PCK | 6.5 Years

Our sweet Parker Klein turned six-and-a-half this month! This guy is a sports loving, rule following, chess playing, bundle of energy. He's an old soul and a voracious reader, and is missing four front teeth! We celebrated his half birthday by heading out for a donut breakfast before school.

So much has changed in the past half year. Parker kicked off the big six in March with a Harry Potter themed birthday party at a local bowling alley. We had just completed books one through three, and he was Harry Potter obsessed at the time. He requested a homemade Harry Potter chocolate chocolate cake with macarons - and my heavily pregnant self was happy to oblige.

He wrote out an itinerary for his actual birthday (he's so his Mama's child) which included a 7AM donut breakfast in bed, opening presents, playing games, sushi lunch, and fondue dinner. 

Just one month later, we welcomed Finn Edward and Parker became a big brother! Parker is our sensitive soul and was definitely worried about me heading to the hospital to give birth, but all the anxiety melted away when he walked in and met his brother.

Parker wore his "Big Brother" outfit to the hospital and brought both a pink and a blue uniform shirt to wear to school that day. He, of course, changed into the blue when he walked in and saw that baby was a boy! We called in blue cupcakes from our favorite shop for Parker to share at school the next day.

Those newborn weeks are such a blur to me, but so much happened. Parker finished his tee ball season, he performed Give My Regards to Broadway at his piano recital, and he participated in his first chess tournament, beating everyone in his grade level to be the kindergarten champion!

Parker wrapped up his kindergarten year in May, and my mama heart almost couldn't handle the fact that he was growing up so fast! 

Parker's summer included two week-long day camps (Willy Wonka and Harry Potter), and checking items off our summer bucket list (however if you ask him, his favorite days are when we stay in our pajamas and play at the house, haha!).

Last month, this sweet, sensitive guy started first grade (which also happens to be my very favorite grade to teach, ever!).

He's had a busy start to the school year with chess, swim lessons, piano, and soccer. We made our chalkboard wall into a calendar just to keep everything straight! Although these were all activities he chose to participate in, I know he's happy to have some of them ending to get more "free days" back. 

Parker is responsible for setting the dinner table each night, and is working on making his bed each morning.

This past half a year has been a game changer for Parker. His whole world was turned upside down when Finn was born, and while I know Parker loves being a big brother, it was a big adjustment. Everything we had promised him about the new baby ended up being wrong... we said the baby would sleep a lot - wrong! We said its cry would be tiny and quiet at first - wrong! Parker went from being our one and only to having to share our attention, and while this is overall good and healthy, it's definitely been a change. He'll always be our first born, though. And as he likes to remind me, he's the one who made me a mama.

Favorites

Movie: Trolls

T.V. Show: Magic Schoolbus

Food: Ice Cream Sandwich

Book/Series: Nancy Drew

Song: Old Town Road, then Celebration

Restaurant: Little Rosies because of the televisions it's my favorite (We are still a "television-free" house although Parker does get to "earn" screen time and uses it to play games or watch Netflix, and we also do the occasional family movie together).

Color: Red

Sport to watch: Hockey

Sport to play:  Hockey on the ground

Board game: Monopoly of course! (We actually play several versions including Dino-Opoly, Star Wars Monopoly, and - funny enough - Cocktailopoly).

What you want to be: Someone who runs a yogurt shop.

What you do well: I'm great at playing chess; its almost like no one can beat me. (I vouch for this - Parker beats me at least 80% of the time.)

Where you want to go to college: I might go where you went. UC Santa Barbara (Not coached at all, haha, however if Dada was asking the question I'm guessing the answer would be Stanford!)