Gabe's Birthday

The celebration never ends this time of year at the Gilbert house. Today was Gabe's 5th birthday party. This year, Gabe wanted a "scientist party" (thus, the archaeologists on his cake, digging the frosting to reveal a dinosaur head. We got Gabe a scientist outfit (cross between chemist and biologist on safari), and had a dinosaur dig in the kitchen (to find prizes in a square yard of pine shavings, holy smoke, what a mess!). We had over eight 5-year-olds, and filled them with candy and cake, had them sliding down the basement stairs and climbing up on rope, and generally running amok. It was really fun. Gabe's favorite part about today was opening presents and playing duck-duck-goose (learning to identify birds for young ornithologists). Leo's favorite part was the cake.

I go all out for birthday parties, and just recently decided (halfway through scooping a square yard of pine shavings into garbage bags) that there is NO WAY I can do this three times a year, so we'll have to move to the every-other (or every third) year friend party. Lucky Gabe has had a party every year so far, so it may be an adjustment for him. Oh well, woes of the oldest child.

Actually, the hardest part the whole birthday thing for Gabe is the anticipation. He agonizes over it. He lost sleep, he cried, he said his stomach hurt because he was so excited for his birthday. I usually don't tell him it is coming up until a day or so before, because it truly is agony for him to wait under the burden of that knowledge.