the sidlingers

Yesterday Daniel had his 5 year check up.  He is wonderful (not that we didn’t already know that) and very brave (he had to get three shots).

His official 5 year stats are as follows:

48.12 pounds

45.5 inches tall

Which means he is still in the 95th percentile for his age.

His preliminary hearing and vision tests were good.  Although, the nurse helped him a little on the eye chart, so we’re going to take him to an actual eye doctor to have him rechecked sometime soon.

As mentioned before, he got three shots and was very brave.  And thankfully, he’s done with the shots until he’s a teenager now.

Tonight while taking his bath, he’s trying to explain why his belly doesn’t like to be washed.

"My belly and my stomach hydraulically mated, so when I eat one little carrot, it weighs 100 pounds in my stomach."

And before you ask, I have no idea.

Daniel tonight at dinner, telling us about his day:

"When we went into the gym to play today, all the lights were turned out and it was dark.  Really dark.  Like a Broadway show!"

It will all be gone soon, but we got up a little early to make sure we got to play a little.

Click here for more pictures.

With all the warm weather lately, I’m guessing this will be one (if not the only one) of our "big snows" this year.  Hopefully it will still be there in the morning so we can play a little bit.

I know I was supposed to update a couple of days ago about the party, but a shiny new object that plays lots and lots of music and videos came to my door and I’ve been playing with it ever since (thanks Bob and Laurie!)

Also, guess who was at Daniel’s karate class yesterday afternoon? Kevin Carter!  It turns out, NFL players have kids too and his just happens to be in the same class as Daniel.  I guess they still live here in Nashville and travel to Miami for work.  It was pretty surreal seeing this huge guy sitting in the folding chairs like the rest of us normal sized parents.  At any rate, he seemed really nice and everyone had the decency to leave him alone at his kid’s thing. (A kind of funny side story…there is a guy at karate who is a real jerk to his kid, for those of you who have been to a class, you probably know who I’m talking about.  Not one peep out of him yesterday when this big, 6′6", 305 pound dude was sitting next to him!)

Now, on to the party!  I hope everyone enjoyed it.  I think they did, but I didn’t really get a chance to talk to anyone while it was going on.  Daniel had lots of fun though and really that’s all I was worried about.  The Mad Scientist was great!  Although, I think some of the parents may have been questioning my decision to hire him when he was explaining the dangers of dry ice to a bunch of four and five year olds.  No one lost any fingers though, so I’m deeming it a success!  He did a bunch of fun experiments with the kids and made sure that everyone got to have a turn.  My favorite was making film canisters pop open with dry ice.  The kids also got to make their own bouncy balls to take home with them.

The cake.  The cake took most of Friday to make.  More time actually went into the baking this year than the decorating though.  Daniel and I also had some creative differences on the placement of the lava on the cake, which took some time to resolve.  Everything turned out ok though and we still have cake left over!  We seriously have cake for days.

And the gifts!  Oh my, the gifts!  I’m not sure how long it took Daniel to open everything, but he got some really great stuff, except for the accordion that Grandpa Tommy got him (just kidding, Daniel loves it! Did I mention I can’t wait to get one for Austin!).  He loved everything he got too, there wasn’t one thing that he wasn’t happy with or hasn’t continued to play with.  So Thank You to everyone!

Daniel had a wonderful time this afternoon.  Thank you to all who could be here (and apologies that I didn’t really get to talk to anyone).  I will write all about the party tomorrow and possibly post some video, but right now I am going to have a glass of wine and go to bed.

Click here to view all the pictures from Daniel’s party.

Today Daniel is 4 years, 365 days old.  I do not like to say the F-I-V-E word, because he is my baby and there is no way he could possibly be that old.

Yesterday day he did everything as a four year old for the last time and last night I got as many four year old hugs and kisses as I could.   He later told me, "Mama, tomorrow when I’m five, I’ll still be the same, just a little bit taller."

This morning David and I woke him up by singing Happy Birthday and making him blow out five candles on a small cake while he was still half asleep.  Later in the morning I took him to school where he got to wear the birthday hat.

He got embarrassed when his class sang to him.

And then everyone enjoyed cupcakes.

I still don’t understand how he got to be five so fast.  And I still don’t know how I’m going to get through the next year.  We’ve got kindergarten registration coming up in a few months and then preschool graduation and then kindergarten itself.  He might even lose a tooth this year!  There is no way I can pretend he’s a baby anymore, because he is not, he’s a kid now.  Five is big.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year! (Don’t worry, it’s apple juice).