The harsh realities of turning five

Our oldest son turned five today. The day seemed filled with far too many realities for a five year old. As he dressed himself this morning, he asked me (quite concerned) if he would now be too big for his shirt. I assured him that it would still fit.

A little later in the morning, he asked why Daddy had to work away from home today (he sees his daddy work from home from time to time and I guess he just wanted him home today). I was just trying to affirm what a good Daddy he has, and how thankful we are that he has a good job. I took the opportunity to mention that someday he too would be a good husband and daddy etc, but got a far different response than I had expected. He got really quiet...and quiet turned somber...and somber turned to tears. And he said, "but I don't want to not live here." It took ten minutes of talk and consoling to reassure him that adulthood was still a far ways off, and that he didn't need to "worry" about it.

I mentioned how he would one day find the woman he was going to marry, and would want to have his own home and raise his own family. Then he quietly responded, "but there are so many women...how am I going to know which one to pick?" I assured him that when the time came God would show him the right one.


To end the day, the boys played outside for a good part of the afternoon. And it seemed as if to add injury to insult, he slipped from the top rung of the steps and landed right on his privates. Poor guy, he didn't even know what it was that hurt so bad. All he could say was that he hurt his bottom.

After all that happened today...I'm glad we actually celebrated his birthday yesterday!

Turning Five

We celebrated our oldest son's 5th birthday yesterday. He had requested a Cars birthday cake, so we decorated with all Cars decor (the funny part about all this is that he really didn't care for the video...but all three boys love the character merchandise). Even our 19-month-old can say "Queen" for McQueen and "Docsun" for Doc Hudson.

We gave the birthday boy his choice of what part of the cake to eat, and he picked the street. Does it get anymore boy than that?!?

New Item on the Menu

We were at dinner the other night ordering our meals when our three-year-old asked our waitress for "chicken thumbs." I guess the boy prefers thumbs to fingers. Then again, it's not like chickens have fingers either!

Canned Smiles

Why is it that saying "cheese" or "smile" works so well for some, and NOT for others?