Emmett's fourth birthday - a recap

Out of the four birthdays he has had so far in his short little life, he has been sick for three of them - his first, second, and now his fourth. For his first two he was in the middle of a fever cycle, and for this one he was in the middle of a yucky virus we all have. (It started out just as him being sick a week or two ago, but he was kind enough to share it with the rest of us, so now we are a house of coughing, sniffling, sneezing, sick folks. He's just that kind of kid)

Since we were all feeling down in the dumps and lethargic, we took school off today and spent the day either sleeping, laying on the couches watching cartoons, or playing in the bathtub (this last one was mostly the two little boys, they've taken about 3 or 4 baths today just to help pass the time, cool off fevers, or to wash off the smell of throw up. Yeah, it's been that kind of day)

 

Our meals today were pretty low key. Emmett wasn't too helpful in the decision making process since he wasn't hungry or in the mood for food. He did finally decide on this menu:

breakfast: oatmeal with marshmallows (which he ended up not eating)

lunch: Ramen noodles (which he only ate four bites of because I made him)

dinner: he asked for strawberry soup, but since I didn't know what in the world he was talking about his second choice was cereal, sausage, and OJ. BUT, when Daddy got home, he talked Emme in to ordering pizza. So we had pizza, Cheetos, root beer, and OJ.

(Emme ate about half a slice of pizza and a couple of Cheetos, but otherwise just drank his dinner in the form of one cup of OJ and one cup of root beer. It hasn't been a really healthy food day for him today.)

 

(Duncan's naked because he had just thrown up on his pj's and I was too exhausted to head upstairs to get him new ones. He sat through dinner frustrated and bored and angry because he didn't want to eat or drink anything.)

  I lucked out for Emme's birthday cake with the nice thing our local grocery store does for kids on their birthday in that they give them a free birthday cake - so I didn't have to make anything for dinner or dessert! Yeah for me!

Something has happened to my sweet Emme in the past week. Maybe it is the cold, or the cold medicine, or an alien invasion in his brain but he has turned into one naughty, mischievous critter! He has made more messes, been snottier (in both the emotional and physical sense), and been in time out more in the past couple weeks than in his whole little life combined. His energy level is on high lately and that has gotten him in to some interesting trouble spots, and tonight was the same. He was such a silly monster boy tonight. I was able to get one okay look from Emme tonight:

 The rest came out with this new Emmett shining through...

And since he is a monster loving fool, this is his tribute to zombies...

 Then I asked him to show me how old he was today...he's right in that he's holding up four fingers, but what's with the 'tude?

 Daddy is the one person in the house who isn't being drug down into the depth of a Kleenex box so far, so when it came time to blow out the candles, we made sure we took the candles out of the cake so Emme wasn't blowing his germs on to the cake to share even more.

Before we did the cake, we did get Duncan dressed again, but it didn't make him any happier...he was still one fussy pumpkin boy...

 Owen is the least sick out of all of us and was really excited to give Emme the gift he had made for him earlier this morning. He had woken up before everyone else and went to the schoolroom to make the gift. Then he hid it under my desk all day long and was so excited to finally be able to give it to Emme.

 Garrett had been one of our multiple bathers today. When he gets sick he tends to cough so much and so hard that he loses his lunch - or whichever meal happens to be in him. So he didn't eat a whole lot at dinner, but he was still smiling and had made sure he had room for birthday cake!

Keeping in line with the monster theme that Emme loves, we got him a monster card game - and it wouldn't be complete without a silly face photo.

 He also got two new cars to add to his Cars collection. He got Mater and Hollie Shiftwell to add to his two Lightening McQueens and the two other cars he already has.

 He was so excited to get a bug vacuum like the one Owen got for Christmas. Now in the spring, they can go outside and vacuum up bugs and examine them under the magnifying glass to see what they look like up close!

And he loved his new swim floatie - another monster thing. He just has to wait until summer when we start going to the lakes around here again. Maybe we'll make a trip to the local pool sometime before so he can try them out a little sooner. (But I have a feeling I will find him in my tub with them on pretty soon.)

 Finally it was Owen's turn to give his gift. He had made Emmett an airplane with freeze rays out of our Tinkertoys. (Emme is always asking Owen during school time to make airplanes for him.)

 Emmett was so preoccupied with the other gifts he had gotten that he didn't want to play with Owen's airplane. Owen and Duncan played with it, but Duncan quickly broke it. Poor Owen took all the parts back up to the schoolroom and went to his bed in tears - the little guy didn't like the feeling of not being appreciated as deeply as his excitement was. We talked about it for a little bit and then he decide that he would make another one for Emme tomorrow, after the thrill of new toys is down, and he was sure Emme will love it then. He is such a soft hearted little man and tries so hard to make people happy!

All in all, it was a good day. Low key, laid back, easy. If it weren't for the piles of laundry that I've been doing and the gallons of boogers dripping out of noses that I've been wiping (mine included), this might have been a great day!

Maybe next year Emme will be healthy and we can add another tally mark to the well birthday list and start trying to even things out a bit!