Dalton's Birthday Party

Dalton's birthday party (he's 4) was on the 11th. It was a great success. He had a little over a dozen of his friends attend plus parents. We did art projects, made balloon animals, ate cake, and played in the pool at the Roanoke County recreation center (Greenridge). I have been putting posting off because I've felt I wouldn't be able to adequately describe the experience. I was going over the pictures today (thanks Bana) and I think they do a great job telling the story.

Johann's and Sarisky with balloons before the friends arrive.

Dalton drawing.

Maddie, Hannah, and Zoe (left to right). Oh yeah, a parent and grandparent in the back.

Charlie's Dad making animal balloons (he's quite good) for Charlie, Charlie's sister, and Lucas as Lucas' Nani looks on.

Cathy cutting cake for the mob.

Dalton blowing out is candles. He did it in one attempt.

Dalton and me in the pool. I like the way the pool makes me look thinner (no potbelly).

Dalton and Charlie in the pool.

Kites

Along with his other activities at the beach, Dalton had a great time flying his kite. Assuming this posts with sufficient resolution, you can zoom in and see a fuzzy Dalton shape in the lower right hand corner. Thanks to Jim for this photo. We brought our camera and it didn't make it out of the case.

We have been three days free of tantrums. It has been nice. We've been making compromises to keep it that way. There's still a lot of aggressive little boy behavior going on. The refrigerator gets kicked on a regular basis despite repeated entreaties from Cathy and I to the contrary. The volume goes up substantially when he kicks the wall or the dog which has narrowed the behavior. I guess we should continue to protest moderately at the refrigerator abuse and let him have a rebellious outlet.

With the aquisition of several Toy Story Lego sets, Dalton has entered another sensitive period for Legos. He built some of them at the beach, finished the others at home, finished the helicopter from a creator set, and asked what else he could build. The helicopter had been 6 months or so in the making. I pulled out a space shuttle I had made as part of the "build this from these parts game" we had been playing a month or two ago. He then requested another one. I told him I would build another one for him after he went to bed for the next day. It's a fun game although I was somewhat regretting it when I was heading to bed and remembered I still had one to build. He got up this morning and it was the first thing he asked about which was nice.

Beach

We've been at the beach with Cathy's side of the family this week. It's been fun to see everyone. The picture is of Dalton building sand castles (thanks Jim!). This was a relaxing moment for Cathy and me. We weren't there.

Parts of the last two weeks have been anything but relaxing. Dalton has entered a sensitive phase for tantrums. He's working hard on them. He has been averaging one a day for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it's been more like two a day with break days with none at all. Those double tantrum days can be pretty tough.

Yesterday, we had an early tantrum (I don't even remember what over) and then one before bed. The one before bed was over a refusal to brush teeth for the fourth day in a row. It consisted of Dalton literally screaming at the top of his lungs about how he needed to get to bed for over 90 minutes straight. Our philosophy on these things is to wait them out whenever possible. We don't always have that kind of time or patience, but how do you force a kid to brush his teeth (or let you brush his teeth) anyway?

After much drama (did I mention 90+ minutes) Dalton finally let Cathy brush his teeth and was in bed shortly after. About a half hour later, he had cheered up substantially. He left the bedroom following a very cranky Cathy exclaiming, "Guess what Dad? Mom forgot to brush her teeth."

So, he understands irony.

Why doesn't he understand that if he spends one minute brushing his teeth, we could all get to sleep an hour and a half earlier?