Dagfari celebrated a birthday this week, the big one-oh. Celebrations were fairly subdued this year, since we're all tired out from a busy few weeks. I took the day off, so that we could stay home and relax. D enjoyed his birthday presents, including many books, an artist's desk (I'm hoping this will keep the art projects in his bedroom, rather than all over the living room floor!) and a tiger puppet who can play Hobbes when he and his partner in crime make Calvin & Hobbes videos.
There was also a birthday cake inpired by Jackson Pollock.
Asked to recount memories of his first decade, here's what D came up with:
- Wailing in the church nursery until the keepers got Mom out of the service
- Playing trains with Dad while Mom was at work and being a train engineer in a cardboard engine for Halloween
- Giving a tour of the house to visiting Grandpa and Grandma Bos, and being told not to linger on the cat beds because of Grandpa's allergies (this was upsetting until Mom distracted him with his Fisher Price kitchen) (Mom does not remember this incident at all)
- Switching interests from trains to dinosaurs after seeing a dinosaur book at Target (this would have been age 3)
- Creating a Walking With Dinosaurs type show for home video and getting frustrated with Mom's amateurish camera work
- End-of-year program at Montessori preschool, during which D refused to go on stage
- 4th birthday party, with plastic dinosaurs on cake
- Starting JrK at Summit School and meeting friends Dylan and Katie
- Transition from dinosaurs to mythical beasts, which made for some confusion among teachers and friends, who couldn't discern between dinosaur and dragon drawings
- Learning lots of fascinating things at school, like life cycle of Monarch butterfly
- Being William Brewster in class reenactment of Pilgrim voyage
- Demanding that Mom read the first Harry Potter book shortly after 5th birthday; then insisting on her reading all 5 existing books over the summer, even though she found them too scary
- Having a crazy teacher in first grade
- Being Thomas Jefferson for Famous Americans Day
- Becoming interested in Shakespeare and getting a Shakespearean costume for Christmas from Grandma Mulder
- Starting second grade and deciding that his main goal for his education was to avoid math as much as possible (poor Mrs. Standerfer had to disabuse him of this notion)
- Beginning social studies class and becoming fascinated with different cultures
- Native American Day, favorite part of which was writing Wise Eagle story
- Helping Mom and Dad with Medieval Camp in the summer
- Starting third grade and learning Stoeri Language
- Being Prince Percy in the third grade play
- Studying vampire bats and writing the Bloody Bat Bulletin
- Deciding to start homeschooling after third grade
- Becoming interested in modern art after taking class at Sawtooth Center
- Visiting New York City and becoming extremely inspired by MOMA and especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Coming home and turning the house into an art museum
- His latest interest: museum design
- 10th birthday: sleeping in... until 6:45 a.m.
Clearly it's been an eventful ten years. Who knows what Dagfari will do in the next decade? Stay tuned...
