthday. Combine the rigid guidelines about what reading materials are allowed in the Montessori classroom with my mom's fussiness about grammar, language, and punctuation and you will know that choosing the book was not an easy task. It took countless hours to select one about insects. It's not hardcover but I hope that will be fine. 

And then there were the photos. I have to show my friends photos from each of my years. This is what I chose.

reading dog

On Friday afternoon, I spent so many hours at the library that I was still there when Joe E the reading dog arrived. At 2:00, I asked the librarian if the dog was coming that day (and if she wanted to go on vacation with me to swim with the dolphins - which, for a boy like me, is almost as exciting as being at the library). 3:30. So we made the big commitment to wait. and wait. and wait. Then I asked my mom every single minute that passed if the dog was there yet. Luckily, he arrived at 3:28.

Meeting the dog had been on my list of things to do for months but my schedule is often so full with picnics, lunch dates, or bike riding that the timing was just never quite right.

While the reading dog program is generally for children who read below level, I read way above level (remember, I am only 4!) but I am still a beginner. Joe E listened patiently as I read a book. Maybe he was a bit sleepy. He let me cuddle with him and he was so soft and freshly bathed. Because I get tired when I read aloud and I had the dog and his owner all to myself, I picked out book after book to have read to me once I finished my story.

I even told Joe E my favorite joke:
What do dogs eat for dessert?
pupcakes

foreman

After attending a party to celebrate the conclusion of another successful eight-week session of soccer, I stopped by my new campus to see how nicely things are unfolding. The construction of my new campus is a huge undertaking and there is no one better than a Montessori student to serve as a construction foreman. I only meant to stay five minutes but I was put to work, fed some pizza, compelled to share with the school's founder/director my brilliant ideas about strategies for transporting the classroom materials, and then asked to move tons of rocks. By hand. And, seriously, I mean tons.

I cannot even begin to tell you how spectacular my new campus is going to be. It sits on 12 mostly undeveloped acres and much of the focus is on the expansive natural playscapes and the nature education program. There are walking trails, wildflower meadows, a dry creek bed, and it's almost as if they were thinking of my perfect world when every minute detail of this campus was planned (and left unplanned). Our weekly assemblies will be enjoyed outdoors under the huge canopy of a Live Oak.

See this mountain of dirt behind me? Not only did I help secure this slide using stumps but I also got to take the inaugural run. best slide ever.

I'll be going back later in the week to do some painting and to check on the progress of my workers.