When a kid's party becomes a metaphor for your life, are you deep or in over your head?

Mama knows how to throw a theme party. Or perhaps more accurately, mama loves to throw a theme party.

Lil E's birthday party and these festivities -- A construction site teeming full of three-year olds, their parents drinking coffee and mimosas, their baby sisters being hidden from the sun (the sun! in late September!) and airborne paint brushes and plastic drills, all in grandma and grandpa's backyard.

It was happy and good and over in two hours. The kids had thoroughly dug, raked, block built, water painted, run, driven toy trucks, chocolate caked and juice boxed themselves out. And isn't a preschool party mostly judged by the number of kids who go home uninjured and ready for a hibernation-like nap?

We needed this. It was a tough weekend at our house, perhaps mostly related to all the reasons I have been quitting things left and right. I'm not sure if this is the space to go into all of that, but I do know that ten laughing (and occasionally tugging at that same plastic drill) does me good. Just looking around at that backyard full of crazy, funny, sweet and icing-mouthed kids and their mommies with babies in slings and dads on the ground knocking over foam blocks and the grandparents watching it all, it made me feel full. And I needed that. Selfishly, sweetly, I needed that.

In the midst of all that construction, I needed to see the joy in rebuilding. And there it was. Here I am.

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Oh bejezus, the big boy bed

Yesterday was so sweet, celebrating Lil E's birthday. We fenced off a little space and time for just the three of us to sing, open presents and go to breakfast at one of our favorite little spots in the city.

We set up Lil E's big boy bed, a tiny toddler bed transition from the safety and little person-ness of his crib, in the middle of the living room. A few months ago, he told me it was time for him to have a big boy bed and I listened. I was reluctant but I got it. All of his friends have moved into toddler and twin beds and he was aware that he was the last hold-out he knew sleeping behind bars (delicately carved and painted Jenny Lind bars, but bars just the same). I promised him that when he turned three he could have a big boy bed and gave up my own dreams of sliding down the side bars and lifting him out of the crib for his first day of junior high, or at least kindergarten. And I admit, as much I've learned at this point that Lil E is very good at communicating what is next (hello, weaning and potty training), I was a little sad to see Bruce putting the pieces of the bed together knowing that the next morning he'd be taking pieces of the crib apart.

Lil E seemed to have a bit of that hesitation himself as he sized up the little white bed with couch pillows and a quilt haphazardly set up to make it look like a cozy place to sleep -- and stay -- all night. Only later, when we watched his new ocean DVDs, he and snuggled up together on the crib mattress now in the big boy bed in front of the television, did he warm to the idea.

What he loves most (other than the ride-on digger and seemingly endless line of trucks and cars from the grandparent brigade), is the skitterish red beta fish in the bowl on our dining room that is now his pet. Lil E Fish, so dubbed while I said four thousand times that we only would feed the fish once every other day and clean the bowl once a (ugh) week and please keep the little net out of the bowl and yes, that means no touching the fish.  We explained that he showed us how responsible and caring he was when the grasshopper was in residence in that very spot on the dining room table (although stumbling more than hopping due to preschooler-mandated jail time with a few strands of wilted lake grass and some water in the corners of the bug catcher), and that is why we knew he would take good care of a fish. He raised his eyebrows, nodded and of course, tried to touch the fish again.

After some miniature golf by the lake and a pizza dinner and cake with all four grandparents and an aunt, the boy was ready for bed. So ready that he told Bruce that he didn't need night time stories, that he just needed to go to sleep.

Yes, yesterday was sweet, with intimate little moments and big cheers by a crowd of people crazy for this kid. Last night, though, not so much. I spent most of the hours between 9 and 11 pm in with Lil E, Bruce was up at least three times giving him cold medicine for a rapidly-emerging mucus infestation and picking up the roller-offer once. And because the best parenting tenet I've ever heard -- sleep begets sleep -- I was right on in knowing my boy would be up way earlier than usual. And he was.

We are tired and discombobulated and it is going to take some time to get used to this being three business. For all of us. I'll be working this like I'm working my job and my volunteer commitments right now, though. One night at a time.
 

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Happy FWEE!, beautiful boy

Dear Sweet Little Stinkpot,

Three years ago at this time, I was asleep and dreaming I was in labor. In my dreaming life, my baby emerged with big brown eyes and hair that lay in slick black curls. In my waking life, twelve hours to the minute later, you were born looking exactly as I dreamed. I even gasped when I got my first glimpse of you because I recognized you from the dream that woke me up just before my water broke all over the bedroom floor.

And you might cringe one day to read that, but the slight delay that followed me saying, "Honey, wake up. My water's breaking." followed by the beginning of it all then your daddy's frantic look as he processed it all, jumped out of bed and pulled out stacks of towels he'd stashed all over the apartment. And any feelings of embarrassment will melt into laughter to picture him nervously picking out CDs to soothe my nerves in the delivery room and throw things into an overnight bag that he'd never use.

When I look at you, I sometimes wonder what it was like when you were so fresh and new. It seems like you've always been talking, and mostly, you have. It seems like you've always had that wide, dimply grin, and mostly, you have. It seems like you've always had those soulful brown eyes and crazy hair, and of course, you have.

It seems like you've always been telling me to pretend to be you and Daddy to be Grandpa Bob and you will be Daddy.

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