Now we are Six! And a Happy Star Wars birthday!

I'm only 6 weeks late on wishing forest a Happy 6th birthday on the blog! Honestly, that's not so bad. I knew I didn't have it in me to put together a Star Wars themed party this year so I outsourced to our favorite neighborhood watering hole, Sweet Poppy, who put together the most impeccable events around. It was expensive by Thai standards but actually pretty cheap by American standards considering they did all the food, the custom designed cake, and amazing decorations including life size character cut outs. Take a look!

grilled cheese sandwiches in the birthday boys honor:) 

big smiles with his besties

Another reason we chose Sweet Poppy is for their amazing outdoor space. Forest loves nothing more than free play with his friends, so we opted out of any organized activities (sweet poppy will arrange all sort of things!) and just let the kids play. 

A sweet friend of mine makes pinatas and when she heard f's party theme she offered to make him a Darth Vader piñata. So perfect! (Though Forest and his friends may have tried to get into it before it was go time, so it got a little messed up before the photo ops....)

For the first time ever, I went against my philosophical principles and made party favor bags for the kids. There is just so much great Star Wars stuff out there and Jonathan was making a trek to the US right before the party so it worked out for him to be a party favor courier. 

Included were: Star Wars Pez, inflatable lightsabers, lightsaber pencils, Star Wars grab and go coloring packs, and The Force is Strong with You silicone bracelets (Forest is very into bracelets right now). And we threw in some Ring Pops just because they are awesome and people outside of America don't know what they are missing. Forest helped me make them and was so excited to hand them out. 

So the party was a hit and Sweet Poppy did a great job! Now on to a little snapshot of Forest at age 6:

Height: 48 inches
Weight: 50 lbs
Favorite color: Green
Favorite TV show: Rescuebots and Octonauts 
Favorite movie: Home Alone and Return of the Jedi 
Favorite sport: Tennis
Favorite book: 13 story Treehouse series
Best Friend: Vake
Wants to be a: LEGO creator and filmmaker and arctic scientist. 

What can I say about Forest? He's truly one of a kind. Introspective and sensitive. Abundant and insatiable energy. Busy mind and body. Emotionally intense. Socially shy but bossy with his friends. Compulsive reader. Walking Star Wars and Octonauts encyclopedia. School lover. Rule follower. 

He's SUCH a good kid and yet SUCH a challenge. I truly believe he has a sweet heart and a brilliant mind, but his energy, fearlessness and intelligence get him into mischief. He's such a 'pick your battles' sort of child and I've had to admit that I have a finite amount of energy and I have to let many of his wild and feral antics go. 

It's been an isolating road navigating his baby/toddler/preschooler years because I so often felt that no one could help me normalize his behavior. He's just always been so different. In some ways good and in others very hard. Honestly, maybe I didn't even realize just how different until I had Juliet and suddenly I feel like I can actually relate to other moms with my normal run-of-the-mill baby. She isn't terrified by the sound of me popping open a can of coke. She went to her first playdate and lasted an hour just contentedly observing the other babies before she started to fuss a little. I'm amazed and appreciative of these tiny little things. Like if we'd had her first, there probably wouldn't be a 5.5 year age gap between my kids... 

But also having Juliet, I realize the ways Forest really took it easy on us. We never had to sleep train him. Potty training was a breeze. He freaking TAUGHT HIMSELF TO READ. At age 3! He's an expert traveler and has always been such a super fun kid, always enthusiastic and up for anything! I just feel like he was never a baby. He was just always ready to grow up and do the next thing. Or maybe we pushed him to that because we aren't really baby people. I don't know. 

Now that he's reached Kindergarten he is truly thriving.  He is Mr. Social and he has a crew full of friends that call his name as soon as he gets to school. He is still VERY shy in group situations but is becoming so much more confident than we ever dreamed possible. He even shared at show and tell in his Kindergarten class! 

We love him and are proud to call this busy little daredevil ours.