Max turned five last Tuesday. We celebrated by going to Texas Roadhouse (his request) for dinner with my parents and then went back to our house for cake and presents. Oh, and he got to bring cupcakes to school and was pretty excited about that... FULL-SIZE cupcakes, the store-bought kind with the AMAZING Angry Birds/butterfly/dinosaur ring things on top (no, they did not have enough for us to get more than six of the same kind)... I'm sure his teachers loved that.

The Legos were a gift from my parents. Vivi got him a glove which she gave to him that morning, I think before he even got out of bed. :) We had our friend Gabe make him a new set of golf clubs, and then the day before his birthday we went bike shopping over our lunch break... when we found a used bike with a number sixteen on it (Tom's baseball number) I knew that was the one.

We hid it from him in the back of the vehicle we picked him up in that day. So sneaky. ;)

Trying out the new clubs:


I had to buy a store-bought cake because my oven wasn't working. I kinda liked it. The kids were also big fans of the sugar dinosaurs.


And the requisite family picture. Such a classic.

He's having a little party on Sunday; he invited four friends from school. I'm trying to keep it really low-key because he's never had a friend over, other than his cousins and Niki and Justin's kids, and I'm a little concerned about venturing into playdate land for the first time with some huge party. I think at least two of the parents are just dropping the boys off, and I'm not sure on the other two. It'll be good, all of the boys are VERY excited. They're kind of a little clique at school. Okay, I shouldn't even say KIND OF... they are totally a clique. Max calls them his "buddies" as opposed to just "friends" (friends being any other kid in his class). It used to be just four of them, and then one day Max was talking a lot about Tommy all of a sudden, and I was like, oh, you are playing with Tommy a lot now? And Max said: "yeah, he's one of US now." OMG. Do you think there's an initiation? Something to do with spit or slapping butts or something?
(I say that because we recently had a conference with Max's teacher, and he actually had written on the sheet, "likes to slap butts." I had to restrain myself from laughing out loud at seeing that... I swear I'm a fairly mature person, but something about it being written there on paper, in his "file" so to speak, struck me as funny. Apparently slapping butts is all the rage among the Junior K II boys and, obviously, some of the other kids/teachers are not huge fans. So we've had talks about this and I haven't heard about any butt-slapping going on lately, thankfully.)
I should also note that Mr. Mike said he "loves Max to death." So there was mostly good news to be had: Max is ready for kindergarten, and when I asked about the clique, he said that even though Max has his best buds, he's still very nice to the other kids, which I was glad to hear. I'm not really nervous about him starting kindergarten - school has been SO GOOD for him that I think he'll do a great job. Okay, I'm a little bit nervous. But really excited. We went to Kindergarten Round-Up back in March and met the three teachers and visited their classrooms. Unfortunately none of his pre-school friends will be attending the same school, but we saw the name of one of the kids from another class at his current school on the list. Plus, t-ball starts soon, and maybe some of the kids on his team will be going there, too. I think for Max, even one familiar face would go a long way.
Tom got kind of suckered into coaching t-ball... we had originally asked if Max could play coach-pitch, because he's been hitting pitching since he was about two. Tom said he'd coach a coach-pitch team, and the league said that would be fine with them. But then a few weeks later they called back and said that we couldn't do it because the cut-off date for insurance purposes is five years old by May 1... and Max is May 8. So, he's back in t-ball, and now Tom is coaching that instead. Which he's not too thrilled about. Tom STILL talks about how LAME t-ball was when he himself played it, what, 28 years ago or something? I am reminding him to be patient, but he's used to coaching nearly grown men who are as obsessive about the game as he is. So, yay. Looking forward to t-ball. ;)
Max is intense about baseball. It's always been kind of creepy if you ask me. He goes to practice with Tom and is happy to hit balls or play catch for three hours. He's FOCUSED. He's always been like this, so I don't know why his limitless attention span still surprises me, but it does. I guess the reason I say "creepy" is because it's like I live with two Toms. Is baseball hereditary?

(When I asked Tom for ideas about what I needed to remember about Max at five, one of them was "he's starting to catch the ball halfway decently.")
If you ask Max what he wants to do when he grows up, he tells you he's going to play college baseball. He idolizes those guys (and they are so good about playing with him and making him feel special). We bought him Nikes for regular everyday shoes and he was THRILLED because that's what the Saints wear. The other morning, he found his Saints cap and then he was looking all around the house for his sunglasses. We couldn't figure out why... then when he finally found them, he put them up on the bill of his cap and told Tom that's what the Saints do. :)
He's a really, really good big brother most of the time. Vivi's definitely acting like a two-year-old right now, and while he sometimes can't resist fighting with her or egging her on, a lot of the time he tries to help her out by explaining to her why she can't do/have something. He explains stuff to her a lot, actually. And to me sometimes: the other night she was throwing a fit so I put her in her crib and left her to cool down and he said to me really sagely, "that's just going to make it worser, Mom." One day I put them in the car and she was screaming, and he offered her some of his goldfish crackers, but she was freaking out way too much to notice; he looked at me and shrugged and said "I tried the goldfish on 'er." HAHA... me too, Max, me too. :) But when she's not throwing fits, they for the most part get along really well and I think a lot of that has to do with him.
Some of the other things he says are hilarious too. He'll say "this dinner is delicious!" and "the yard looks wonderful!" In some ways he very much sounds like a polite 80-year-old lady. He's sweet: on Mother's Day, he told me Happy Mother's Day about ten times, and tonight when I was tucking him in after we got home, he said "I really had fun at Big Wheels, how about you?" He also asks me questions CONSTANTLY - hard questions that I don't always know how to answer and make me feel not very smart. Sometimes more scientific-type questions like about thunder or lightning or helicopters, that will just make my brain hurt so I just give him some vague answer even though I should probably remember something from science class, right? Or sometimes questions about God or "what came first, the chicken or the egg?"-type questions that sometimes I just answer with, ummmmm, heeey... do you want to go to Sunday School? But then we also get a lot of "I know, Mommy" and "I know, Daddy" when we're telling him to do or how to do something. He's been very independent lately. Which is great sometimes. Kind of a bit sad for Mommy at other times. :)

He does still want us to lay in bed with him for a few minutes every night. No matter how long I lay there, even if I think he's already sleeping, when I go to whisper good night, he whispers back "two more minutes." Every night. I lay there for a little bit longer and then he always wants another hug and kiss. So I'm trying to enjoy that for as long as I can. He's growing so fast, only about a foot and a half shorter than I am. We measured today and he almost comes up to my armpit. :)

He's just such a good kid and I feel so, so lucky that he's mine.





(with his birthday tree.)
And the little video I made for his birthday.
Love you, Max.