August 2020: Gussie's Birthday!

Spoiler Alert: Pandemic status went on long enough that every kid got a "pandemic style" birthday. Those in the summer though, where we could do outside things, were not as noticeable.

For Gussie, we started the day with a birthday brunch at home.

It appears that the coffee cake was still warm and is quickly melting the candles. Oops!

Later we trekked out of the city and out of the county, to The Land of The Free (aka St. Charles) to a large skate park. The kids all brought scooters and bikes, although I think Catherine and Mary played in the outdoor volleyball court more than the skate park, and some friends met us there as well. And we had some birthday cupcakes at the outdoor picnic tables on the sly since their party room was still closed.

This park also has a large pump track, which it turns out is a bike track that, if ridden correctly with appropriately timed pumping of the bike handles, can be traversed without any pedaling at all. I'm not sure any of the kids got to that point but they had fun.

Dema got Gussie a slack line for his birthday which we put up between two big trees. I think Catherine took this video? The slack line gets lots of use.

Later in the evening Agnes ended up falling asleep on Gussie's lap, which is the first time that has happened, so of course I told him that obviously since he is 8 years old now he is an official babysitter. And of course, being 8 years old, he gave me a grand eye roll.

But he was obviously pleased.

At 8 years old, Gussie excels at tree climbing and fort building. He loves swimming at the farm and has started some target shooting with Grandpa. He'll fish for hours and hours and hours, whether he's catching anything or not. He's made great leaps in reading recently and will be unstoppable in that area shortly, and he has a very interesting math brain that approaches every problem from the opposite direction that I would, but it works, and he's great at mental math. He still clocks a lot of hours in Lego Land and enjoys intricate coloring pages. And his freckles, clearly, are as adorable as ever. But don't tell him I said that - I'm strictly forbidden from calling him "adorable."