Birthday Season 2017: James is 5!

Realizing there was juuuuuuust enough time to sneak one more birthday into May, James turned the big 0-5 on the 31st!

But don't worry. He remains the shy, shrinking violet you remember.

His birthday dinner wish was to make pizza. (Bless you for easy pizza-kit wishes!)

Know what else? I bought some store-made ice cream muffins, and he thought he'd gone to birthday heaven! (P.S. I hope he never outgrows that uncertainty where he can't tell if he's supposed to sing to himself.)

A Spiderman ball (that sprung a leak and required dozens of air pumps before I hid it in the trash) was a big hit. In the hazy, just-had-my-73rd-baby days and weeks that followed, kindly people would ask James what he got for his birthday. He'd answer, "a ball." Kindly people would then glance at me with that awkward eyebrow-life and shoulder-shrug, like, "Way to go, Mom."

But there was other stuff, too!

Probably my favorite tradition is reminding the boys to make cards for each other. Just LOOK at the pride in Patrick's face and also in James' puffed-out tummy!

My second favorite thing is watching big boys get excited for little boy toys. Ya know. For James. They're not interested. They're just, ya know, being polite.

(Related: James' birthday trip to Toys R' Us)

Anyway, who am I kidding? The hit of the whole birthday was the Hot Wheels Ultimate Parking Garage from Grammy! It required two adults for assembly and an entire room for its residence.

That Saturday, we threw together a backyard party. I cared about one thing: the Krabby Patty dessert James found in a SpongeBob cookbook months ago and hadn't stopped requesting.

I mean, I can drop a whole lotta balls from here on out because even Eugene Krabs was jazzed about how these suckers turned out!

It was 1,000 degrees in the backyard, but with his best buds and an assortment of neighborhood kids who had swim trunks, we got this level of happiness out of the big guy.

Inflatable pool and water guns! The theme was, "Wet," and it was super-Pinteresty.

His bestest filled a pencil box of exploring items and adventures they can go on together, and it was about the damned cutest thing since the movie, "Up."

But here's the money shot. Aside from Elliott, who is entirely too old and mature to even be included, the fun on these faces tells me they'll remember, not that Mom was a zombie in 2017, but that awesome backyard party. Win!