Connor's Birthday Party

A Decade Of Connor

Connor had a great birthday party...a limo ride to Dave and Busters with his besties!

A decade.  That's a milestone.  One that deserves a party to be remembered.  So we rolled hard 10 year old style.  Fancy car.  Dave and Busters.  Noise levels heretofore unknown.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Pom Pom!

Pom Pom is what you call yourself.  Palmer is too much of a mouthful, so you point at your belly and say "Pom Pom" when I ask you what your name is.  Just like everything else about you, it is absolutely adorable.  And I'm not saying that just because I am your mom.  We can't go out of the house without strangers gasping for breath to tell me how cute and charming you are.  Just yesterday, you had two 17 year old girls in absolute pieces on the floor at the Smoothie King after they watched you march in as if you owned the place and make your way to the life-sized cardboard cut out of some hot chick on a scale and stroke her leg.  You, my son, are, as they say, a "piece of work".  A piece of very fine work. 

You are not a baby anymore.   You are a toddler boy and with that comes everything that should.  Curiosity, fearlessness, an openness to everything around you...and messes.  Lots of messes.  You are a one-man wrecking crew.  If it can be spilled, smeared, crushed or dumped, you do it.   I have no idea why you are so big and still chubby.  You push food around and grind it into paste in front of you much more than you consume it.

You love your Dada so much.  After Dada leaves for work in the morning, you wake up and just WHINE for him, "Da-------------------da. Da-----------------da."  Your face lights up when you see him more than anything or anyone else. 

And certainly you love Connor...your Brubby.  You want to do everything he does, and for the most part, he's patient and let's you hang around him like a satellite in orbit.

Lately, we've been spending so much of our family time at Connor's baseball games.   You think you are part of the team.  You want to be in the dugout with the big boys and you want all of the equipment on.  Keeping you out of the way and uninjured is a full-time job. 

You make our lives more spectacular and fun than we could have possibly imagined.   All three of us are so in love with you. Happy Birthday, Palmer! 

Happy Birthday To My #1

This week was Connor's ninth birthday.  Are you kidding me?  NINE.  As in, one less than a decade.  Its shocking.  Just shocking.

That big boy right there, hamming it up with his mama at Fort McHenry last month is mine.  I made him.  Okay, okay.  I made him with some single-celled help from his father (smile/wink), but my body and my heart actually manufactured him.  I actually gave of myself in the most incredible of ways to create the small man that's standing right there.  I am so glad that I did.

The day before Connor was born.

Connor is, what conventional wisdom calls, "a handful".  But really, if you want something great in life, don't you really want a whole handful of it?  Not just what you can grab with a tweezer or a pinch...but a whole, overflowing, messy, delicious, more-than-you-think-you-can-handle handful of it?  That's what we got with Connor Robert Tate.   Every day I marvel at the overflowing of everything that he brings to his life and to ours.

This year has brought so many changes to Connor and to our family.  We're passing outside of his brother's babyhood and into a different world.  Connor has taken this ride of a new baby in older-age with us as a partner.  He's a great, big older brother.  A great one.  He's patient and caring.  He entertains his brother and keeps him safe. Life with a baby is not easy but Connor has made it easier than it would have been.  I am amazed at his capacity to move on from the tough stuff and focus on the things that make life good.  I hope he's always like that---its the secret to happiness.

Just like his dad, he loves sports and he's good at them.  If only there were more time in the day for more of them.  His love for football, basketball, and baseball was really cemented this year.   I suspect that he'll also be like his dad in that he'll love them all so much it will be hard to focus on any single one of them. 

Connor is doing really well in school.  His report cards this year have been amazing.  He loves history and math.  He's not big on reading, but he eats up information in any other delivery channel he can get it.  

A few weeks ago, someone (a mom with a daughter in Connor's class) I don't know terribly well told me that she saw Connor at school and that he asked her if she'd be chaperoning their spring field trip to a farm.  When she told him she wouldn't be able to because she had to work, she said his face fell and he told her how much fun he had with her on the last trip.   She said it was so nice and that it made her feel so appreciated and wanted.  That's my boy...his heart on his sleeve.  I hope that he keeps it there always...no matter the price...because that's where it belongs if you want people to know you and your heart.  

I love you, Connor.  You truly changed my life in the most amazing way and made me into a better person.  It is truly and always my privilege to be your mom. 

"I'll love you forever.  I'll like you for always.  As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

Happy Birthday, Dianna!

Tomorrow is my 45th birthday so I hunted through the piles of photos and I only really have these two from my babyhood.

I'm pretty little in this first one.   The couch pattern is classic, isn't it?  We had that sofabed in our basement for years.  I remember it as being pretty comfortable!  I'm all baby face scrunched up here.  Nothing is written on the back and it has no date. 

This next one has a companion somewhere in which they have actually placed a cigarette and a martini glass in my little hands.  My Dad is looking tan and handsome and that's my Mom's graceful hand.  The back of the photo, in my mother's writing, says "Dianna, the young chunk".  (What the hell?) Then, in big black marker, in my sister's writing it says "Daddy and Mom and Michelle".  WRONG.  The photo is develop dated as July, 1967 so its definitely me.  She must have been going through a phase where she wanted to eliminate any photographic record of me.  :)

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and dad for this crazy family!  We love you.  Hope you love your cake!

Numero Uno (Part Dos!)

We had a little birthday party for Palmer at Nana's house over Memorial Day Weekend. He loved it, as you can tell by these pics.

Numero Uno!

Happy Birthday to my Bonus Baby!! We only had a little party for you at school on your actual birthday because we'll celebrate some more with Nana next weekend in N.J. Plus, you were sick all week and you really didn't even feel well this day--not that you can tell that from the pictures. I think this was the only time you smiled all day. Some kind of weird virus felled us both. The doctor thinks maybe roseola. Who knows. If you're like your mama, you'll be sick for your birthday every year. I kept that trend going until I was about 16.

Look how handsome you are in your birthday outfit. Your shirt says "Cake Monster". But you really didn't like the cake very much. We gave you a sand/water table for your birthday which we unpacked the following day and you really liked. But even then you didn't have too much energy. As I type this it is two days after your birthday on a Sunday night, you just seem back to normal now---and you'd been feeling lousy since last Tuesday.

We love you super duper much. You have had a great first year. One filled with joy and happiness. Its been so much fun to have a baby again. And so much fun to have one that is so pleasant and friendly and smart.

Connor's 8th Touchdown Party!

Every year its getting to be more of a challenge to come up with a fun and entertaining idea for Connor's birthday. Soon, he'll just want a friend or two to spend the night and these days will be over, so I'm trying to get the parties in while we can.

The idea for this year's party was his. Months ago he said (and never really wavered) "Mom, I want to have a football party". For me, that wasn't alot of guidance. But, thankfully, in today's world we have Google and "the collective intelligence" available to me on the the internet yielded great ideas for such a party.

The invitations were training camp draft notice letters to each "player". At the party, they had an official sign in:




After that they picked up their Player ID badges which I made for each of them with their actual photos and a list of the "drills" we'd be doing on the back. Also, they each got an official Gatorade sports bottle just like an NFL player.



We then moved over the park a block away for the training camp fun where we had a camp warm up:



Some throwing drills:




Receiving drills:



And agility drills that didn't always work out quite so well!



After nearly two hours of that, the kids were wiped out and we came back to the house for pizza, wings, and cake. NOTE TO SELF: Kids love wings. They inhaled them.





It was a great party in no small part to the very hard work of many of our friends. I underestimated severely the coaching and support staff we would need for this Training Camp and they made it work. Mike helped Bob set up the field and even ran to the Home Depot for field chalk when the one I bought didn't work. Ralph ran many of the drills. Jeff and Travis kept the kids in line and helped with other drills. Jen took almost all of these photos and helped me put together our grown up dinner for afterward along with Carole who arrived and 60 seconds later had been enlisted to slice up 3 pounds of flank steak. She also, as usual, was the best mom in the house and made sure everyone was cleaned up and generally accounted for.



Connor was really happy. He came over to me toward the end of the day and hugged me and looked up at me with those young boy eyes and said "Mom. This is the best birthday party ever. Thank you for doing it for me." Wow.

And it can't go without saying that my baby boy was an angel through the whole thing!

8 Is The Number of Infinity

And infinity is how long and how much I love you, my first son. Happy Birthday to you. I love this picture because it shows the way I see your face most of the time. Smiling. Engaged. Taking it all in and taking big bites of life with us. I can't believe it was so long ago we brought you home to be ours. It's an honor to watch you grow and I am so happy to share my days with you. I hope you are always the best of what you are today. I love you SOOOOOOO much.

Birthday Fun At School

Today I had the pleasure of spending lunchtime with Connor at his school in order to share birthday cupcakes with his classmates. I needed a nap immediately following. The cafeteria is possibly one of the LOUDEST places I have ever been in my life. But, it did solve some mysteries for me about how lunch with first graders actually works. My observations:


1. He sits with his class--at the non-peanut boys end of the table.


2. Its a constant rotating schedule. As one class leaves one table, another is filing in to fill it. This is very different than my elementary school where lunch was in two or three blocks of time for everyone.


3. He goes BACK to class for awhile before heading out to Recess. That's just stupid. They are so wound up after the freedom of that 30 minute lunch zoo, I don't know how they learn ANYTHING in that next 25 minutes.


4. The cafeteria team told me that they estimate that about 60-75% of the food brought by the kids or purchased for lunch is actually just thrown away. Frightening. But looking around, I believe that to be true.


5. My friend Karina was there to have lunch with her daughter Megan at the other end of the table. She told me that every single day (she goes alot) is major DRAMA with the girls having to do with "Today you are not my friend." "Today I will sit with X and Y and not with you." etc. None of that went on at the boys end of the table. They just pile into the seats and then see who can do the grossest thing with their food.


6. The girls have better manners than the boys. WAY. As Connor handed out the cupcakes, almost every single girl thanked him, thanked me, and asked what they were and complimented them. Not one boy said thank you. They just shoved them straight down their gullets. I don't care. I'd rather not get a thank you and know that they are nice to each other vs. all those girls saying thank you and then treating each other like crap. Ugh.



But, the treats were a major hit. We made Pebbles Cupcake treats and iced them with real buttercream icing in Connor's choice of blue. (Bob said that it looked like Avatar poop.) And Connor was so proud to hand them out and to walk me around the cafeteria to all his friends and staff and pat my belly and tell everyone "She's not fat. She's "pregnit". Too cute. And despite his hyperactivity, it seemed to me that all of the adults really like him. This is no surprise---he's always engaged above his age group!

The Seventh

Whew. What a day.

I hate meterologists. All of them. I think we should take all of the money that we spend on college programs for them, for all their Doppler and NexRad crap, for all the TV channels, for all the jobs, computers, and sattelites and use it to pay for a public health insurance option for migrant workers. Seriously. What a waste of time and resources. They are wrong so much more often then they are right. Nationalize meteorology--one government agency to do it all. I'm all about socializing THAT.

Today, wild thunderstorms with tornadoes and hail were predicted for right in the middle of Connor's outdoor birthday party. But, at 10am when we said we'd make the "game time decision" to go or not go, the forecasts were all looking invalid and as if the really awful stuff would come later. So, rather than cancel, we decided to hedge our bets and move it up an hour and half.

What happened? It was a beautiful day. All day. We didn't even need to move it up. But it was fine that we did because it actually made the evening a bit more relaxing. The boys played miniature golf and hit the batting cages. After the party, a bunch of them were able to stay and use their tokens for a small bucket of balls and we hit the driving range together. They all seemed to really enjoy it and it was nice to meet a few of Connor's friends from school that I did not know.

Happy Birthday, Handsome!