Mal's 4th

The morning of his birthday, Mal came into the bathroom after my shower and we had the following exchange:

Mal: Is it not Mommy's birthday?

Me: Nope, not Mommy's birthday.

Mal: Is it not Daddy's birthday?

Me: Nope.

Mal: Is it not Gareth's birthday?

Me: Nope. Whose birthday is it?

Mal: Uhhhh, it's punkin's birthday!

This conversation was repeated frequently through the day in various forms. Mal is almost never Mal anymore. Most often he's a robot, but a few weeks ago he was a decoration, and on his birthday he was a "punkin". His preschool teachers and classmates all humored him and referred to him as a pumpkin all day. We took in blueberry muffins as the special treat for his class. That was all the celebrating done that day, as I had a final that morning and Ryan had a drum lesson and I had rehearsal in the evening. But we picked up a friend from our old neighborhood after school that afternoon and happened to run into Colin while there, so Mal got a birthday bike ride. He really misses getting to ride on Colin's bike. The boys had an impromptu playdate with Colin's daughter and another girl from our co-op days. Colin's daughter eagerly asked if I'd brought Gareth with me. Moments like that make me so sad that we moved. Gareth has some great friends at his new school, but we both miss his old school and our friends there a lot. Seeing them often just isn't the same as seeing them daily.

The next day Mal and I put together a creeper face cake. He was very, very excited about it. We have a cake supply store close by, so we headed there and found green and black paste coloring.

He helped taste-test the frosting

Not perfect, but good enough

Gareth had jiu jitsu that evening, but once we got home from that I started putting together a dinner of chicken and rice, one of Mal's favorites. He got to select some of the music we listened to that evening. His selections were Clap Hands, "Bedtime Song", and "Baymax Song" .

He was very excited to get to blow out the candles on his cake. I didn't even get a chance for a good picture of him doing so because as soon as Ryan set the cake down, he'd blown them out.

He's not a huge fan of forks. I've recently been able to get him to use one a little bit more, but most often he opts for his fingers as the most efficient way to eat.

Then we opened a few presents (thank you, everyone - he loves them all!). We were lame and didn't wrap the gifts that came in boxes. In our defense, it was a crazy stressful week. Lots of alphabet gifts because he needs to work on learning letters this year. And then it was off to bed.