Identity Crisis vs. Imagination: You Decide

So for the past couple of weeks George has taken on a new persona every few days. At first, he was obsessed with the movie "Up" and was a Junior Wilderness Explorer. He wanted to know if we had any badges. I didn't think so, but then it struck me that we had saved Adam's old scouting stuff. So we dug it out of the dress up box and, low and behold, the badge belt became the badge sash. We had a bandana and cap and with his backpack packed full of atlases and scriptures he was ready to go. Unfortunately, I only got a picture of him in the cap, but Spencer got to play wilderness explorer too, so just imagine George in this outfit.

After the wilderness explorer phase came the strange "girl" phase. George found a mullet wig in the dress up clothes. But to him, a five year old, it's not a mullet, it's a girl wig. So on it went and now he was a girl named Kaitlyn (it's a made up persona, so I don't know how to spell her name). It was fine when we were home or at the playground and I even let him wear it to the gym, but I started to worry when it was time for school. Should I call his teacher and tell her she had a new student? Should I call the school counselor? Luckily, "Kaitlyn" informed me that you can't wear wigs to school. Whew! Here is a picture of "Kaitlyn" dressed up as Wolverine. (Yes he still acted like a boy, so no worries.)

He would also dress up as "Kaitlyn the Wilderness Explorer" and "Kaitlyn the Superhero". So Kaitlyn was pretty much George in a wig dressing up as other imaginary people.

Kaitlyn has not been around very much lately. It's just been George. Which is great. Because I adore George.

***

To continue with the Kaitlyn bit, George has insisted that the new baby be a girl. He wants a sister so badly. And of course her name would be Kaitlyn. I've asked him what would happen if it was a boy.

George: "I don't want a boy. I want a sister!"

Me: "But it might be a boy. What should we call him?"

George: "If it's a boy, we should call him something funny, like Boo. I want it to be a girl baby though because I love girls and I hate boys. We don't need any more boy babies."

Much to George's disappointment, we will be having another boy baby. We haven't decided on a name, so I guess for now we will just call him Boo.

Birthdays

It's been nice having all of our birthdays at the beginning of the year. My birthday is in December. Phineas is in January, Spencer in February, George in April and Adam in May. It makes the first part of the year lots of fun and clears up summer and fall for, well, summer and fall things.

My birthday first: Went to Tony Romas, the temple and got a new Flip video camera. Okay, it's been months and I'm still trying to figure out how to add video to this blog.

Phin's Birthday:

A Thomas book from Grandma and Pop Pop

A tool kit from George and Spencer

And "Mood it mood it" (a.k.a. Madagascar 2) from Mom and Dad

Plus a special trip to McDonalds. This was the day we moved into our new house, so Phin kind of got jipped on a cake. I don't think he minded. Now he's three. What a big boy. He's in speech therapy and doing fantastic. He loves to go and play with Kris.

Spencer's birthday:

I know the first birthday is usually a big deal, but I figure, he won't remember, so we kept it low key. Just our family, cupcakes in cones and presents that everyone enjoyed.

He got a bubble maker (hours of fun, okay about one hour, before it broke) and a fun book that reads to you. He wasn't walking at the time, but within four weeks he was all over the place. Now I have to chase him down to put him in the car.

George's Birthday:

We had a Chinese birthday party with a couple of friends (for any of you that know the real story, don't feel like going through the pain all over again). George had a blast. We made Chinese drums and had some fireworks. We played Dragon Tag (just tag with a cool name) and had some good cake with Happy Birthday George written in Chinese. He got a coloring tablet, a light up frisbee and a "Super Hero Starter Kit" complete with mask, wrist guards and cape (thanks to my great friends Ramie and Tina for helping me out).

The Chinese theme continues today. He "writes" in Chinese on the back of his school papers. He knows all about the Great Wall and the clay army. He has a guide book for China and talks about going there almost every day. We have a friend who does a good deal of business in China and has the Rosetta stone software that has helped him with his Chinese. He has promised to let us borrow it when he is finished and George can hardly wait.

Adam's birthday was as uneventful as mine. We were actually camping at the time, which would have been fun except for the 60 mph wind gusts and the rain. Here is a cute picture though, before all you know what broke loose.

We celebrated the next weekend at Monterosso's, our favorite Italian restaurant. It was for Mother's Day as well, but we didn't actually exchange birthday/Mother's Day gifts until the weekend after that. It was more of a "birthday month", which Adam loved.

Now we have a problem. Something that is going to totally mess up my birthdays-at-the-beginning-of-the-year thing. A baby due in October. October! What am I supposed to do with that? I guess it could be the beginning of our holiday season. Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday. Come to think of it, this is great. Now our celebration season can last from the first part of October until the 1st of May. SWEET!