Dino-roar Four

Birthday boy with giant dinosaur egg pinata on a nest
Birthday eve

My boy recently marked his fourth whirl around the sun, giving me reason to channel my creative energy into party planning (with barely any energy for this or that). With months of build-up, the anticipation resulted in the full spectrum of almost-four year old behaviour, from the excited-yet-gentle questioning ‘is it my birthday yet?’ to the frustrated, foot-stomping, lego-throwing, angry exclamation that ‘MY BIRTHDAY is NEVER COMING!!!’

Pre-birthday weekends involved hours of research (flipping through dinosaur books); drawing and painting (silhouettes of dinosaurs and foliage); piñata making (tearing strips out of the local paper and pasting on an oversized balloon with homemade glue that proved to withstand the brute force of little people with big sticks); and, baking. Ruben’s notable creative direction included the suggestion to add trees and leaves to our décor, choosing the piñata’s colour scheme, and supervising stick collection to build a nest for our giant egg. The float in our party planning *Gantt chart allowed time to op shop for supplies—we scored amazing on-theme items such as an as-new erupting volcano science kit, a dinosaur stamp set, and a packet of dinosaur napkins I would have baulked at buying at the recommended retail price.

Once we got within ten finger’s count of days before his birthday, I churned out dino-skeleton cookies; the mound of t-rex, triceratops and stegosaurus resembled a palaeontologist’s dream haul. The final additions to our decorations were a couple of dinosaur skeleton figurines I found in hard rubbish days before the party—there is something so satisfying about finds like that which fit into a greater plan.

On the eve of the big day, Mr almost-four helped decorate the venue, although most of his efforts were directed at manipulating the time-space continuum to make the whole affair take three times longer than necessary. In the meantime, I was nervously clock-watching, feeling the passing minutes encroach on the limited time I had to finish off some cooking in parallel with sculpting and decorating cakes to build the landscape I’d imagined for months, tasks that were on the *critical path and laden with the risk of going from concept design straight to construction with no plan B. Aside from the panic of a first timer’s attempt at edible grass, it went off without a hitch, thanks to lessons taken on board from birthday number three. Of course, after I finished the cake, the relentless perfectionist in me piped up with how I could improve the volcano (all it needs is crushed chocolate biscuit to give it the texture of rock and dirt), but at well past 1AM and with no chocolate biscuits in sight, I ignored that voice and went to bed.

The party was a lot of fun— great friends; doting grandparents; Ruben’s eclectic playlist; an abundance of food; a sun-kissed winter’s day; dad’s creative orienteering game that got kids and parents running around the beautiful gardens; a piñata that defied the strength of the toughest little kids around; and, a cake with a smoking volcano!

Fourth birthday party fun. Cake, cookies, and pinata with friends.
Dino-roar party fun

Four. How did that come around so soon? It was a big year with a hell of a lot of growth in all aspects of his life. A look through my phone memo with a search on ‘Ruben’ gave me a nice snapshot of the changes over the year. I’ve kept mum with the more personal milestones in the timeline, but suffice is to say, enough stickers were earnt after successful toilet training to make a trip to Melbourne Zoo a few months after his third birthday.

Here are some memories from the year between threenager and dino-roar four:

2017

15th July: Ruben’s first meteor sighting!

17th July: Notable expressions ‘See you when your ship sails in Mummy’ and, to express his refusal of dinner, held up his hand and said ‘This sign says Stop! No dinner.’

26th August: Asked me ‘Is it dark inside grass?’ while out for a walk on our property.

2nd September: First time getting his face painted (zebra), at a Motor Show. Significant for me as I love face painting and was excited at finally having a willing face to paint (not long after, I painted a very impatient and wriggly giraffe).

17th September: Moved from cot to single bed!

2018

7th Jan: First words of the day to me were ‘I want lots of kisses and cuddles.’

1st Feb: Woke to see the super blue blood moon with his dad.

14th Feb: Made a hexagon with sticks at daycare.

5th April: First bike ride with me, on a path leading to La Larr Ba Gauwa Park (a mountain bike track).

8th April: Rode trail 1 on La Larr Ba Gauwa with me. He aced it, I wobbled and had two uneventful falls off my hybrid.

28th May: Early hours of the morning, he woke me when he came to set up camp in my bed. I couldn’t get annoyed at the sleep disruption when he said ‘I love you with all my love yous.’

11th June: Saw his cake and exclaimed ‘It looks tastier than my skate park cake‘ Yes!

Birthday cake designed with volcano, grass, sand and surf and dinosaur figurines.
Mesozoic era volcano, turf, sand and surf.

In amongst all that, other feats over the year include writing his first name; recognising the first letter of a bunch of words; a growing awareness of good and bad choices; picking up on social cues (which he mainly disregards); inventing an insult that is nonsensical yet stings whenever I hear it directed at me (Silly Gup Face!); discovering a love of jigsaw puzzles and board games; a greater interest in crafting; being more loving and kind to Djembe (our cat); counting past one hundred; and, getting a feel for the concept of infinity (thanks to a beautiful book Infinity and Me which we bought at a library book sale).

Happy Birthday my sweet potato. I love you with all my love-you’s. In fact, my ‘love you’s’ are infinite nowadays because of you.

 

*I’m kidding, I didn’t create a Gantt chart, but a to do list in my phone was essential and was made easy by editing the list I had for his third birthday party. Hmmm…now on to choosing a theme for Fantastic Five!

All photographs by Richard Baxter.

29 thoughts on “Dino-roar Four”

    1. Thanks Sandra! Hope you enjoyed the biscuit! It was a lot of fun and stress free too for the most part except the night before…so much has to be pulled together at the 11th hour cause of the ingredients.

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    1. Thanks Derrick! Happy Birthday! Did/are you having a party? My new benchmark in the ever delayed birthday post for Ruben will be to get it in by your birthday. Enjoy your day and the year ahead x

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    1. Thanks Kathy! It was a really fun day- everyone enjoyed themselves and the birthday boy, when asked what his favourite part of the day was said ‘everything’ 😊 He will be thrilled when he gets his hats, thanks so much! Still early days, I’m sure they’ll get here by next week. We’ll have to skype when the arrive – live opening of his gifts 😊🎁

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  4. You’re an awesome mum! Looks/sounds like everyone had fun. And what a fab cake too. Yes, time does flit by so quickly (where does it go?) But it’s wonderful that you’re marking the years with these posts.

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    1. Thanks Dave 😊 I try. Yes, everyone had a great time! I don’t knoe where it goes…perhaps it enters some portal somewhere in the universe waiting for the next lifetime. So many moments I’d love to lice over and over again. I really should write it down (offline) more often. I do keep my phone memo but for every event or observation I write, there are so many more that are left to memory and I just hope I’ll never forget. The closest to stopping time is to be fully present…that and cryogenics 😂

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  5. That party was some extravaganza – no wonder you’ve had no time for “this and that” – clearly you’ve poured all your love and creativity into Ruben’s “dino-roar four!” Thanks for sharing. Your love is palpable.😍

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    1. Thanks Bob. Sorry for delayed reply. I had a sleepless night the other night and planned your birthday as one does at 3 AM. Best I could come up with was a Jam Party where you send invite out with sheet of music or tab for guitars and guests must learn the music if they’re that way inclined, then ‘Jam’ with you at your party. Cake would be a giant strawberry jam jar design and decor would be lots and lots of empty jam jars (thrift or collect from friends) with tea lights candles inside. Hope you like my imagined party for you! Check out the instagram link on menu bar of my blog to see pic of my bday cake and the invite I created. Hope you’re well 😊

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  9. Hi Mek! I saw your avatar in one of my likes, and just popped over to say hello. 2018 was a year I was more out of touch than in, but I am trying to work my way back. This brought back great memories, although I never gave such an elaborate celebration…my neighbor across the hall used to make my older daughter a train cake for her birthday for many years. She still remembers it, with great fondness. So I’m sure all this is embedded in Ruben’s synapses forever! (K)

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    1. Hey Kerfe! I’ve missed you! I’m not as engaged with WP as I used to be but someday soon I’ll get back to it. How lovely of your neighbour. Ruben still talks about past burthdays and cakes so I’m sure they’ll continue to be lodged in a special part of his brain that’ll set off feel goodness when he thinks back on it all. I currently planning his 5th…it’s gonna be fun! The cake concept is upping the ante a little, but this year we have a venue booked that does all the food, party bags etc so I csn focus on cake and a few other things to personalise it and fit the theme. How are you? Are you on instagram?

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      1. So good to hear your voice too! I was off WP a lot last year, but doing much more this year. I keep thinking life will smooth itself out, but times are just crazy all around. I’m not on instagram…I can barely handle all the stuff going on in life as it is. Too old, maybe.
        happy birthday to Ruben! Each year has its charms, enjoy! xo

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      2. Life NEVER smooths itself out I have found, but there is joy in all the creases if you seek it out 🙂

        Thanks for the birthday wishes- it isn’t till June thought! I just do the crazy planning way ahead of time- you will be able to read about it mid June! I have kinda recommited to my blog by upgrading today to a personal plan as I was getting sick of those horrible ads, and in the process, ditched the ‘wordpress’ in the domain name. So I guess I better make more frequent appearances now to get more bang for my buck! Catch you soon xx

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  10. Pingback: Sixes and Sevens – Work in Progress

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