My daughter E just turned 6 years old this past weekend. She has been looking forward to it all month, especially when December first started. I feel like she was counting down the days every morning and couldn’t wait until her birthday arrived. When it was finally the week of the birthday, she got more and more excited with each passing day.

My 4 year old son C was equally excited. He wanted to open up presents also and couldn’t wait to see what new things were going to be given to E. I kept having to remind C that it wasn’t his birthday and that he couldn’t open any gifts (unless his sister wanted him to). He seemed to understand when explaining it to him, but on the day of the birthday, he kept asking. Sure enough, my wife gave in and so did E. C opened up one of the presents and had an amazing reaction to the Spidey and His Amazing Friends Lego Duplo set. He was fit for a commercial and I’m glad we all got to witness the moment because an exception was granted to him to open a gift!

Their cousins got here on the next day and it was mayhem all weekend. The house was full and there was too much food and too many toys everywhere (most of it we already had). Every birthday, we also try to let everyone know not to give us more toys and gifts, but some people still brought gifts and at least it wasn’t plastic junk (which my wife and I have because it’s so wasteful). E got a dress she can grow into, a nail polish kit, some books, a Lego Duplo set, and a bracelet making kit. She would use almost all of it during the weekend except for the bracelet making since the house was already a huge mess. Some of their cousins spent the night also, so we somehow got stuck with an additional 7 kids (making 10 kids in the house and our huge bernadoodle + another small territorial puppy). When I said it was mayhem this past weekend, it was MAYHEM.

When the kids tried to sleep at night, most of them slept in the playroom of course there was very little sleeping and when the little ones finally dozed off, a timer went off at night for the grow light my wife set up for the plants. My wife didn’t program it to turn on at night - that was me I usually do my stretching late at night in the playroom before going to bed so that light woke all the kids up Oops. Then the kids got scared and moved around the playroom. Their aunt also needed to come in and sleep with them to settle them down. My wife did set the grow light timer to turn on early in the morning, so it woke the kids up at the crack of dawn. Again, very little sleep was had by all (except me who snuck away into E’s bedroom the night before and got a room all to myself).

At the end of it all, we cleaned up the whole house and said our goodbyes. E was sad that her birthday had to end. She missed her cousins and had the best time. C had an amazing time also and didn’t want everyone to leave. My baby boy L was thrown off his nap schedule and most likely overstimulated, so he didn’t sleep well the night of the sleepover. Safe to say he was wanting everyone out and I can’t say I blame him. At least my older kids have this amazing core memory to hold onto and my wife was so glad they got to strengthen their bonds with their cousins (despite the giant mess in our house).

After the house was quiet, I found an old video of E when she was just learning to talk. I asked her whether she had a good day and filmed some days of her saying YEAH. I showed it to my wife and she started to tear up. She couldn’t believe her first baby was now 6 years old. It’s crazy how time flies, but at the same time it seems to drag on forever during each specific day sometimes. It’s a paradox of parenthood - one that I’m grateful I’m in. Happy birthday E - I hope you remember all these crazy amazing times!