The Big(ger) Kid Party

I know it has only been a year since his last birthday, but it seems Porter has grown three years older in the past 365 days.
He's just so big and boyish, and not at all the little guy who could barely keep up with the overzealous obstacle races I had unwittingly planned for his five-year-old birthday bash just one short year ago.

Now...

Then...

He's growing up. He's six. He can read and loves to be quizzed on math problems at the dinner table but refuses to talk about anything beyond recess if you overtly ask about the school day. He makes up his own jokes that, more often than not, actually make sense, and he takes great pride when he can sneakily work a bathroom word into the princess songs his little sister is constantly singing. He wants to take the training wheels off his bike and likes to challenge me to races, smiling from ear to ear as he lengthens his stride and strains to keep pace.  He's tall and witty and smart and strong, and every now and then I catch glimpses of the big kid he will too soon become.

I have to keep reminding myself that he is only six because I can't believe that somehow he is already six.

There's a whole lot you don't know about what kind of parent you will be until you're in it and you look at the things you are doing and can see the kind of parent you have become. Birthdays are one of those times for me. Ever since I attempted a two-tiered fondant-covered fish cake and went to six different grocery store chains to track down every fish-shaped and orange and blue snack ever made for Porter's first birthday party, I have, year after year, found myself muttering in exhaustion that maybe we did too much and that next year will be smaller. But as birthdays approach and I start to get all weepy that my kids are growing up too fast, I can't help but throw myself into party mode. The time feels fleeting, and I want to make the most of this little kid magic while it's still here for the taking.

 

So even though the  lunch conversation between my boy and his pals had a whole lot more bathroom humor than in years past (i.e. a few of the boys may have joked about dinosaur poop in the the jungle slime jello), it was every bit the magic we were after, with fossils and volcanoes and pith hats that were deemed so cool that my boy was still wearing his at bedtime—huge sigh of relief: He is only six.

The party...

Design a Dino (because no one really knows what dinosaurs looked like)

 

Catch a Paleontologist

Extinction Tug of War (the red blanket was hot lava)

They thought it would be fun to see if, together, they could defeat a T-Rex.
 

 

Have I ever mentioned how grateful I am that my husband is so good with kids? I am.

After a picnic lunch of dinosaur-shaped sandwiches, dinosaur bones (cheetos), dino eggs (watermelon balls & grapes), lava juice and the aforementioned jungle slime, our young paleontologists set off for field work with a sandbox excavation. And though I prepped them with instructions about how gentle paleontologists have to be as they carefully brush away the sand, the dino dig looked like Black Friday from the moment we said go—a mad dash of flying dirt and plastic shovels and broken salt dough fossils.

 

 

The Cake (very fitting for our volcano-obsessed son who brings home at least two drawings of volcanoes in his backpack each week)

And my very favorite part of the whole party—never changes, year after year—laughing as the birthday boy is mauled by friends who are just so excited to give him their present first—they just can't seem to get close enough to the present opening action as the circle quickly folds in to a mass of heads and "open mine next!"

See, magic.