Originally, Scott's first soccer game was scheduled to coincide with his birthday, and for several months we have anticipated a soccer-themed party that would conclude with a real soccer game. Unfortunately, the spring has been so cold and snowy that the fields were not ready for use and the season had to be delayed one week. Rather than change our plans completely, we made our own indoor soccer pitch and made a go of it. Scott was disappointed that he couldn't play in his game, but the build-up for his birthday had been so great that he was still pretty wound up for the big day.
Before the party was to begin, he was sitting in the near-empty room on his Thomas Train couch watching Yo Gabba Gabba, holding a magic wand in his hand. Once the show was over, his nervous excitement exploded all over and I ended up getting several scratches from that wand while we checked in by phone with his Grandma W.
As each person arrived, he made sure to give a quick overview of the preparations: "I have a cake with ice cream in it and there is a soccer ball pinata in there. Come see." He went out on the lawn to greet cousin H and told him the good news about the cake. H stopped in mid-stride and said, "What the?" and then both boys giggled.
The soccer game in the basement resulted in some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of the day. The lows started on the first charge down the carpeted field, when H plowed headfirst into the wall at the other end. In an effort to cheer him up, Scott pretended to bonk himself on the head and collapsed to the ground (the routine he does to cheer up Katie). This started a trend of Three-Stooges-like slapstick routines mixed into the soccer game, followed by the loudest giggles of the day.
Pin the Player on the Soccer Ball Game
The Soccer Ball Pinata!
Scott and I made this pinata according to last year's formula, with a few small adjustments:
1) we only did 2 layers of paper mache; and
2) we painted it to look like a soccer ball, rather than an Omnidroid.
The other difference is that the kids wore a 'Big O Tires' toque as a blindfold, rather than my UColorado Buffs toque, which had previously been the designated pinata apparel, but could not be located.
With each participant one year stronger and the pinata a few layers thinner, it was destroyed by the time we had been through the batting order only once (last year I had to break it open at the end of several rounds of blindfold-free bashing by the kids). There were a few packets of Swedish Berries inside and a personalized soccer t-shirt for each of the kids. Two years in a row means that the pinata/t-shirt event is officially a tradition.
Another tradition is the discount present-shopping. Once again, we cashed in airmiles for gift cards or bought gifts second-hand to maximize our gift:dollar ratio. We probably overdid it, but that's the result of several months of birthday preparation.
With Scott's affinity for board games well-published in this forum, he received a total of 14 board games on the day (and it could have been higher had we actually given him all of the 9 games we bought from an online classified posting -- a few were held in reserve). The grandparents on both sides helped bolster the game count.
It was uncanny that Scott received a few Toy Story gifts, since he suddenly took an interest in the animated film series last week, when he was sick and watched it all the way through. Gifts with Buzz Lightyear on them were very timely.
Scott finally got the game 'Candyland.' On a trip to the Chapters Kids section of the bookstore a few months ago, I made him choose between 'Trouble' and 'Candyland' and he has ached for Candyland ever since. Personally, I think Trouble is the superior choice, and I think now that Scott has played Candyland he will agree with me, since Candyland has zero strategy involved. I will have to ask him what his opinion is.
The bike was a fun surprise for him, and was nicely complimented by a water bottle and bell from Scott's cousins L & D. Unfortunately, he hasn't felt as stable on it at home as he did in the aisles at SportChek, so we are still working on that one.
The biggest hit was probably the lightning-quick r/c car that he got from his cousins A & H & A. Once again, some misfortune there as the car stopped working before the party was over. There are conflicting reports about its untimely demise, but uncle L is known to be handy at fixing things.
The cake and its origins are worthy of a separate rant entirely, but the short version is that Marble Slab lost our custom order for a gluten-free ice-cream cake and we had to scramble at the last minute. DQ came through for us with this Rolo Blizzard cake and put the soccer graphic and message on it in about as much time as I took me to write this paragraph. The cookie bits between the two layers means it wasn't 100% gluten free, but R just made sure to eat around the offending bits.
Once the party had wound down and everyone had departed, Scott donned his new Spidey PJs to accept a Skype call from his St. George cousins, complete with guitar accompaniment and dance interlude.
The last event before bed was a visit from our home teacher & his babysitter daughter, who brought a trio of Hot Wheels race cars.
As he was heading off to bed Scott said, "I am never going to give up any more birthdays." We didn't know what this meant, but he clarified it to mean that he was never going to miss wishing other people a Happy Birthday, which he has been doing faithfully for the last month or so.
Apparently, he started to feel a bit of a post-party let-down. Once he was in bed and I was leaving the room he said, "I want to be 5 right now. When do I get to be 5?" I told him it would not be for another year, after the rest of spring, summer, fall and winter. This discouraged him a bit, but I reminded him of all the fun things that we would get to do in the spring and summer and that then it would be close to Christmas again.
Happy Birthday, Scotty! We hope you felt very special on your big day. You are such a fun little boy and we love you to pieces.
