Caedmon's Trash Bash (aka Ugly is Good!)

Caedmon turned four in April, so pick and choose your favorite cliché, because they are all true, and I feel them all: I can't believe my baby is already four! Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday he was in diapers (okay, that one is almost true). They really do grow up too fast! I love him to the moon and back!

I hadn't done much for his previous birthdays, save the small bread party I threw when he turned a year, hoping to postpone the hoopla for as long as possible. At ONE, he was exceedingly anxious and shy, so a small gathering of mostly family was the only way to go. TWO was a pre-existing dinner with friends, a small smash cake tacked on at the end of the evening and a digger from his toy pile thrown on top as an afterthought. THREE was a simple play date with lunch, no presents (although I couldn't help but include decorate-your-own train muffins that I later realized were way over the heads of my little guests).

But FOUR. Four is different. At four, he has attended enough birthday parties now to be absolutely cognizant and altogether aware of what a birthday is and what a birthday often entails, and so, late one night, as the mounting pressure and looming arrival of his birthday felt especially acute, I begrudgingly opened my laptop and hunkered down for some initial brainstorming and ideas-gathering. Dump trucks and other construction vehicles populated my Pinterest page until it suddenly came to me that there could be no better way to celebrate Caedmon than with his favorite obsession: trash! (In fact, I often overhear him singing to himself as he's playing, "I love trash, trash. I love trash." Just a little ditty he made up.)

And so, knowing how much Caedmon would enjoy his Trash Bash, I planned this party with a new enthusiasm, because that's what truly motivates and inspires us as moms when we plan anything for our children, right? Whether we ambitiously (and sometimes unwittingly) decide to tackle some Pinterest project that we don't really have the bandwidth for, or simply have the thought and foresight to invite a few good friends over for cake, it's that wide-eyed and awe-struck "wow!!!... cool!!" (or maybe a big appreciative smile from those thoughtful types) that makes any trouble worth it. I'm still all about keeping things simple (I tried keeping this party as simple as possible, but if we're really talking simple, Wayne never even had a birthday party growing up, and he's fine), but sometimes, just a little bit of un-simple goes a long way and, only because I like this kind of thing in the first place, is completely worth it!

So one party down... how many more to go? ... Let the hoopla begin!

These invitations were printed at home and coffee-stained individually. No two are alike... artisanal invitations, if you will. And it's a good thing they were SUPPOSED to look like garbage, because they turned out too large for the envelopes, but no problem! Scrunch it all up! Ugly is good! Everything fits, plus room for more trash!

My family knows that I readily accept and am so thankful for all offers of help, especially since I had been battling the tail end of a cold the days before the party, when occasion forced me to stave off rest until after the event. Here are Auntie Emily and Uncle Chuck constructing placards for the food. Leave it to artsy Auntie Emily, of course, to take a simple directive ("Just glue these printed pieces of paper onto some cardboard.") and turn it into something creative (yet still grungy enough to be deemed trash) by cutting up a cereal box to outline the placards.

Work gets done, even with a monkey on Uncle Ed's back...

Caedmon is helping with the Rice Krispy treats, and by helping, I mean that he is exercising all his self-control not to touch every single piece in front of him.

Our house The To Landfill

I had wanted to scatter trash all over our porch and front yard, but somehow, I didn't think our HOA would have been down with that.

My trash wreath. I was inspired by this wreath, but given the time crunch, I created this much simpler "design" and pinned all the pieces on instead of gluing, so that I could reuse the wreath later on.

I absolutely love the garbage truck shirt I found for Caedmon made by Anthony of HopperShop on Etsy. The graphic is definitely more cool than cutesy, exactly what I was looking for for my big boy. Check out the shop's designs; he has other trucks, and you can customize the color shirt and logo. (Anthony was also really great in expediting my order. I didn't come across this shirt until the Monday before the party, but I made a Hail Mary order and included a message explaining my situation, and Anthony made sure we received the shirt Friday evening, at his expense! That's customer service that rivals Nordstrom!)

We're still in the process of putting our house together after moving (relatively) recently. I had these empty frames lying around, so we decided to display some grocery ads to add to our "grungy chic" décor.

Our snacks for the day included: trashy (Rice Krispy) treats, smelly (Gold)fish, junkyard dogs (pigs in a blanket), flat tires (Bagel Bites), fruit compost, PU punch, and waste water, all set against a wall of streamers made of trash bags and newspapers. The streamers didn't turn out exactly as I had envisioned (maybe it needs more newspaper strips to fluff it up), but it's okay... again, ugly is good. (This became my calming mantra.)

Did you know that PU (or pee-yew) is actually spelled "piu" and has its root in the Indo-European word "pu" and means to rot or decay? I learned this while looking up the spelling for "piu", although I still went with the shorter, more familiar (though technically incorrect) "PU". 

My favorite cake is Ina Garten's chocolate cake. It has such an intense, chocolate-y flavor and a rich, moist crumb. The only problem is that I suck at cake-frosting, so the crumbs were getting everywhere... but again, no problem! Ugly is good! (I can't tell you how much I love this garbage theme!) I left the cake partially deconstructed and imperfect (not that I really had any control over that) and topped the cake with one of Caedmon's garbage trucks. 

When you're four (or five or 60), it's always time for an impromptu dance party, especially when an awesome trash mix comes on! I spent HOURS scouring the internet and YouTube for songs about garbage, my query made more challenging as I sorted past all songs by the band Garbage for the true gems about refuse and waste. If you are throwing a garbage-themed party (or perhaps simply for your listening pleasure), here you go. You're welcome.

I think the highlight of the day was story time with Uncle Ed. All the kids (and adults) were enraptured by his vivid voice inflections and animated onomatopoeia; if his current career aspirations don't pan out, there's always the children's birthday party industry!

While we had been busy getting everything ready inside before the party, Wayne was in charge of the outside. I handed Wayne several bags of trash that I had collected over the last few weeks (clean stuff, like egg cartons and cereal boxes) with the instructions to scatter it all over our backyard, because (say it together now)—ugly is good! You can imagine his bewildered horror. "Am I going to have to clean all this up later, too?" is what I'm sure he was thinking, but no! I would have my waste management crew for that!

Our one game for the afternoon was the trash pick-up that Wayne had, in such good faith, set up in our backyard despite his reservations. Armed with a trash bag each, the "workers" cleaned the yard in minutes and then presented their filled bags in exchange for their day's wages—two chocolate gold coins.

I almost bought these robot claws for the kids, thinking it would make picking up trash that much more fun, but when I tested it on Caedmon, his little hands weren't able to work the mechanism, so back on the shelf they went at the store. As it turns out, picking up trash is GREAT fun, and the kids all filled their bags with ready alacrity. (Why isn't it like this when it's clean-up time at home?)

Might I add how budget-friendly this party was; I mean, there's nothing more cost-effective than garbage!

Waste Management Crew at the To Landfill. Check out our little friend in the yellow in the back. She's got this trash-picking-up pose down...

... even well after everyone else had dispersed. :)

And then it was time for cake and ice cream and presents!

Make a wish, my sweet boy.

Caedmon: "COOL!!! LOTS OF TRACKS!"

Mom: "Cool........ lots... of tracks.................."

And as guests left, they were instructed to clean up after themselves.

Trash Can Favors: I cut up a trash bag and filled each square with "trash" gummies (Swedish fish, Coke bottles, fruit-shaped gummies, and gummy carrots I found that were leftovers from Easter) before tying up and tossing into silver plastic cups. 

Cheers to turning 4, Caedmon! We hope you had a trashy birthday, in the best possible way! 

(Although next year, what am I going to do when ugly is NOT good???)

Photo Credits: mostly Uncle Chuck and Uncle Ed, with a spattering by Mom and Dad.

"Mommy, go."

It finally happened last night.

I was putting Caedmon to bed, which, though I’m exhausted and am looking forward to my imminent freedom, is one of my favorite moments of our daily routine. We talk about his day, we sing “Wheels on the Bus” and “Happy Birthday” to all his friends, we take turns blowing raspberries on each other’s tummies. It is our special time, just him and me.

I prolonged my goodbye, as I often do. I snuggled in for an extra kiss, an extra tickle, an extra whiff of Johnson & Johnson plus little boy. And I don’t know if he was just tired, or if he was simply holding me to the “goodnight” that I kept saying, but he looked at me, and with no ill-contempt, said, “Mommy, go. Can you go?”

My heart just about stopped.

Mommy, can you go? When has my boy ever wanted me to go? I mean, yes, there was a period when he needed his privacy as he did his business in his diaper, or when he would tell me to go, because he didn’t want to stop whatever he was doing for me to change him. And then, sometimes he will urge me to leave when he is playing heartily with his Uncle Ed (his favorite person in the world besides Thomas the Tank Engine) when he senses an impending termination of his fun by my looming presence. ("Caedmon, it's time for lunch/go inside/go to bed."... Moms can be no fun sometimes.) So okay, fine, Caedmon has asked me to go many times, but never like this! Never with such cool insistence and an actual desire to be apart from me simply because he was tired of my presence. And never has it been during our goodnight time! At that moment, my memories flipped like a speed rolodex to all the instances I couldn’t pry him away, when he cried because I had left the room, when he would reach his arms out through the crib slats as I said “goodnight”… But yesterday, it was “Mommy, go.” And so it has begun.

I played it cool, as I didn’t want to make it a big deal, but once downstairs, I had a good cry on Wayne’s shoulder. “I miss him,” I sniffled. “I really, really miss him.”

The truth is, I’ve noticed a marked difference in my boy over these last few months; he seems infinitely older and profoundly altered from Toddler Caedmon. For the most part, it’s been fun, though bittersweet, to watch this development. He helps me with simple chores, like feeding Lucy, and actually manages to keep most of the food in the bowl. He has a real sense of humor and tells “jokes” (his favorite: “Ding-dong!” “Sam-sui!”—his version of a knock-knock joke… though don’t ask me what that means). And when Maroon 5’s “Sugar” comes on the radio, he exclaims, “I wuf that song!” and proceeds to bop his head to the beat. Sometimes, though, he’s an outright menace—eating toilet paper or stepping on my gift wrap like they’re a pair of skis—and he’s taken to saying “hah?!” incessantly so that he sounds like a crotchety old lady. The worst is when he sticks his finger in his ear to fish out a juicy gob of earwax and then waves it in my face, and as I bat his gunky finger away, I warily acknowledge that I am, indeed, raising a boy. And that’s the thing; these antics are not of a baby, but of a boy. It seems as though Toddler Caedmon has turned into a kid right before my eyes.

Maybe it’s his sudden and swift acquiring of language or his recent promotion to Big Brother. Maybe it’s because we said “goodbye” to diapers this summer and that he started preschool for the first time earlier this fall, or perhaps he’s just developmentally on cue for three-and-a-half… It is probably all of the above, but that did nothing to assuage this mama’s bleeding heart, and I went to bed with a sigh and a sentimentality for what I can’t believe is already the past.

This morning, though, was a new day, and all was well again, especially because it was garbage day! At the first distant rumblings of the trucks, Caedmon still stretches out his arms in an excited panic, and though he weighs a fair amount more than a year ago, I heave him onto my hip, and we still rush out to catch the show each week. This morning, after a mad dash across the house, hurdling toys and moving boxes, we made it in the nick of time. And as we basked in the glory of these majestic giants, he was my little boy again, with his arms wrapped around my neck and a gleam in his eye only a three-year-old could have as he followed the blinking lights of the garbage truck disappearing around the corner.

And as I stood barefoot on the cool sidewalk, our hearts still thumping in our chests, I held him to me just a little bit tighter. Who knows how much longer we’ll rush to meet the garbage truck or that he’ll let me carry him at all. Until then, I will certainly savor the vestiges of his babyhood and do my best to nurture and foster my growing boy (all the while so thankful I get to do all this over again with my baby girl). Because more than ever, I feel just how fleeting and few these little years are. 

Caedmon recently found his old hat and stretched it over his head. See the difference between 8 months and 3-1/2!

I love this mixture of baby and boy: still donning his bib and drinking from his sippy cup but sitting at the table like a big boy and "reading" his construction "magazine" (a mailer updating the community on the local EchoWater project).

Our Family of 3.5

Back in early February, my dear friend Calvina took some photos of our little family of 3.5. At the time of the shoot, I was just starting my second trimester of pregnancy, so in other words, I was in that dreaded in-between stage in which I looked less pregnant and more like I had simply let myself go. But no matter; there is much a loose top will hide, I have since learned after giving birth to Caedmon, and so my vanity appeased, we set about a usual day while Calvina snapped away and so beautifully and artfully captured those moments that make these usual days so special.

Now, in this last week before my due date, there is definitely no hiding this burgeoning mass that is my abdomen. And with Baby's imminent arrival, I find myself frantically hoarding my time and energy in order to finish projects, read books, spend time with Wayne and Caedmon, see friends, cook and freeze meals, wash and organize Baby's things... I am a whirling dervish of productivity, because we all know that life is over when a newborn arrives! (At least for a period of time.) But tonight, I'm taking a (small) breather as I peruse and enjoy these photos of our family of three-not-quite-four... because it really has been a special and significant time. (And because our worlds are about to be rocked, never to be the same, whether we're ready or not!)

See our full gallery here.