There’s this quote you hear a lot when you become a parent and you’re in the thick of changing diapers and fighting insomnia: “The days are long, but the years are short.” As I think about our first child turning seven years old, I really feel that. How can seven years have passed already? But also, wow, I feel like we’ve been parents for ages!
It’s all celebration though, he’s always been a kind person, but he’s grown into a curious little kid who we have a lot of fun with. This past year he’s really gotten into building worlds in Minecraft, and has generally built upon his previous curiosity of how everything works into coming up with really interesting conclusions based on his new found knowledge. He’s made major progress at school, and while he still leans on me a lot, I am seeing sprouts of independence and big brother leadership in him as he can complete a lot of daily tasks himself, and has started teaching Aaron how to play games (both video and board/card games).
Given his love of Minecraft, we went with that theme for his birthday. Since we were coming back to California just a couple days before his family birthday party here, I ordered the supplies while we were in Philly and just brought them all home. This also allowed me to grab some cupcake picks from the stash and put them in for some flair at a little birthday party we had with grandpa on his actual birthday while we were still in Philly. That night, we went to our favorite Italian place in town were he got a candle in some ice cream too.
Back in California, he reminded me that he wanted a “Sniffer cake”. A sniffer is a six-legged shaggy cow thing that we all kind of fell in love with because they’re so hilarious. They aren’t wildly popular like some of the animals in Minecraft, so there were limits to what I could do with that theme in mind, and a whole sniffer cake was not feasible. The options for Minecraft cakes were also limited, so instead I got creative. He likes chocolate cake and the Minecraft Cherry Blossom Garden Lego set has sniffers in it, so maybe sniffers like cherries? A chocolate cake with cherries on top it is! And Adam already had that Lego set, but I bought a second one so I could decorate the cake accordingly. It was a really busy cake, but I think I hit the mark.
Complete with a sniffer chomping on a cherry.
I also found a plastic toy sniffer online, which came out with the cake and the boys have enjoyed playing with.
Joining us for our family birthday party and all this Minecraft stuff was two of our former au pairs Claudia and Rebeca, Claudia’s husband, and our new au pair Ana. It was a fun afternoon, and people stayed into the evening catching up and playing with the boys, so it was a really nice day for him.
Onward to life as a seven year old!