Jack gets a Bunk bed

Some people might think almost FIVE is a bit late for a kid to be moving on out of his toddler bed, but when said kid is a bit on the slight side, and the attendant parents are rather on the stick-in-the-mud side, well, you can push it a bit. But even stick-in-the-muds must catch up with the times at some point, and thus this weekend, the bunk beds were purchased, put together, and VERY enthusiastically approved by The Boy. He was SO excited. We kept him out of the room while we rearranged everything and put the beds together. As he came down the hall to see it for the first time, he put all his fingers in his mouth, where they only partially obscured teh huge grin on his face. It was EXACTLY the expression he had on his face when he was about nine months old and incredibly excited about something. I haven't seen that expression in the longest time, and there was something so sweet and poignant about seeing it again, all these years later. Is there a better feeling in the world as a parent than giving your child a moment like that??

Jack's best friend Clay happened to be visiting us for the day, and so the two could properly rejoice in the christening of the bunk bed...

The Many Faces of Jack

It's really quite something, being the mother of a superhero. You never quite know who you're going to be dealing with. And heaven help you if you get it wrong! Robin will quite firmly remind you that he is NOT Jack, or Batman, or Spiderman, or Armyman, or Policeman, or whoever it was you mistook him for, but in fact, Robin. Then, of course, you have to remember who YOU are. Might be Robin's horse, or perhaps Army Mudder (never Mother, always Mudder). Every once in a while I get lucky, and whoever it is that has replaced Jack this day will refer to me as "Hey Jack's mom", which is a great reminder that I am not, in fact, dealing with Jack.

Sure keeps things lively around here! I mean, there are some really good things about living in a fantasy world. Now if I could just get House Cleaning Man to show up more regularly...

The Blizzard of '08

Wheee! Imagine our delight when we woke up to a foot and a half of snow on the ground. Only the "old man" of the family could remember ever seeing so much snow before. Jack, of course, wanted to get out right away to play in it, but Mike and I are stodgy enough to want to sleep in and then actually dress ourselves and Jack appropriately for the arctic weather. Half an hour later, we are all set to go. Jack takes three steps outside the door -- steps that were, to be fair, up to his middle -- and then screams to be allowed to go in. All that effort, and the little guy had forgotten to put on any socks! Nothing would avail, he would NOT come back out, so Mike and I were left to shovel alone. Well, actually, I was left to shovel with Mike watching, as a few shovel fulls were enough for his back to threaten to seize. It was exhausting but fun -- we really enjoyed looking at the mountains of snow on our drive! Later that night our friends the Kami, Nate, Kate and Moira invited us over to spend the night in a Blizzard Party, followed by a huge and delicious breakfast. We're thinking perhaps we should plan a blizzard every year!

To top it off, Jack had recovered enough by Monday that we could all build a snow fort togehter for FHE. As you can tell from the picture, one of us got "left out in the cold" so to speak, and was in grave danger of being pelted to death. True to Ohio weather, it was 60 degrees the next day. The fort managed to hold on for three days, though by that third day, it could hardly be called a fort anymore. More of a tiny ridge, really.

Jack's Birthday

Jack turned 5! A week ago! It's taken that long to recover from the shock that our baby is not really so much of a baby anymore! Mike and I may look like grown ups, but we haven't really matured that much since we were Jack's age, and so we still do birthdays in as big a fashion as we can.

Mornings always start with a birthday cake. Yep, for that day all nutritional worries go out the window and it's all about making the day as awesome as possible. And what's better than being woken up with a birthday cake? This year Jack actually woke up before we could get in to him, but he went straight back to bed, pulled the covers up, and pretended to be asleep, so we could come in and wake him up again!

We also put up streamers on the birthday-person's doorway. Just as a fun little reminder every time you walk in or out. A couple days before his birthday this year, Jack started asking if he was going to get his streamers this year. He was almost more excited about them than his presents (almost).

Welcome to Our Blog

So, we thought we'd better join the twentieth (wait, is it the twenty-first?) century -- and here is our effort. Our very own blog, dedicated to our family, which we think is pretty awesome. (The family, that is, not the blog!) We hope you enjoy your visit to the land of superheroes as much as we enjoy living here!