6 years old!

well, this is a month late :P

since the spring, gabriel's been nagging me about his having his birthday party at club aviva. so over the (never-ending) summer, i paid the deposit for the party, got the paper invitations (and wrote them), and then all i heard was "how much longer till my party?". it didn't help that the teachers strike dragged through september, so he couldn't actually hand out the paper invites to his classmates and i had to resort to evite.

well, the day finally arrived for his gymnastics party and division 12 had a great time! it was the last time the kids would be together before their grade 1 class assignments so one of the mom's and i had a little "awww" moment. i was so happy to see gabriel doing all the activities in the gym - balance beam (only the really low one), rope-swinging, trampoline, ladder-climbing to the slide - he's come a long way since olivia's birthday party when he only swung on the rope (over and over and over).

what a change from last year's blog entry - the kindergarten transition was a bit stressing, i was pregnant and miserable, and gabriel was freaked out about turning 5! this year's struggle was trying to explain that his party and his actual birthday weren't the same day and that he would still be 5 for a few more days after his party :P like last year, i sent rice krispy squares to school - easy to make, and no mess for the teacher to clean up :-)

now that he's 6 years old we've taken away his comfort towel and he's stopped sucking his thumb (hmmm, it all seems so easy now that i wonder why we didn't do it earlier). at his summer eye exam, we discovered he has a lazy left eye, so he's been wearing an eye patch at home (i even found an app called captain lazy eye). the good news is that his eye has improved by 60% (not sure if the app actually helped)! we've also noticed a developing attitude - the whine-y "do i have to?", "just one more minute!", "really?!", and a couple of "whatevers" thrown in for good measure.

being 6 is different from a financial perspective - he no longer qualifies for a 20% discount for ski lessons at mount seymour, we should be paying transit fare for him (we should've last year, but we didn't even realize the fare starts at 5 years), eating out is costing more (depending on the food, he will eat the equivalent of an adult), and he requires a full new wardrobe - no more toddler size clothing...he's a big kid now!