Jay turned 6!

We sure love this smart, funny, sweet guy. He had a nice, normal birthday. It was happy.

SIX YEARS! SIX candles!

Presents were the first order of business. [yes, Jay and Rose both slept in their soccer clothes after their game the night before] Jay wanted gray Legos to build castles. It felt so boring to dump a bunch of gray bricks into a bag and call it a birthday present, but he was happy with them! We filled out his gift opening fun with a few books and a box of sidewalk chalk. (Legos are expensive!)

A Lego castle at last! With A storm trooper in the tower, of course.

Since Jay had school on his birthday, Rose, Amber, and I brought popsicles for his class (we’re not allowed to share homemade food at school). This stingy mama brought 100% juice popsicles and only one or two kids liked the tangerine flavor. Oh well! The class sang happy birthday to Jay twice while we were there, and when he came home from school, Jay said he was so tired of having people sing to him.

Bonus: Grama Meri came for the day! Jay invited her. Rose scored a few hours of Grama Meri’s full attention before Jay got home from school, and she soaked it up. These kids love their Grama! So do I! I loved having her visit too.

Would you believe me if I told you that I did not destroy the cake this year? One of our favorite books (“All Join In” by Quentin Blake) has a part that goes like this: “And when Ferdinand decides to make chocolate fudge banana cake, what do we do for goodness sake? We all join in!”

Jay requested chocolate fudge banana cake for his birthday this year. He wanted the bananas to be whole and sticking out of the cake like in the book, but we had to compromise on that one. Some online research yielded the easiest dessert recipe I’ve ever made: 1 box of Ghiradelli brownie mix, two eggs, two mashed bananas, and one stick of butter. Nothing else! That’s my kind of baking. My instincts said that birthday cake needs frosting. So I looked up a mild chocolate cream cheese frosting and miraculously whipped it up with relative ease. Whew! What a relief!

It wasn’t exactly a pretty cake, but it tasted good, and more importantly, the birthday boy approved.

After the classic birthday dinner of homemade mac and cheese, the local family came over for cake and candles.

Side note—my Mom and I finally got a normal picture together! A selfie!

After a day in the limelight, Jay was feeling emotionally drained. He was weepy at bedtime, so I went in and laid down with him for half an hour. He just laid there snuggled up with me, talking when something came into his head, quiet when he was thinking. He put his arm around my neck and said “I really like this.” It was a sweet moment for my mommy heart. I couldn’t help but think how few more times Jay will even want to snuggle up with me and be my sweet little boy. So I soaked it in and thought back to the night he was born and the first time I got to hold him and snuggle with him. I nearly got weepy right along with Jay! It seems like for all  we moms go through bringing our babies into this world, we should get a few more years with them being all young and SWEET. Sigh. I guess we just have to soak up the moments while we can.

I love my six-year-old Jay!