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Daphne

side effects of motherhood, to Truett with love

Five is pretty cool.

truett 5

Truett turns 5 today.

Sometimes, I really miss his babyness and I’ll look back wistfully at all the moments I spent with him as a baby. The husband says my baby brain is out of control but I would think of how I used to cradle him in the nook of my arm or the time he fell asleep on my chest for hours during a thunderstorm or how he would immediately stone out and suck his thumb the moment I touched his cheek with his precious blankie.

He doesn’t do all those things anymore.

These days, he looks like a big boy. He talks like a big boy. He has a mind if his own like a big boy. And he’s running off exploring everything like a big boy.

I just asked him if I could still call him “Tru baby” like I used to and he was all “I’m really not a baby anymore but ok fine, you can call me that until I’m 7. When I’m 7, you can only call me Truett.”

I thought I’d be sad but I look at him all tall and boyish and I think this 5-year-old version of him is pretty awesome. This version that’s sweet and funny and kind and determined and generous and playful and just a little bit shy.

I guess I’m just thankful that I get to be his mom.

to Truett with love

An Angry Birds party

This has been a crazy, crazy week. With the trip coming up, it has been a mad rush to pack and run errands and get some work stuff sorted before we head to Sydney tomorrow. And like all that wasn’t enough, we also decided to put together a small party to celebrate Truett’s 5th birthday in school.

Initially, it was supposed to be a simple, fuss-free affair – I had planned to pick up a small cake from a bakery near my place, pack a few goodie bags for the kids and be done with it. But I should have known that there’s no such thing as a fuss-free kids party.

Truett requested for an Angry Birds cake so I set about looking for a (relatively) cheap option. There were none. The ones that didn’t cost over $150 were really tacky ones where they printed a low-res Angry Birds image and stuck it on top of a standard round cake. Tru was so sweet and he was all like “it’s ok, it’s still quite nice, I will like it, I promise.”

Then I figured, what the heck, I might as well make one myself. It’ll already be nicer if I just buy a cake and pop on a couple of Angry Birds toppers. And then I thought, since my mom makes a really delicious carrot cake, I’d do the whole thing on my own from scratch. So Truett helped my mom to bake the cake and I did the decor by piping some green cream cheese frosting, throwing on 2 Cadbury Marvellous Creations bars as the pigs’ fortress and sticking some figurines on top.

Behold, Truett’s homemade Angry Birds cake.

Angry birds cake

Angry birds birthday cake

For the goodie bags, I found some brown paper bags, filled them with treats, wrote a small note and sealed them with tiny wooden pegs.

angry birds goodie bags

angry birds goodie bags 2

angry birds goodie bags 3

I just need to pick up a couple of Angry Birds mylar balloons and we’re all set for a squawking good time tomorrow. Sorry, bad pun but I’m exhausted and my brain is fried.

Sometimes I wonder why I kill myself doing all this but then I see the look on his face and I’m like, “you know what, so worth it.”