Our Pirate Turns Five

11/4/2013

I hear parents all the time share disbelief about how fast their children are growing up. I would like to join their chorus - I can't believe Ian turned 5 this weekend.

Gone are all things baby and toddler in our house. Even though that's been the case for some time now, celebrating our youngest child's fifth birthday puts a kind of official stamp on it. For the most part, I'm just fine with that, because also gone are diapers and bottles and uninterpretable babble, although, there are times I am left wishing some of what comes out of Ian's mouth was still uninterpretable. I think for the most part when parents lament their growing children it isn't because they're going to miss the tireless demands their little babies once made of them, it's more a fear they have kids rapidly approaching an age where the demands will cease to exist at all.

After putting together Ian's pirate birthday party, I'm not sure Katie can buy into my theory of fading demands. She worked hard to honor Ian's "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" party request. For my part, I got to sit back and feel it's very cool to trade in diapers and bottles for swords and bandanas and a little boy running around shouting "argghhhh!!"

I don't look forward to Ian and Elliott racing off to independence, but I'll hold out hope that they'll continue to need us now and then along the way, even if I have to embark on a few pirate ship journeys along the way.