"Am I a grownup yet?"

It has been a momentous day in the house of ShocKs.  (and no...not just because I'm blogging today).

It started out as any other weekend.  Yesterday Av had school picture day, so I volunteered to go help out with that.  But the morning at school first started out with the two of us baking challah.  A wonderful tradition at his school is that on Friday afternoons, the entire school (K-8) comes together to welcome Shabbat.  They do a abbreviated version of the Friday night service, and at the end they say the traditional Shabbat blessings over the candles, wine (or in this case grape juice) and challah.  But the challah doesn't come from the local bakery, it comes from the Kindergarten.  Each Friday morning, one Kindergartener and their parent make the dough that will become the challah for the whole school.  So there we were scooping and measuring, cracking eggs (shells go in the compost bucket don't forget!).  The fun part of course was teaching Av how to knead the dough ("I'm making burritos!").  Then we let the dough rise while taking school pictures.  One of the teachers then braids and bakes two challahs - one for the school, and the other for us to take home.  I was excited, because now that he helped make it, maybe he would actually eat plain challah.  But alas, that was not to be...

Now while the kids were getting their picture taken, you could also sign them up for an identification program.  They would get weighed, measured how tall, fingerprinted, and photographed for an ID card in case of emergency.  This was good to be on the safe side, but it also allowed me to see how big Av has really gotten!  You see, earlier this week was the first time we had to break out the puffy winter jacket, which is just not that compatable with Av's car seat.  Yes, he's still sitting in a five point harness, but it's awesome, and designed to support a child up to 65lbs.  Av's at 60.  So with all of this put together, Shiny and I decided it was finally time to say goodbye to our beloved snow leopard print Britax Marathon and get the kid a booster seat.

To say that Av was excited was a bit of an understatement.  I took him to the Babies R Us near our house and we found the exact model we decided on after much reading and research yesterday.  He thought it was so cool to try it out on the van bench seat they have at the store (complete with Latch and shoulder belts!)  He was proud to carry the box all the way up to the register all by himself.  And there you go.  We also went to Toys R Us to check out what they had, and although it was only a few dollars less, Av insisted on the ones from Babies, because they were brown and comfy.  Ok.  At least it didn't have a branded character on it...

We got home around 2, and he couldn't wait to open the box and put it together.  A few minutes later, I uninstall the Britax, plop the booster on the seat, and in he climbs.  It's lower than the carseat, and he's all excited that now if he drops a toy on the seat, he'll be able to reach it all by himself.  And it has cup holders!  He still needs a little help with the buckling part, but we figured there would be a learning curve with that.

So there was my big boy - all excited in his new booster seat.  "Mommy?  Am I a grown up now?"  Not quite yet.  And then he asked - "Can we go out to get you lunch?  Let's go to Subway!"  So back in the car I got for that five minute drive around the corner so that he could test drive the new seat.  Shiny arrived back home the same time we did, and Av excitedly showed him how to put the seat together, and then climbed in to test it out in Shiny's car.

Tonight to celebrate, we made homemade french toast (for the first time) using the challah that we made at school.  For a kid that refuses to eat bread, I was impressed that he still ate the toast after helping me make it and seeing that it really does start out as bread.  But toast all around - with chocolate milk!  An awesome way to celebrate this milestone.