Sean's 7th Birthday

Sean got to sit in Ms. Lowy's chair and had his cupcake.

I asked the boys to look "dreamy" and these are their takes.

Sean holding an Ironman balloon on the left and blowing the birthday candles.

Now, I don't know what kind of cake I will be baking next year, but it would be hard to top this one off...

Boys having a good time.  They were particularly louder after getting a dose of sugar.

Aly thought Henry was hilarious!

Kids were fighting over cleaning tools on the deck and were scrubbing and squeegeeing the deck.  ??

Andy said he is going to get some rest and sat down. 

It's hard to believe our first-born is already seven years old.  Sean celebrated his 7th birthday on Wednesday with his classmates with cupcakes I brought to the class.  He was very happy to see me and his friends were adorable by saying "I am happy because it's Sean's birthday" during the circle time.  Sean sat on teacher's red rocking chair and the children gathered around him.  They all knew the routine.  With the teacher's cue, they started singing a modified version of the birthday song.  After all, they have 29 children.  They must have had plenty of birthday celebrations. 

I was not planning to have a party since previous parties were fun but stressful.  Since Sean had a party every year, he said he could not imagine a birthday without a party.  He convinced me to hold a party for him and I decided to pull an emergency party planning two weeks before the date.  I wanted to make sure it was a small party since I went too crazy with guest lists in the previous years.  Nine boys and a little sister came to the party and it was just right.  They got along great for the most part and played happily.  Sean proudly invited everyone to his room and they played with Lego's and balloons for a little while.  Some kids played downstairs with cushions and slides.  I knew this already but nine boys are quite loud.  It's like having five vacuum cleaners on at the same time.   I used my teacher voice to tame them but it only worked temporally.  They were having a really good time.

The cake this year was Ironman cake again.  I did improve in my cake making skill though and the decoration part at least was ten folds better than last year's.  The Ironman was flying just like he requested and the details of his armor and colors turned out very well.  He also waned a skyscraper on the cake but I ran out of space and time.  The decoration is not difficult but it does take a long time to finish.  He was very happy with it and all about smiles when he saw it for the first time.  His friends liked it as well.  It was a double layered chocolate cake with chocolate cream frosting inside.  We all sang him a happy birthday song and I thought it must be one of his top ten moments to remember this year.  I sometimes envy children for their joy, nothing less or more than the pure joy they are feeling at that moment.  How nice it would be to forget about everything else and enjoy something?  For adults, it only happens in commercials on TV.

Sean had an excellent seventh birthday.  He works hard everyday and although he is going through a rough patch currently, he is attending a large regular first grade classroom without any assistance, speaking without any delays, and doing fine academically.  From where he was four years ago, not using sentences and lacked social skills, we could not be happier.  We are very proud of you, Sean.  Happy Birthday, my little man~!

Sean at 7 years:

He likes talking about highest building in the world.  He cannot stop talking about his favorite buildings and he knows a lot about them.  His favorite building is Burj Khalifa in Dubai.  Since Dubai has many numbers of amazingly tall buildings, he wants to visit there someday.  He also likes to talk about space and planets.  He knows a lot about space and he can name all the plants in the solar system in its order.  He is quite creative with his Lego creations and he makes pretty shapes using different colors.  It seems random, but he carefully picked each piece.  He is a good visual artist and he can draw some neat designs which are surprisingly sophisticated for someone his age.  He is skinny.  Pretty skinny like me when I was little.  I can hold his upper arm between my index finger and thumb.  I am hoping no one would pick on him for his stickly figure since I really didn't like it when people picked on me.  His best friend is Parker.  They are very tight.  They exchange a notebook titled "Sean and Parker Note Part I" and they write to each other.  They are cute.  They often ask each other "Do you like me?", "Do you like to play with me?" like teenagers in love.  It's a good writing practice and a good way to keep connected since they go to different schools.