The Fifth

Our little baby (see the title banner at the head of this blog) turned five over a month ago. She is now in no uncertain terms a little kid. No claim to babyhood remains. Little kid. Calvinesque. She's whip-smart and in other ways more like her Dad than her Dad would like. For instance, today she wanted to go visit the Swan boys who were skateboarding with their dad on The Pad (the smooth concrete four-car parking area of The Abandoned House). Suzanne wanted to go too, and brought along her helmet and scoot-bike. Elizabeth only wanted to bring "The Mike and Sulley Scroll*."

In any event, here, six weeks later, are some snaps of the big girl's fifth birthday party!

The Partiers: Clockwise, from six o'clock: Suzanne Hovey, Kai Charles, Reed Swan, (Barb), Birthday Girl, Lily Joy, (Aaron), and Grayson Swan. 

Elizabeth got a lot of cool gifts, but she was most jazzed by the hellish** Polly Pockets. 

She also liked her doll house a lot.

While I was taking this picture, I decided to capture portraits of the cake-eaters.

Cake-Eater No.1: Elizabeth.

Cake-Eater No.2: Lily.

Cake-Eater No.3: Reed.

Cake-Eater No.4: Joshi. (Joshi is so mannerly and genteel that I couldn't capture a gross picture of her with mouth agape and full of cake, despite multiple efforts.)

Cake-Eater No.5: Grayson.

Cake-Eater No.6: Suzanne.

* Elizabeth is currently very interested (I won't say obsessed) with Monsters Inc., the Pixar movie about Mike and Sulley, two monsters who scare kids for a living. When she draws nowadays, she mostly draws Sulley (big, blue-and-purple furry monster with tail and horns) and Mike (spherical green guy with one huge eye). The Mike and Sulley Scroll is a drawing she did of them that she rolled up in a tube. It has quasi-religious significance.

**Aaron warned us about Polly Pocket. His warnings were spot-on. The thumb-sized dolls come with rubber clothes that are difficult to take off, and near impossible to put on. One of the reasons is that each Pocket doll has a thumb that points away from her hand, as if she is at any moment ready to catch a ride. Try slipping that hand through the tight sleeve of a rubber sweater without either tearing through the rubber membrane or driving yourself mad.