The only “downside” to this particular activity is that unless your children are 10+ years of age, they’ll most likely need some supervision and guidance, especially when it comes to wrapping the rubber bands around the clothing, and choosing the dyes to use with one another. I wanted to window shop for wedding shower invitations (for a friend who wanted my input – I’m already married, remember?), but during this particular activity that just wasn’t a possibility. Oh well – Alyssa and Ryan had a blast picking out the colors they wanted on their shirts and painstakingly applying the dye everywhere, and I had a lot of fun helping them.

In any case, I have to really brace myself to pick up all 50 lbs and 44 inches worth of my five year old son, and that makes me sad. Even though Ryan likes to run and play and demonstrate his independence, he is still very much a Mama’s boy, and will always be my baby boy. When the day comes that I can no longer pick him up at all, I’ll have to contend myself — and him — with plenty of hugs, kisses, and invitations to sit on my lap instead. ♥

But it looks like the warnings and talks were for naught, because Ryan was so busy playing with Alyssa and with Sophie (Amanda’s daughter) that he never once took off his pants, or grabbed anyone else’s chest (but my own). Yay! I, meanwhile, did some quick social media stuff for custom engagement rings, sympathized with Amanda over her fubared Macbook (she took it to the Apple store today and found out that the hard drive is fried), and in general had a great time with friends. ♥

How was your weekend?

But it all went downhill after that. We left the party by 4:30pm, because Ryan just couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t loud, there weren’t a lot of people (besides him and Alyssa, my two brothers, my mom, and myself, it was my mother’s ex-husband’s wife and her six year old son, and my mother’s friends B and M and their three teenage children), but he kept flipping out left and right. Meltdowns galore. Nothing could really soothe him, other than me quietly playing some reading and word games with him on his iPad – and then the battery died. I carry a spare iPod cable in the car, but no wall charger. Gah.

Tomorrow I’m going to purposely make it a quiet, at-home day, so Ryan can have a chance to settle down in time for school on Monday.

For the last two years Ryan has enjoyed playing Little Big Planet. From last spring onwards he got super into playing it, and over the summer and into the fall he alternated between Little Big Planet and Little Big Planet 2, not only exploring and beating game levels and user-created levels, but creating his own unique, innovated and incredibly detailed levels. Then, out of nowhere, in early November, he up and quit playing Little Big Planet out of nowhere. Total cold turkey. It was weird, but whatever. He took up other activities, in particular coloring and note-writing.

This morning, for some reason, I woke up right around 7:00am, wondering why Ryan no longer played Little Big Planet, and what do you know? He was playing it! He was busy building a pineapple for a Spongebob level when I came out to get him set up with breakfast. Silly boy.

Anyway, the first thing to decide for the party is when. Then we’ll need to decide on a theme, because then we need to order invitations! Our families and friends are always quite busy, so it definitely pays to let everyone know in as far advance of the party as we can. Heck, last year I sent out an informal invitation via a Facebook event invite — it worked well!

How far in advance do you begin planning your child’s birthday party?

Last year my mother and I took all four kids (Alyssa, Ryan, and my two brothers), but we went during the daytime a few days after Christmas, so obviously we didn’t get to see the lights lit up, and the excitement of Christmas was pretty much over. This year, since we went at night a good five weeks before Christmas, the lights were on and the Christmas music was more than enough to get me excited for the holiday.

Just like last year, Alyssa and Ryan had a fabulous time, and I really enjoyed seeing their excitement and enjoyment. ♥

Pictures (slideshow):

First we met with Ryan’s teachers, where they sung their praises on his academic abilities (how many five year olds do you know that can correctly and without-a-beat spell S-P-A-G-H-E-T-T-I-O-S?) and reading, and did confirm that he is having some minor issues with changes in routine and frustration. But overall, Ryan is doing wonderfully. Yay!

Then we went next door to meet with Alyssa’s first grade teacher. Just looking around the room I was able to get a feel for all of the school art supplies available, which is great since Alyssa is so damn artistic and always loves to draw and color and make things. She is doing great academically, particularly with math. Yay! We have a reader and a mathematician in the making. ♥

Anyway, two coats (one for me – the perks of weight loss include needing a coat that’s two sizes smaller than last years, whee!), one pair of snow pants, one pair of waterproof gloves, six shirts (three for Ryan as well), two cheap toys, a Christmas present for my sister-in-law, and a box of green rope-style Christmas lights later, we were at the checkout lane, when one of the fathers from Ryan’s Boy Scout troop approached Dan, and asked, almost accusingly, why we weren’t at tonight’s Boy Scout meeting.

What the actual eff?! I told him that the troop leader had texted me, and I showed him the text messages. He seemed a little puzzled… so yeah, I don’t know. I’m going to email the troop leader tomorrow to figure out what the heck is going on. Was there or wasn’t there a meeting? More importantly, if there was a meeting, why would you say there wasn’t?!

Now, maybe I’m just using my own experience in Girl Scouts, and perhaps my experience wasn’t the norm, but growing up and going to Girl Scouts, meetings were never canceled unless the weather was really bad. If girls didn’t show up, they just didn’t show up — the meeting went on without them. And personally, I think that’s how it should be.

Fortunately, Ryan isn’t too disappointed, because he’s excited to be going out to Target to pick up some new long-sleeved t-shirts (and Mommy has her eye on a new set of Rubbermaid storage containers. How sad that I squee over such domesticated products…).