The birthdays

Nicholas just turned 14 and Catherine just turned 10. Their birthdays were a little different this year. They were at first disappointed that they couldn’t have their friends over, but they got over it quickly. We had low key and low stress celebrations which was nice for a change.

Nicholas’ birthday was towards the end of Term 1 and early in the lockdown. We had planned the month before for a party but that was cancelled. Instead, we organised a Zoom Happy Birthday sing-along with friends and family. It was a good turnout of about 20 people and special to have everyone virtually in our living room to celebrate Nicholas’ day.

We had waffles for breakfast after Nicholas opened his gifts. His online classes for the day were Japanese, Photography and P.E. We had decorated his classroom (living room) with streamers, balloons and a birthday sign. It was a rainy day, so we didn’t go outside at all except for courtyard scooters. Nicholas received various birthday messages throughout the day.

For his birthday dinner, Nicholas chose breakfast: tinned spaghetti, hash browns, bacon, egg and English muffin. His birthday cake of choice was Black Forest cake which we had every day for the rest of the week.

Catherine’s birthday was shortly after she had just returned to school. Although some restrictions had eased, we decided that we would celebrate her birthday with just the four of us. We organised another Zoom birthday sing-along for after dinner and again decorated the living room with streamers, balloons and a sign.

For breakfast, Catherine requested pikelets. She had 2 visitors (friends from school) stop by to give her gifts and our neighbor across the street wrote her a birthday message in chalk on their driveway. Dinner was Phil’s chili con carne and I baked a pistachio cake with chocolate ganache icing. I think because without the stress of organising a party this year, both birthday cakes turned out much better than expected. After the birthday song, Catherine had fun playing charades and Pictionary with her friends on Zoom.

Nicholas is very close to reaching my height. He is now 153.5 cm|5ft tall. I don’t think it will be much longer until we’re at eye level. His current likes are playing Terraria and watching movie/tv series such as Harry Potter, Marvel, Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender. He has also been into the related Avatar comic books. He also likes to play Roblox and Minecraft with Catherine every so often. He enjoyed his photography class at school and has continued to take photos whenever we’re out with nature.

Catherine is not far behind and is now 142cm|4ft 7in tall. She is also very much into gaming, especially Roblox. For a while she was into watching the Japanese Ghibli movies on Netflix. She’s been getting a bit more into social media with Messenger Kids and Tiktok. It’s amazing and scary to see how savvy she is with all these apps. She was into hip-hop dance at the beginning of the year and it was fun watching her do her routines. She loves to draw random things and sing along to songs in the car.

They are not so little anymore and they both are looking more mature than a year ago. They still have a close and lovely relationship with each other. They are both caring and funny human beings in their own ways and are growing up so fast.