Tannerpolooza - the birthday weekend

In a tradition borrowed from my insane mother and Auntie Sue, Tanners birthday spanned over the course of this weekend. So here is the birthday weekend running diary.

Saturday Morning - While Jake and I were at his basketball game and photos, Marisa, Tanner and Faith made the baseball cupcakes for Tanner's friends party. Jake and I took team photos, played our game, went and picked up lunch and the cupcakes for the family party and then came home.

Saturday Afternoon - We picked everyone up and went down to Gem State Gymnastics for Tanner's friends party. Four of his friends from Pre-K came; Gus, Evan, Henry and Caden and they spent a couple of solid hours exhausting themselves in the jump houses, foam pits, trampolines and swinging rings. There are three giant sections of a warehouse that have all kinds of fun gymnastics equpiment that the kids get to play on. The place is kind of a local insititution, we have had two birthday parties, day camp and swimming lessons there and it's always a lot of fun. After the playtime we had cupcakes and ice cream and Tanner opened his presents from his friends.

Saturday Evening - We came home ffom the kids party and uploaded the car. Marisa fixed up the Birthday Feast (Mac and cheese) while I assembled selected toys. After dinner we had the birthday cupcakes and opened family presents. Tanner loved his ant farm, crocs tennis shoes and Kellen Moore jersey, his stomp rockets, his paper jamz guitar and his creepy gummy snack makers. We spent the rest of the night installing batteries, following directions and trying to explain why the stomp rockets weren't really an "inside" toy.

Sunday Morning - I try to take the kids out to dinner just me and them on their birthdays. As we couldn't fit a single thing more in on Saturday, Tanner and I decided to go out to breakfast on Sunday (his actual birthday). The restaurant is always up to the kids, so we ended up at McDonalds for breakfast. Tanner got his bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and we talked and played some fishing game on my phone. We also got his birthday interview done. Marisa did this for each of the boys when they were a little younger and we have hard copies up on the bulletin board in our room. They are pretty cool to read over and so I though I would try to capture one for each of them for each birthday. So here was Tanner's.

Birthday Interview -

Name? - Tanner

How old are you? - Five

Favorite Thing This Year? - going to a football game

Favorite Subject in school? - reading

Favorite Sport? - hockey

Favorite Food? - bean and cheese burrito

Favorite Song? - 5:19 by Matt Wertz

Favorite Part of your birthday party? - playing on the rings

Best part of being 5? - that I'm going to be big

Favorite color? - blue

Favorite Video Game? - baseball

What do you want to be when you grow up? - a baseball player

Favorite thing about Mommy? - she makes me breakfast

Favorite thing about Daddy? - he takes me out to breakfast

Least Favorite Thing? Scooby-Doo, it scares me.

Favorite Thing to Play? baseball, swing

Favorite Restaurant? - Taco Bell

We had a great birthday weekend and I think Tanner had a really good time. Today we are packing up and getting ready to head to Lisa and John's in Seattle for Thanksgiving. The kids are playing with all of Tanner's birthday toys and having a blast. We have a sitter coming later today so we can go out and get Christmas Shopping started. In the words of Ferris Buehler, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Man ain't that the truth!

I love you Tanner. Happy 5th birthday big man.

Tanner's Turning 5

Tanner turns 5 on Sunday- even though his Nana made him promise that he would stay 4. Even though I keep telling him to stop growing up so fast. He is so excited for his birthday. He invited five friends from preschool (sorry…. PreK) and his only request was a “baseball cake”. He has been counting down for weeks now, using our calendar in the kitchen to keep track of how many days remain until the big day.

He has grown up so much this year: Suddenly he is a really good artist and loves to draw pictures of our family, including Milo. Suddenly he is adding numbers and showing a big interest and talent for math. Suddenly he is sounding out words in books. Suddenly he is more social, talking more to his friends at school and not hiding when we run into playmates at the Merc or on the green. He looks older, too. And taller.

He is still so sweet to his sister. Tonight he and Faith got out of the hot tub before the rest of us and they went inside and he helped her get her jammies on the right way and by the time we came inside he and Faith were in their jammies with their books picked out for bedtime. Another time today I “caught him” teaching Faith how to properly take off her turtleneck. He is really patient with her and so loving.

He and Jake also get along phenomenally well I think. Sure they can get at each other, but overall they play together really well. Lately they spend their mornings (they can’t wake us up until 730) doing word searches together in their room.

He is still a LOVE. He crawls into my lap and wraps his arms around me all the time and tells me I am the best mommy in the world and how much he loves me. He is really good at building with legos, playing baseball (he can’t wait for T-ball to start in March), catching and throwing the football, coloring/drawing, riding his bike, and playing all sorts of make believe. He has two bears that he sleeps with (Chocolate and Vanilla) and he cuddles them up whenever he is tired or hurt or sleepy.

He still really enjoys school and going to Miss Wendy’s house. He is a really good sport. When we play family games he rolls with the punches and I have never seen him throw a fit or get mad when he loses a round of Candyland, Old Maid, Bingo, Chutes and Ladders, or any other game.

He got to be "special person" this week at pre-k. We made up a poster of photos and some of his drawings and wrote captions together for the photos and pictures. We got to go to class today and watch his special person presentation. He stood up in front of the class and explained his poster and each one of the photos, then the class sang him the "special person" song. Then he called each classmate up and they said one thing they liked about him and each gave him a hug. He was much more talkable this year than last, but was still clearly uneasy being the center of attention.

He is a really easy going guy and I am so proud of the little boy he is turning into. Happy Birthday to my Tan Man, Tanner Pants, Gooeys, and Baby Boy. I love you more than you know.

Lesson Learned?

Jake has trouble controlling his anger sometimes. When he gets mad he tends to slam doors, hit things (not people, luckily), stomp around the house, and yell. We are working on it- but man it is so hard to teach someone how to handle anger. I mean, how do you get the message across that it is OK- really OK- to feel the emotion of anger but also curtail their “acting out” in anger without conveying the message that anger really ISN’T Ok? Does anyone out there know what I mean? What are appropriate ways to show anger? Is it OK to hit things? Well, not people obviously, but what about THINGS? Pillows? OK. Wall? Probably not. Bed? OK. Couch and other furniture? Probably not. What about yelling? Is it OK to yell? That’s what a lot of adults do when they are angry- and certainly an example he has seen modeled in our household, so why is yelling not OK? And if it’s not OK, then what is the consequence? Ugh. This parenting thing is rough. I sure wish I had received the manual that came with the baby and maybe the future therapy bills wouldn’t be so high. But I feel like this week we did something right:

The other day Jake anxiously called me up to his room. He was really worried to show me something up there. Turns out he had slammed his door into the wall and the doorknob had left a big dent in the drywall. He felt so bad about it and was scared to tell us about it. But he did tell us. So, we told him that was what happens when you slam the door, and that is why we kept telling him it wasn’t OK to do when he was angry. We let it go at that- for the time being.

When Sunday rolled around, in the middle of the AM football game, we turned off the game and announced to Jake that he needed to go get $6.00 out of his bank because we were going to Home Depot to buy supplies to fix the wall. He was flabbergasted and a small fit ensued. He couldn’t believe we were not only making him pay for the materials but were also making him buy the supplies himself IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOOTBALL GAME!! Jake also has a couple of misperceptions about justice in the Alan household. One of his favorites when we impose a new rules or consequence is to say, "No fair, you never said that before", or, "you have to give me a warning first" as if we can forsee each argument or all bad behavior in the future and have a plan laid out to deal with it. He also likes to say, "No, I don't agree to that deal" when a new punishment is imposed, like the child rearing is a democracy or something.

So, he and Brian traveled to Home Depot , Jake paid for the materials, brought them home and learned how to fix a hole in drywall. I think he may have learned something about consequences for his actions and taking responsibility for bad decisions.

Will he be slamming his door again? Probably. I am not naïve and we’ve got a lot of years ahead of us here. But hopefully he will remember the disappointment of missing football this week and having to use his money on something other than toys/candy. Hopefully he got to feel the satisfaction that comes from righting a wrong, taking responsibility for his actions, and doing the right thing. Hopefully.

P90X

Marisa mentioned P90X in a recent post so I wanted to do some followup. We're are both doing it and are almost done with the first 90 days (which is amazing in it's own right). We are enjoying it and it's tough, but there's plenty of opinions on the internet for you to find out the specifics of it if you're interested (also on late night TV).

I had to post this video of Faith. We do the workouts at all hours of the day and take over the TV room. Normally we try to do it while the kids are at school as we both work from home most days now, but that doesn't work on the weekends, and sometimes we can't fit it in until after the kids get home. We are quite the spectacle as we jump, run, lift weights and sweat, and the children have all jumped in at various times to get their "workouts" in. This day, Faith jumped in with Marisa on the Kenpo Karate workout. It was pretty cute.....

Giants World Series Champions!

YES!

Halloween 2010

The only one of the kids that picked a costume in September and stuck with it was Jake: a football player. A Boise State football player to be exact. For the third year in a row to be more exact. Can we say "obsessed"??? Tanner was going to be Simba from Lion King, a costume he and I found at a garage sale this summer. Faith was going to be a princess- another costume found at a garage sale. Then the Halloween Box came down from the attic and they were presented with all sorts of options from years past: a fireman, a horse, Super Girl, Superman, the "thing", etc... After trying them all on multiple times over the course of the month the day actually arrived and Faith decided to be Supergirl. Tanner decided to be a fireman, but when he saw his big brother dressed up with the shoulder pads and football pants, he quickly changed his mind and decided to be a football player, too. Luckily we already had the pads and another jersey. We're nothing if not prepared!

We started the festivities with a spontaneous trip to Krispy Creme for Halloween treats to have while carving the pumpkins. We hopped in the car in our sweats and let the kids pick out two donuts each. The Halloween themed pumpkin donuts and the black and orange sprinkled ones were quite a hit! At home we carved the pumpkins then watched Scared Shrekless together. The night before I had dried out the pumpkin seeds and sauteed them in butter and garlic salt for a World Series snack. Yum.... just as good as I remember them being as a kid!

Around 5 Jake's friend Sean came over- his mom and I are friends so we decided to trick-or-treat together. We had pizza beforehand, then got the kids dressed in their respective costumes. The boys were very handsome in their football gear and Faith looked adorable in her supergirl outfit- Even Jake commented on it. After posing for the traditional front porch photo op, we hit the streets. Faith was on fire- she ran down the sidewalk (with her "Phoebe" run- if you used to watch Friends then you know what that looks like) trying to keep up with the big kids.

After the first few houses of not being sure if they were saying their "thank yous" we instituted a rule: we have to hear you say "Thank you" from the curb. From then on out they were all properly polite and we had several homeowners comment on how nice it was to hear the gratitude. Sometimes I think we are too hard on them with regards to politeness but I hope it pays off and sticks with them in the long run- and no one seemed any worse for the wear by being held accountable to that standard, even on Halloween Night :)

Faith got tired after about 40 minutes so Brian took her home where she proceeded to hand out candy- but only to people that weren't too scary looking. Brian had to do those. We stayed out until 730 then hurried home to dump out the candy and watch the Giants game which we had recorded. We turned out all the lights and watched in our bed- family style- until 845 when we put the kids to bed.

The kids are all so big this year, it made me realize how (relatively) few Halloweens we have left in which we all go together from house to house. Soon Jake will want to go just with his friends and Mom and Dad will be a thing from the past. I am not a big Halloween fan overall- I don't like to dress up, don't like Halloween parties, etc... but the kids excitement last night was contagious. I loved watching them have such a great time trick-or-treating. And it didn't hurt that the Giants won, too! Happy Halloween everyone!