Brenna's Birthday

Here's another example of my fantastic parenting. Brenna has little or no concept of weeks and months, so I've had a hard time explaining to her when her birthday was. (She knows it's May 6th, she just doesn't know what that means exactly). On Monday, I told her "your birthday is Thursday". On Tuesday I said "2 more days". On Wednesday I woke up with a nasty cold. A really nasty cold. So I told her "soon". By Thursday I was basically stuck in bed feeling miserable, so we all ignored her birthday all together. I postponed her party a week. So on the 15th, we told Brenna it was finally her birthday, and we celebrated like crazy. In her eyes, she had a wonderful birthday. I think if she'd known that the day I was sick was actually her birthday, she'd have been very disappointed.
We had a Dora the Explorer party. She invited 5 friends. We went on a little adventure, just like Dora does, with a little game at each stop. Swiper (Ethan) even popped out to try and swipe their candy. The end of the journey was the kitchen, where we ate cake and ice cream. Brenna took her "make a wish before you blow out the candles" very seriously.

I forgot to upload my photos with the first ones last and the last ones first, so they're just in reverse order. Oops.

So here's the lovely Dora cake. Grandma Kitchen always makes the birthday cakes, and my kids always seem to challenge her creativity. She never fails to get it just right, though. Such talent!

Anyway, it was a great birthday! We are so proud of our 5-year-old.

Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

Last night I made some food for dinner that the kids did not like. Ethan soldiered through and ate it anyway, but the girls both sort of moved it around and then once I left the table, they did too. I told them both that when the basement was clean and their plates were empty, we would all have ice cream. Then I went down to start picking up the toys while the girls went back to the table. Pretty soon Brenna wandered down. A few minutes later here came Taylie. I asked them both "did you eat your food?" Brenna said no, but Taylie said yes. Once the basement was clean, I told Brenna "come up with me and I'll help you finish your dinner". Lo and behold - Brenna's plate had quite a bit more food there than I had originally given her. Hmmmm . . . suspicious. I questioned Taylie about it and she caved right away. Yes, she'd scraped her dinner onto Brenna's plate and then lied about it. I put Taylie's portion back on her plate, along with about half of Brenna's food. Taylie said "I don't think I had this much left" so I said "no you didn't, but I figured you deserved this". Defeated sigh from Taylie. Then I sat there and watched her eat it all. She said "you don't have to stay here" and I said "apparently I do". It was one of my finer parenting moments. Maybe Taylie (and Brenna) learned that I'm not as stupid as I look.

Piano (and Violin) Recital

Ethan's piano teacher has each student perform one solo piece and one duet. This year I asked if the duet could be Ethan on piano and Taylie on violin. Careene (the teacher) said she had never had a student do that kind of thing in a recital, but she was excited to try it. I was thrilled because since Taylie and I are the only students taking lessons from our violin teacher, there wasn't going to be a violin recital. It worked out perfectly!

Ethan actually performed two solo pieces. He chose The Entertainer because of a story I told him from my childhood. We had a babysitter who knew how to play that song on the piano, so every time she came we asked her to play it over and over while we danced around the living room. Now that I look back on that, I bet that poor girl just dreaded coming to our house. Mom, I hope you paid her well.