Big Boys

I felt a little bad today when I realized that Keahi has had a birthday party with other kids every year since his second birthday and this is Jarom's fourth one and still no party. Maybe next year. Not that he's complaining. He doesn't have a lot of friends here yet. And he loved his birthday crown he wore all day long. And we went with the moms club to Anderson Dairy Factory and got to tour the place and meet the animatronic animals (since, yeah, this is Vegas so there are no cows grazing around here), see the ice cream getting packaged and most importantly eat free ice cream. Now we can save his free birthday ice cream from Coldstone (seriously, you gotta join their birthday club) for next week. He also got to watch his favorite movie. One guess. Yup, Cars.

Then we went to Chuck E Cheese "where magic happens" after picking up Keahi from school. We played the online ticket buster game so that both boys has coupons for 30 tickets each to use for prizes. At one point Jarom got stuck on the bicycle that goes up in the air when you pedal. He sat up there for a while as I tried to make it seem like he was so lucky to get such a long ride until the tech guys got the thing to come back down. Luckily the ruse worked. Freak out averted. Keahi was really sweet to his brother on his special day, always calling him birthday boy (for the 4 days leading to his birthday he'd call Jarom Almost Birthday Boy and sing him Happy Almost Birthday each day) and saying, "Of course I'll share my treat for after lunch with Jarom. He's the birthday boy. He can do whatever he wants." Which lead to a latter conversation we had to have with the birthday boy about how it doesn't actually mean he can do whatever he wants. But, mommy, Keahi said.....After Chuck E Cheese we rushed home to make the pancakes and bacon dinner he requested while Iz finished up the Cars cake (red velvet, of course). Then it was off to Keahi's soccer practice and back for cake and presents.

Sadly, the present I ordered for him (from QVC, mom, can you believe that?) won't get here till next week and Popo is sending money for a piano for the boys which will take time find and we'd already bought him a bike from a garage sale 3 weeks ago for his birthday so he only had one actual present to open on his special day. Keahi picked out 3 things from the dollar store which he paid for with his own money (mostly coins he's found over the last year and his first dollar in allowance). I had packed them into a Fruity Cheerios box and I love that Jarom was so excited when he ripped off the paper to find cereal for his birthday gift. When I told him to open it he was like Yes, I get to eat it now. Then he was even more excited to discover a Cars harmonica, Cars stamp and sticker set, and a Cars tic tac toe game. One day when (if) he grows out of his Cars obsession we're going to have a lot of things for a themed garage sale.

The next morning we headed back to the soccer field for Keahi's second game (which they lost pretty heavily but they all still had fun so it was great) and Jarom's second practice. He's definitely more athletically inclined than his big brother. Then we headed over to the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Another free event for his birthday since we used our voucher from the only time we spent the $10 to go to the pool and some kid pooped in it after 3 hrs. This time there were hardly any people there so Keahi went on the big slide about a hundred times and Jarom on the little one fifty times (after we finally convinced him to try it). By the end Jarom was sliding down by himself and going under and bouncing off the bottom before I caught him up. A huge improvement. He also loved Iz flying him over to me and did it repeatedly until Iz did it super high and a life guard asked us to stop. By the end we were all exhausted and ready to go home and play video games till dinner. All in all, it was a good birthday weekend. And now my youngest is 4. Wow.

Things Jarom can do now that he's a big boy:
-play soccer with the rugrats every Saturday
-skip like a champion
-read a bit
-no more naps
-build awesome things with his magformers just like his big bro
-ask almost every day when he's going to do joy school (I'm working on it, I really am)
-show greater kindness to his brother
-whine slightly less often
-mostly be quiet for the 6 hours during the day that daddy sleeps (seriously, a huge accomplishment)
-dance like a wild maniac

He's my awesome sweetie pie. Who asks me why he's my sweetie pie. And what's a sweetie pie. And then goes, "Oh," with a knowing little nod.

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