Growing up way too fast

Every year on the kids’ birthdays I go back through my archives to see what I’ve written about them in the past. After all, I don’t want to repeat myself. There’s only so many times you can read their birth stories. But then I get a little teary-eyed seeing how much they’ve grown in a year. I can still remember the day Caleb was born like it was last week. But it wasn’t last week. It was seven years ago. How can life just be passing us by so quickly?

Monday night Caleb went to bed as a 6-year-old, but he woke up Tuesday morning as a big ol’ 7-year-old. My youngest child is 7-years-old. I get a little choked up just saying the number 7. *sigh*

Caleb got a big birthday crown at school. He wore it proudly all day long at school, on the bus and at home. I meant to send cupcakes to school with him, but his birthday is always right in the middle of finals and, well, I suck at mommying during finals. Luckily he didn’t seem to mind.

As soon as he stepped through the door, home from school, he grabbed his birthday presents and we headed to the living room for the present opening to begin.

He was pretty excited. He ripped through his presents pretty quickly. I had to make him slow down so I could take a picture of every single thing he got. ‘Cause I’m one of those. One of those mothers who takes a million pictures of every moment of her kids’ lives.

At the beginning of summer last year he asked me for some swim goggles. I said I’d get them for him and then forgot every time I went to the store. (Apparently the mommy suckage isn’t limited to just finals week.) When we went swimming at Easter Caleb remembered the goggles. “MOM! You said you were going to get me some goggles,” he wailed. So for his birthday we got him some very stylin’ Spiderman goggles. He will be the envy of all the kids at the pool.

I spent about the same amount of money on Caleb that we spent on Justis (except for the car), but money goes a lot further for 7-year-old toys than for 17-year-old toys. Caleb had a ton of presents to open. He got a couple of bubble guns, a big bottle of bubbles, a sprinkler to run through, some Bakugans, his Spiderman goggles, and a bunch of G.I. Joe guys.

Oh and TEN DOLLARS. With the $10 he got from Grandma he has TWENTY DOLLARS. He’s so rich now.

We ended the night with an Reeses peanut butter cup ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Yum! AND we even had candles. Although we must have thrown out most of the blue candles after Justis’ birthday cause I could only find 3. So he had to have 4 pink candles on his cake. But it didn’t seem to phase him. He blew them all out in one big blow.

Ok, two.

Before he went to bed he asked me, “Mama, do I have to fold my own clothes now?” (cause I make the other kids put all of their own laundry away, but I fold Caleb’s clothes for him still). I said, “Yes. Yes you do. You’re 7 now after all.”

Maybe this growing up thing actually isn’t so bad.

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