Henry is turning 5!

Happy birthday to my little boy!

Henry is a great kid. He is sweet and funny and loves his family, including our cat (he will remind you!)

His favorite things, in no particular order:

Ninjago the tv show, and the lego figurines and sets
Wii, especially Kirby, Mario, and Rayman games,
Chocolate
Being goofy
running around at the park
being with friends and family
McDonalds chicken nuggets
Dunkin Donuts chocolate frosted cake donuts

He has one alter-ego, Crazy Mohawk. Crazy Mohawk is responsible for all the naughty things that happen (lol)
Henry likes to cuddle and he sleeps with me and John.
Target is his favorite store. He likes watching walkthroughs on youtube of his favorite games. He likes to splash in the shallow water. He is not a fan of the beach or getting sandy.

He is 42 inches tall and he weighs 37.5 lbs He wears a size 11 boys shoe and size 5t or XS-S clothes.
He likes tie dye tshirts and long shorts. He likes to play with his sister. He likes to play Wii with me and John.

A couple of weeks ago, Zibby fell off the swings at the park and busted up her ankle. We are calling it her Brankel (BRoken ANKle) She got a hot pink cast to wear for 3 weeks. Its been tough, since we cant really go to the beach or play at the parks with our friends too much, so we have to find other things we can do…

Like visit Buckingham Fountain downtown Chicago. We drive by it alot, but its fun to stop and get up close. There are special lights at night, and at the top of the hour, the jets get a lot higher. We went several times when Zibby was littler because she loved fountains so much, so tonight we drove down and checked it out.

Last week we went to the Chicago Field Museum

We saw Sue. This is fun, because there is an episode of Curious George cartoon where George breaks his leg falling off a dinosaur skeleton at the museum. It was one of Zibby’s favorite episodes and we watched it a zillion times when she was 3 and 4.

Also my friend Catherine and I took the kids to Brookfield Zoo. This is the zoo I went to as a kid. It was hot, but we made sure to ride the carousel and the motor safari around the park.

Thats me with Zibby and our friend, Augie who just turned 3!

The other day, my 7 year old daughter came out of her bedroom and introduced herself as “Stevie”.
This has happened before. She has a rotating cast of characters that she inhabits from time to time.
These characters usually have a lot in common with my daughter, but with a slight twist. For instance, Stevie’s mom has a broken arm. I had a broken leg. Stevie’s brother is really into Super Mario. So is ZIbby’s brother. The characters love to expound on their backstory, which we always love to hear. Stevie was no different.

so zibby is firmly in character : she is “Stevie” who is unfailingly polite and sweet, came up to me and said she’d like to offer me some help.

She has now cleaned zibby’s room, the family room, and both the kitchen table and the craft table. and put clean silverware away from the dishwasher. SHe has offered to come back every week and be my housekeeper. I fed her a meatball sandwich and now she is going to clean my bedroom. Its awesome. She is awesome.

I want to also report that I have never once made a chore chart for her. She is not routinely coerced into chores.
Sometimes I ask for help and she says no or yes, and if she says No, I try really hard to keep myself from starting a guilt trip. I usually succeed. Sometimes I offer her money to do a specific job. Sometimes she says no to money, too. Its ok. Sometimes I hire another mom to come help me clean. Sometimes the cleaning has to wait. It all gets worked out somehow. At any rate, no chore charts. No chores. No allowance tied to chores.

And yet, Stevie showed up and basically straightened up the whole house. She did a really good job, too.

Its been 6 months since my surgery to fix my broken leg (tibial plateau fracture. who knew I had a tibial plateau? not me)
I am done with physical therapy appointments, but am seeing a chiropractor for a little help with my ankle movement.

So, while I was down with my broken leg, I made Buzz finally get an xray on his bad hip. I cant even remember how long its been bad, but its been seriously bad for at least two years. Turns out he needs a whole new hip altogether. So, next Wednesday he goes in to get it. I wish it were as easy as that sentence was to write. Like, just stopping in at the pharmacy for the new hip. Alas, it is going to be surgery, and we are nervous and anxious, but also, I feel so glad that we can finally move forward to getting him to feel better. He has been in such pain for so long, I doubt he remembers what its like to just walk around pain free.

So thats our major news. I feel like for sure the last 6 months we have been living in major crisis. All non essential things got axed. Weve been cutting corners on everything. I think the next month is going to be more of the same, tough and crazy, but we will get thru and come out on the other side stronger than ever.

On the kid front, we’ve cut way back on activities and classes. A lot of it is financial, but also, needing to simplify the schedule for all our sanity and health. Most of what we are scheduled now is social, like open gym time and physical, like gymnastics for henry. Zibby and I are doing a clay class too. Zibby spends a lot of her free time drawing, coloring, creating paper craft stuff, and playing dolls etc. She has a rich imagination. I love to hear the stuff she says when she is deep in play. She turns 8 in a few weeks.

There was a craft fair at our homeschool group today. The kids had their own tables with their handmade crafts and they all bought, sold and traded each other. Zibby made TVs with remotes. She used all our saved shoe boxes, put foil on one side, drew a picture on it, and drew a remote on paper and covered that with tape. She sold each and every one! for 1$ each! I thought they were kind of silly, but I guess I am not her target market She also made book marks out of giant paperclips and ribbon. She sold all of those, too. She also got some really cute stuff, so I think all the kids had fun.

Henry is 4. He is seriously into the Wii-he loves Kirby games and Mario games. He plays every day. He also likes to play barbies, cars, legos, and magnet (what are those things called? the ones with the marble balls and the connectors?) He likes to cuddle, to pretend to be animals (turtle, dog, cat), and to hang out with the family.