My mom objected to my characterization of my older son in the last post. I think I was clear that his behavior was nothing unusual for a kid watching his brother get all the attention, but she claims I overstated the need for physical restraint. I'll just have to say that a mother and a grandmother view/remember the same scene quite differently.

However, this post will focus on the more commonly displayed Edward attitude--exuberance.

We hosted his/our first "kid" birthday party on Jan. 8, and I would say it was a success. For several reasons, I deviated from my instinct that the number of guests should equal the age of the kid and invited his whole class plus a few younger siblings who are Daniel's age. Edward has been invited to SO many parties over the last two years that I really felt we owed a lot of people a return invite. Plus we were not having it at our house, but at our community gym so there was plenty of space for the kids to just run around and be kids. Plus it was only for 90 minutes, 10-11:30 a.m. I figured we could handle it. We did, though I was definitely glad a few of the parents hung out to chat and to help corral the kids as needed.
The gym was full of bikes for the kids to ride around plus two inflatables for jumping and sliding.



We had this part for the first hour and then moved to a separate room for cupcakes and juice/water. I had warned John in advance to be prepared to lead a few games of Simon Says since I was sure the cake would not last the remaining 30 minutes of the party after we left the gym. We were totally unprepared for the cake/drinks to last three minutes. Literally by the time the last kids were getting their cupcakes the first ones were done and ready to move.

We had specified on the invitation that the kids' friendship was the greatest gift and were very happy that people respected this and did not bring gifts. However, that left us with time to fill. John jumped in on Simon Says, but then Edward wanted to be Simon.
Then EVERY kid wanted a turn, but their attention span wore out before we could get to everyone. Then we moved on to the hokey pokey, which was a hit (and I'm told has been reprised on indoor play days when it's too cold to go outside at school) but again, didn't last long enough to get us to that magical 11:30 hour.
It kind of devolved after that and the kids ran around a bit, collected their party bags and left. One kid's dad thought it ended at noon so was late for pick up (luckily he was the one who left his cell phone number when he dropped of his son, so a quick call and he came right over.) While we were waiting, the kids had a second cupcake.
Edward had fun and it really was pretty easy, all things considered. But I'm definitely reconsidering the idea of celebrating with friends on the boys' half birthdays. Something about the June/July time frame just seems to offer so many more possibilities for energetic boys.

Speaking of Edward, he floored me last night with this question just as I was turning out the light for the night: "Mom, why did a very angry man shot Abraham Lincoln?"

WHAT???

He always uses probing questions to extend the bedtime ritual, but usually they're about what we've just read or something we've done that day. This was totally out of left field. I asked him where he'd heard about that and he said, "From a book at school." I told him it was a long, complicated story ("what's complicated?") and that we'd have to talk about it more in the morning and maybe get some more books from the library.

This morning I had him show me the book at school. It was a book about "young Abe" but the last two pages dealt with his presidency, the Civil War and his assassination (all in about 50 words, so, you know, nuance is lost.) In fact, the page that said he was shot was actually a picture of Civil War soldiers pointing cannons at each other, so Ed and his classmates thought Lincoln was shot by a cannon in a Civil War battle.

I braved our blizzard to dash quickly to the library before picking up the kids from school and checked out a few other books on Lincoln, but even though they're the same series/reading level as some of the Titanic books we've been reading for the last month, the concepts are way over his head (pioneer times, government, elections, etc.) We'll see if we can make any sense of it for him.

Speaking of the blizzard, this apparently is supposed to be one for the record books. At last a foot of snow (including thunder snow with lightning, which I just heard/saw) driving winds and the arctic cold. Public schools are closed tomorrow. Not sure yet about our daycare, which tends to follow the university's lead on closing. So far UI classes between 4:30 p.m. today and 10 a.m. tomorrow are canceled. Staff are supposed to report for work, but I can easily take vacation time if daycare is closed. We're grateful to be far enough north to avoid the inch of ice that is the southern edge of this storm (down toward St. Louis.) I'm not sure about a snow day with no power/heat! Thank goodness for a warm house (even with our drafty windows and front door!)