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Merritt’s Birthday Party
We were a couple of days early, but we celebrated Merritt’s birthday yesterday. Due to lack of our energy and brainpower, and Merritt’s ignorance and access to tons of toys from his older siblings, we kept the gifts very simple. I baked him a cake, which Kira then frosted, in line with his current dietary repertoire, except with a lot of powdered sugar. He hesitantly explored the mass of goo in front of him, seemingly disgusted by the stickiness of it all. After a taste, he shuddered at the burst of sweetness, and then began to reduce the cake to mush.
Still, he had a lot of fun when we started singing the birthday song, and he realized it was for him. We all enjoyed normal cupcakes to show our support for his aging, and opened a few gifts that he explored, more interested in their taste than their function.
As if Merritt’s special day weren’t enough, Carver came up with some big news this week, too. Kira took Avey and Carver to the optometrist yesterday for a checkup. Avey was due for one, and Carver has to have one before he begins Kindergarten in the fall. He came up slightly farsighted, so they ordered him a pair of glasses! We’ll be sure to post some photos once they’ve arrived.
Avey has been working hard to earn money. She regularly empties the dishwasher now, which is a huge relief to my duties around the home. She has also been helpful in feeding Merritt, freeing us adults up for other chores. We hope that her work ethic persists into adulthood.
Hakan is as busy as ever. He found a long, silky white glove in the dress-up clothes this week: probably something that went with a wedding dress. He has taken an unusually strong interest in it, putting it on his right hand, and then systematically holding items with that hand.
He had an especially funny moment a few days ago. I was feeding Merritt, and I gave him some drops of Vitamin D in a little dropper. Hakan, who was watching, casually asked, “Is that poison?” I think that he just got the word mixed up with “medicine,” but it was a very funny moment.
Kira’s had more phone trouble this week. Her phone had been acting strangely, but then she dropped it in no particularly brutal way, with its case on, and the screen popped off. Now, she can usually see the screen to read messages and notifications, but she can’t always unlock her phone to actually use it for, you know, phone calls and such. She’s ordered a new one, scheduled to arrive this week. This will be a nice mess to have behind us.
That cold that had struck down a few of us has now made its way through the entire family. It’s mostly the boys who are still nursing runny noses, but we’re nearly there.
I have one more class to teach Monday, and then it’s finals. I made the very wise decision to have all of the essays due this week, so that I am all done grading them already. I will be happy to have this semester behind me; I had one class do group projects, and this is the week when they find out how the other members rated their contributions, so I’m looking forward to a whole mess of angry or desperate emails as the students learn a life lesson. It’s fun to be a professor.