five

oh dear. the holidays are upon us, and i had really hoped to post something about cosmo's birthday before now. he turned five in november. that number always loomed, in my mind, as a huge milestone. it's the point where they move into official kid-ness. not a baby anymore, not a toddler anymore, and barely even a pre-schooler.



cosmo had a wonderful birthday. we had a nice after-school party for him, with 5 kids he chose to invite. it was hard to let go, and let him decide, but since he had opinions, and he doesn't always express preferences, i thought it was important to honor his choices...even if it meant some of my dear friends' children were not invited. gulp.



we had a low-key party, where the most exciting part turned out to be chasing each other around with blow-out noise-maker-party-favor-thingies. talk about cheap thrills! the next day, he came down with strep. the scarlet fever strain. poor little thing. he was mostly couch-ridden through thanksgiving, but was all better in time to go to TX, for an early xmas with nani and family.

this also marks the fifth year of this blog.
five years.
sigh.
'nuf said.

so far, my favorite thing about five-year-olds is the helpfulness. i was expecting this, or at least hoping for it, and, remarkably, it arrived, like clock work. cosmo has a new found interest in helping out, and the competence to actually BE helpful. i will savor this while it lasts.

many milestones

cosmo is riding a two wheeler. now, with pedals! two days ago, he sat on the bike he got for his fourth birthday (back in november, thanks nani and papa!), to find out if his feet touch the ground yet. they did. then we went out to try to ride.

and he rode.
just like that.



okay, so...there was cotton candy involved, but he picked it up so fast, it blew my mind. he was riding, and i was actually stopping him, out of...well...fear. my own fear, that is. he loved it! he kept saying, "let go, mom, let go now." it made him giddy, the way learning to read made him giddy. the next night, we tried again, and it was as though he had been riding his whole life. in a way, he has. for nearly half of his life, anyway. he got a balance bike when he was two and a half, and became proficient on it rather quickly. it rides so much like a regular two wheeler, the jump to a pedal bike is pretty smooth. plus, he has been riding behind my bike, or carl's bike, on the trail-a-bike since early spring. that has pedals, but we do the balancing. the balancing and the pedaling all fell into place this week, and he got it.



yesterday, we walked our bikes (and rode a little) several blocks to the b-line trail, and then rode the trail all the way up to city hall. the trail is so relaxing, with no traffic to worry about. today, we loaded up all of our bikes, and headed out to the clear creek trail. there we rode for nearly 5 miles total, on a lovely paved trail that follows the creek. the temperatures were in the seventies, with low humidity...absolutely perfect. he's getting really good at using his hand brake, and getting out of the way when others approach. it's wonderful.



he's also making great strides in swim class. he floated on his back for the first time, on his own, with the help of a life jacket (rather than the swim teacher)

and, cosmo and justin figured out vision, a complicated room escape, computer game that they've been working on for quite a while. it was a delight to hear him tell the story of their accomplishment, in elaborate detail.



i also took him to his very first movie-in-a-theatre (not counting the cry-baby-matinee in houston, when he was 2 or 3 months old). we saw toy story 3. it was a great way to spend two hours, in the heat of the day last week, and he really enjoyed it.



in other milestone news, cosmo read pond, by lizi boyd, to carl and i, at bedtime. it is an extremely simple board book, with only a few words on each page, and reads like a poem. cosmo has read much more difficult texts, but it was particularly moving to me, because it is one of three books that we read to cosmo each and every night when he was a baby/toddler--when we were establishing bedtime rituals. carl and i pretty much have it memorized, and it holds a special place in our hearts. to hear his sweet little four-year-old voice reading those familiar words was heartbreakingly precious.

birthday boy

we had a little birthday party for cosmo at PDO (parent's day out, his pre-school) yesterday. later, at bath time...

cosmo: i was quiet at PDO today.

carl: oh yeah, why's that?

cosmo: because i was so famous.

muscial genius

i hate to be one of these parents whose all like, "ohmygod! look what my kid can do!"
but...well...oh my god! look what my kid can do!
he's been working on the piano for a while now (about a year), and this week, he made the leap. he had the ah-ha moment, and now he can follow along to music (if the letters are printed above the notes) and play it on the keys, if the letters are on the keys. and, best of all, he loves it. it is all self motivated. he sits down several times a day, on his own, and works on stuff. he's very pleased when he can play songs that he recognizes, but also still enjoys improvising, and just pounding on the keys. i just posted a bunch of videos on youtube, of his process, but here is one from the day he got it:

chopsticks!

ok, so they are learning chopsticks, but still...

on the day cosmo turned three...

there were
presents (i built cosmo an easel),



friends and family,



more presents,



desserts (carrot cake, chocolate swirl cupcakes),




and prismatic squawker blowouts.




there was
a stray cat,



music,



a pinata (it's supposed to be jupiter),



a bonfire (not pictured),
and a jam session with kid kazooey.



as cosmo was laying down to go to bed tonight, he asked "i'm three, now?" and practiced holding up three fingers.

game day

if ya wanna see something funny...look at these videos shawna took of cosmo playing his first basketball game at the banneker center. it is a bloomington parks and recreation league, and cosmo is at the younger end of the three and four year olds. it is so damn comical, i can't stop laughing.

firsts

cosmo's first day of pre-school.
he's going for a couple of days a week. he was a little shy at first, but quickly got into the swing of things. i love that we can walk, or ride the bike, and his teachers are great.



first cantastrophe.
we were canning a bunch of roma tomatoes that i got at the farmer's market (16 pounds for $10!) and one of the jars broke when we put it into the boiling water bath. we aren't really sure why it happened. either the glass had a flaw, or it had cooled off too much while we were packing it with tomatoes...? anybody have any other ideas? the rest of the tomatoes turned out fine though.


first boat ride.
cosmo got to go out on a boat on lake lemon. the woman who owns the place that shawna is renting has a pontoon boat that she lets her tenants use. shawna even taught cosmo how to "drive" it.

first night away.
cosmo spent the night with justin and shawna while carl and i went up to indianapolis. he said he missed me, but he never got upset about it, and had a great time making marble mazes with justin (it's safe to say that marble mazes, of any kind, are cosmo's most favoritest thing right now). the first night away was probably harder on mama than it was on cosmo.



first bowling outing.
we went to the bowling alley on campus. naturally, cosmo loved it. they had a ball ramp and some bumpers to fill in the gutters, so he could actually hit some pins now and then. his favorite part though, was the track where the balls came out.

what's your hobby?

we can (not) stop canning! after blueberries, we made some incredible peach chutney, some green beans with lemon and tomato (a slow cook recipe from bittman, where the beans just melt in your mouth), last night we did some spicy pickled green beans (the kind that go great in bloody marys), and we expect to make salsa, maybe this weekend.



i also tried making some fruit leather with peaches i got at a great discount from the farmer's market, because they were quite ripe. i am not sure of the results of the fruit leather yet, since it is still drying, and we haven't tried the green beans either. the peach chutney is to-die-for though, and i am tempted to make more while the peaches are on. apparently we aren't the only ones around here with canning fever. i looked for some books on food preservation today at the library, and all but one were checked out, some with holds 3 deep! i know that part of this mania for me is inspired by reading animal vegetable miracle by barbara kingslover. a couple of people recommended it to me, so i finally started reading it.

(a recent garden and farmer's market haul)

the book is all about eating local, and since we are so privileged to live in a place with an abundance of local food available all summer and fall, it makes sense to put some of it up for the winter months. that way we won't have to buy as much food that is shipped from far away. besides that, we are having a blast.
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in other news, cosmo got a balance bike called skuut. it costs about a third of the german made like-a-bike, but seems to be about as well designed and built. cosmo has never been crazy about vehicles, generally. he tries to ride his trike now and then, but he wasn't one of those kids who was pushing himself around on those little toddler cars all the time. so, we weren't sure how he'd take to the bike. after a day of awkwardly walking it, his heels getting run over by the back wheel, he quickly got the hang of it. i couldn't believe it when i saw him picking up his feet and coasting the next day! now he has a taste for speed.

the great thing about it is that he has so much control. he almost never falls because he can catch himself with his feet, and he can steer it and pick up the front tire when he encounters a step or other obstacle. i love this thing, and feel like it was well worth the money ($90, with free shipping*). it works great on grass, gravel, and pavement, and is really fun on hills and inclines of any sort. it is also light and easy to carry, in case he's tired of riding on the way home from the park.

cosmo has been blowing us away with how grown up he seems. it seems like major transformations take place every couple of days or so. i guess it has always seemed that way. he really digs music, likes to sing, and knows a lot of songs now.

(cosmo, carl and maggie at music class)
he's been making up new words, and new verses to songs that he knows. while they rarely rhyme, they do make some sense, and usually they crack us up: have you ever seen cosmo, eating edamame...down by the bay? (down by the bay).... he's developing an imaginative world, which is wonderful to witness, and he draws simple faces on a regular basis now. he calls them people, and sometimes some ghosts.



we went to the county fair a couple of times. first to see the animals and the precious 4H crafts. we went back one afternoon, with shawna and justin, to check out the rides. to my surprise, he loved the rides. there were many that just went round and round, maybe a bump or slope along the way, but rather tame, and suitable for his age.

he went from motor boats, to crocodiles, to flying saucers, to dragons, to trains and trucker convoys. his favorite thing though was the bounce house. he went into that one at least ten times, and jumped and laughed and fell down, and contended with other kids bumping into him, and kept coming out saying "i want to do it again!" luckily the line was relatively short. unfortunately, it was right in front of the funnel cake stand pumping greasy fumes into the air all around us. cosmo also played a couple of games on the midway, one of them involved throwing darts at balloons on a wall, and he popped one and got a prize. all the others were incredibly easy. everyone's a winner, basically. and for a kid whose not yet three, that was just fine. we came home with more shwag than we knew what to do with. (fair photos by shawna bean)

cosmo also got properly introduced to the world of candy at the fair (someone at a booth handed him a dum-dum) and now, it is all he talks about. for the first two and a half years of his life, he didn't know that those brightly colored small things in intricate wrappers were edible. the cat is now fully out of the bag.
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well...this post sat around for a week or so, unposted. by now i have some updates: the fruit leather turned out great. it was a wonderful use of a whole lot of very ripe peaches. cosmo, naturally, loves it, and it packs great for snacks on the go. here's a couple of photos of the one i spread out onto a round pizza pan.


we also canned two batches of salsa, one red, one green. they both taste incredible. carl said, of the heat in the red salsa, it's slow in coming, in the back of the mouth....
i said, i may never eat store bought salsa again! carl and i consider canning our new hobby. we lucked into a bunch of canning jars at the goodwill, at bargain prices, and snatched them up.

i should point out that our new hobby is something we carry out after cosmo has gone to bed. it takes some focus, and there are a lot of burners going at once. not a safe place for little ones.


* typo stating the bike was $80, corrected 12/29/2008