We had Charon's fifth birthday party this last weekend! I can't believe she's already five. It was the first party where we decided to have her invite a few of her friends, and I'm so glad we did. She loved celebrating with kids her age.
I am not terribly good at hosting parties, and being pregnant, I was even more concerned that I wouldn't be able to handle it all. But I have an amazing family that helped out so much. Pete cleaned up the house, his parents brought us lunch on the party day, my aunt gave a puppet show and my parents made Charon a beautiful dragon cake. She loved it! We also had a piņata for the kids to break at the end of the party.
We hadn't planned to have our kids this far apart. Before Charon was born, I would have told you that I thought three years was a perfect span for kids, if only because that's what my parents did with us, and we all got along very well. (I am the oldest of three.) I felt like we were close enough in age to be able to play together and enjoy each other, but far enough apart to have our own lives without interfering in each others'.
But now, I think it really depends on the personality of the kids you have, and the family dynamics you set up. Charon has never asked us for a sibling; in fact, she's told us since she could speak that she was not at all interested in having a baby in our house. "Only me," she'd instruct. She liked being called a baby herself for a long time; it's only been recently that the "Look, you're big enough to do (fill-in-the-blank)!" has been a motivation for her to become more independent.
She's also been a pretty high-needs kid up until now. She takes her own sweet time to grow up, and there's no pushing it (which is fine with me.) She didn't fully wean until age 3 3/4, and that was with some encouragement from me; I was ready to be done. She started sleeping better by about age three, when I night-weaned her. She wasn't completely potty trained until about age 3 1/2.
She has grown up so much these last two years. She is a little person who is not afraid to express her opinions, who greets other children when we are out and about, and loves to make new friends. "Why won't they talk to me?" she asks when a child is being shy, as she used to be. I explain that sometimes it takes a bit before you feel you can trust someone. Trust has always been a big issue to her.
When my sister became pregnant with her little boy, Charon was very curious. She was 3 1/2 when Louis was born, and I began talking to her about having a sibling. She saw that cute little cousin and was a bit more open to the idea. So we started trying to conceive around then. If you've read the other entries of this journal, you know it took us about six months to conceive the second time, and then the pregnancy ended in miscarriage at 13 weeks. We had spent almost a whole year working towards a goal, and had gotten nowhere. I had a small taste of what infertile couples must go through, and it was awful. I read about miscarriage and a bit about infertility, and Pete and I worked up the courage to try again. I was very concerned it wouldn't happen for us, so I had to prepare myself to deal with the loss of our plan for a second child.
But we were so lucky. It happened for us easily this third time, and I still can't believe it. Charon and her sibling with be five years apart (six years in school, because of their summer/fall birthdays), and although I wish they were closer, I don't feel any right or need to complain about it. I think she is ready for this change now, and it will be so fun to see her with a sibling.
