Category: 6 years old

Pierogies

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Pierogies! As you might remember from last year’s post (and the year before) on the same topic, we make these half-moon delights each holiday season to devour on Christmas Eve, continuing a tradition from Eric’s grandmother. This year, the girl really got into it, starting by trying to eat all the sour cream that goes into the dough with her bare hands.

Don’t worry, germophobes! We made her wash her hands after that. And then the rolling:

and the stuffing

aaaand 10 dozen (yes, that’s right) pierogies, ready for boiling and sauteeing and gobbling up!

Of course, it was all a little too much for one of our helpers, and while the rest of us stuffed she snuck away and we found her here:

We’ll wake her up when the eating begins.

Giving Thanks

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It was a rough Sunday with the boy a few weeks ago. I’m not entirely sure why.  Perhaps he was underfed, but it was still a day of much screaming and stomping and not listening.  I was left with no recourse but to take away his legos.  Yes, his LEGOS.

In the afternoon, we sat down and had him write out his thank you notes from his party from a few months ago.  (I know, I know, it’s a bit late. We love all the gifts we receive but I am terrible about getting the notes out in a reasonable amount of time.) Amazingly, he remembered exactly what everyone had given him, which I am thankful for since the scrap of paper on which I had had that information written down was lost long ago. I know there’s mixed opinions, but I like using the prefilled thank you cards for this age.  It’s still a lot of effort for him to write out everyone’s name and their present, but would be too much for him to write out a full note for everyone. Besides, the spelling can be fun to watch.

After the note writing, he’d been sent to his room for the 10th time that day (I think for screaming into my ear that time). Shortly afterwards, he emerged, and thrust a note into my hands, grumbling, “You know where to mail this one.”

And my heart melted just a little bit, and we gave each other a big hug, and the rest of the day got a little better.

(“Litsavr,” by the way, refers to the lightsaber that I got him for his birthday. See what I mean about the spelling?)

Patches

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My parents hate torn jeans.  When I was in high school, it was the heyday of grunge fashion and torn jeans were cool. You could, with torn jeans, pretend like you didn’t live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of Fremont.  More likely, you paid good money for jeans that were already pre-torn in delicately artful ways.

My parents just thought torn jeans looked like you were poor. Of course, my parents’ disapproval only made me desperately wanted to wear them.  I never quite made it out of the house with torn jeans, and they ended up just getting tossed.

Now of course, I have a 6 year old boy, and 6 year old boys cannot seemingly live in the same universe with an intact pair of jeans. I swear, as soon as we get a pair of jeans it seems that they have holes. I have to say, I don’t particularly care if my kid wears torn jeans, but winters here are cold and it just doesn’t work to have jeans with holes. We also get a bunch of hand me down jeans that were previously worn by a 6 year old boy and thus suffer from the same problem. The thought of forking over $12-15 (at a minimum) each for 8 pairs of jeans was more than I could bear.

So I figured I’d patch them, but add a little flair, too. Mind you, this takes some dedication. I HATE sewing. Mostly because I’m incredibly bad at it, and I don’t like to be bad at things. I got some of those iron-on patches, thread in a few colors, and a few fabric scraps.  Incidentally, it’s not that easy finding masculine fabrics–there’s lots of pink and ladybugs and purple chickens and tulips but not too may boy-friendly fabrics.

They turned out pretty nice!

The felt patch on the right hand one is already a bit frayed–I’m sure there’s some smart way to deal with that fabric that I’m unaware of. My favorite, though is the green car fabric that I found:

I wonder how long it will take for him to wear his way through these. I’m hoping it’s more than a week or two.

Young Love

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On the way home from school a few weeks ago:

Me: How was school today?

Boy: Good. Elliott has a girlfriend. (Elliott is 6, fyi.)

Me: Oh…what’s her name?

Boy: Lucy.

Me: Huh. Does anyone else have a girlfriend?

Boy: Aaron. His girlfriend is Ruby.

At this point, a big Price-is-Right-like wheel of possible responses is turning in my head.  The pointer finally stops on:

Me: So, what does it mean to have a girlfriend?

Boy: Well, it means you really really really like a girl and want to marry her when you grow up.

Me: Oh, okay. <beat> Do you have a girlfriend?

Boy (in an exasperated, eye-rolling, i-can’t-believe-you’re-so-dumb voice): Mo-om! Amalia???

Really, I thought I’d be spared that tone of voice for a few years yet. Sigh.

Arr Mateys!

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The boy had another birthday, bringing the total to 6.  I suppose if you want to be technical he’s had 7 if you count his birth day, but that’s not how it’s done, I’m told.

This year, we went for pirates, fitting since he is born on International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I even found a pirate to come celebrate with us.

There was swashbucklin’

and treasure huntin’

and cupcake eatin’

and…well..picture takin’, another common pirate activity.

A splendid time was had by all, including the pirate. Happy Birthday, little guy!

(The girl now tells me she wants a T-rex party, with a real T-rex. If you know where I can find one, let me know.)