Mac had a birthday today. Cinco did not handle it well.

We have a newish neighbor who replaced our dear Ms.Gail.  The new lady seems friendly enough. I don’t know her past friendly greetings and mutual yard compliments. I figure Christmas cookies will be appreciated. I might even ask her “what the heck lady?” As our very polite neighbor has a large doll collection. And by large I mean both extensive and tall. They are positioned such that a large assortment of them stares through her living room window and into ours. It’s disconcerting.

We are Pixar fans. And so the kids all saw the newest feature “Inside Out.” It made an impression on Cinco. She enjoys reenacting scenes from the movie and insists her siblings partake. It starts with her declaring Baba to be “Joy.” X-Man she decrees to be “Anger.” This results in X-Man bellowing “I’m not Anger! I’m Gigust!” His Disgust needs a bit more work, although he has perfected his scoff recently. Cinco continues divining up the rolls ending with her own character “I’m Sadness” complete with a face plant on the floor.

It’s not that Cinco is sad, well other than the fact we wouldn’t let her blow out Mac’s birthday candles. It’s just that Joy spent a large part of the movie dragging Sadness around by the leg. This is fine by Cinco. If one is slow on the uptake she’ll move closer with her face plant and even wave her leg about to get attention.

In the end, it tends to be X-Man dragging her around the house, with a disgusted look on his face. So I suppose she’s on to something.

It’s still Cinco’s birthday.  She is still looking for her purple “Let It Go” cake. Her birthday month cumulated in a trip to Target. Sort of.

It started with the fact that both Mac and X-Man take swimming lessons. Mac is a good swimmer who has slowly developed past “thrashing with style” to competing in his first swim meet. X-Man is still in the thrashing mode. Style is yet to develop, although the child is fearless in the water. His swim instructor tends to put not one, not two but three separate flotation devices on him. She’s a prudent gal…….

Cinco is nothing if not competitive. She “beat” the father figure in air hockey the other day. Ten to one. I know because she kept a running score announcement to share with the entire crowd. Part of 

Cinco’s competitive score keeping is seen is her insistence that anything X-Man does…..she gets to do. So, it didn’t surprise me much when she appeared in front of me in her swimming suit. Although I admit to being impressed that she was able to get it on over her clothing. She walked over to me and announced “I go swimming lessons.” Being the mom I am, I smiled and said “ah good for you.” I figured this was all occurring in the same world that had her Dalmatian puppy doubling as her baby. It wasn’t until she climbed into the closet to retrieve her shoes and coat that I realized she actually intended to go to swimming lessons. This posed a problem.

First of all, it was seven pm. And I was heading out the door to take Baba to soccer. Second of all, Cinco wasn’t actually enrolled in swimming lessons. Third of all, Cinco doesn’t handle disappointment well. Well actually, she’s an expert at it. From the rolling out of the bottom lip, to the huge tears that slip down her cheeks and the shudders that come from struggling to contain sobs, she gets both the father figure and me, fairly easily.

Eventually she accepted a shopping trip to Target in lieu of swimming lessons. Of course, there was a brownie involved as well. While Cinco still would wistfully talk about swimming lessons, she didn’t let it dampen her enthusiasm much. She babbled along, talking about everything and anything. That included her belting out “Happy Birthday”, complete with blowing out nonexistent candles. And older gentleman commented to me “Wow, she really doesn’t stop does she?”

No, no she does not.

We continued on to another store, whose halls were very much decked for the upcoming Christmas season. This very much excited Cinco. “Christmas. Christmas everywhere!!!!” As we browsed the aisles, Cinco announced loudly “LOOK! IT’S MY HORSE!!!!!” Indeed, it was a beautiful wooden rocking horse. Cinco continued “Go, go mama! Go to my horse!” I tried to break it to her “I’m pretty sure that’s not your horse. That’s the store’s horse.”

And with that, Cinco turned cocked her head to one side and looked at me with patience and understanding “I think Daddy wants to get me the horse.”

That’s a new one folks.

And now I have to decide whether to tell the father figure this story……and end up with an absurdly expensive horse. Which is rather redundant I suppose. 

It’s dark and stormy here. Similar to the weather we so enjoyed on Halloween. Which was peachy. Baby and Baba were both off at their own Halloween parties. I suppose that’s the way things will be as they grow older. Mac was running along with his cousins trick or treating. That left the father figure with Cinco and Me with X-Man.

It was a study in contrasts. X-Man was very conscientious about directions. This is a new state of being for X-Man and one that I want to nurture as much as possible. He would stomp up in his rainboots and Hulk mask and ring the doorbell while announcing “Please have candy please.” This worked like a charm on the retired folks who would bestow handfuls of candy on him. He responded by digging back in his bucket and returning random handfuls while saying “One piece only please.” Like I said, the boy is intent on following directions. Mostly. He still refuses to wear pants around the house. I have yet to hear complaints from the school, so it seems to be a state of being around the house.

Cinco, on the other hand, rarely needs directions. She owns the world. She loitered behind the X-Man on a mission, chatting up each homeowner. Invariably she would be told “you’re so cute!” and she would respond “Yeth. I a purple ucorn. For Halloween.” The result would be more candy and more conversation. “Thankth. I like tandy. I like (rummage in bucket, pick a random piece) this one.” “I purple my yittle pony.” And of course the father figure would stand there, basking in her cuteness. 

Cinco moved on from the excitement of Halloween to assuming it’s her birthday. Every day for the last week she has walked up to me and emphatically announced “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!” And every day, I have to let her down gently, that no, actually her birthday is five months away. Well, the longer she sticks with it, the less gently I break it to her. So far she’s ordered a purple “let it go” cake for her birthday. And she wants us to sing her happy birthday regularly. She also has decided that she wants to wear a pretty dress for her birthday as well. At this point I’m just smiling and nodding.

As life goes on, my children become more and more behaved. Possibly even civilized. I guess it’s progress.  Or maybe they know that Santa is watching. Of course the whole universe is watching. That's why, less than twenty four hours after embarking on a large Christmas shopping trip, tree roots decided to announce that they had moved into the sewer pipe and really made themselves at home. It's like they knew I still had money from my paycheck left. So, it's been a FUN week so far. And yes, it's only Tuesday.