March 7th was Jack's 3rd birthday, but we waited until last night to have his party. We decided to keep it mellow and just invite Grandma and Grandpa, Tristan, Conrad and Damien. I am now a firm believer that it is just crazy to invite young children to a young child's birthday party; Jack was so wound up that I cannot imagine the chaos had other kids been here. I think he's too easily stimulated to have birthday sugar, presents AND other kids all at once. Divide and conquer...
Jack experienced great difficulty trying to eat his cake. He was too impatient to use his fork, so this happened a lot.
I asked Jack what kind of cake he wanted Mama to make him for his birthday. He said "a round circle with chocolate and panilla(vanilla) ice cream and a cherry on top." I think I delivered pretty well. He did not specify that he wanted chocolate ganache on top, but I figured it was implied.
I've wanted to get a little stove for Jack for a while. His cousin Charlotte has a really beautiful wooden one that was pretty pricey, so we'd been checking craigslist and trying to find something reasonably priced that wasn't pink and purple plastic. I was pretty thrilled when my sister Moira called and said she'd seen a little wooden stove in the donation pile of her thrift store, and that she'd make an offer on it for me if I wanted. Here's the beauty of sisters: there are very few people I'd feel comfortable sending off to buy me something sight unseen for an unspecified price, but Moira has lovely taste and a killer's instinct when it comes to bargaining. We agreed that she'd try to get the stove for under $15, and she called me later to tell me she'd gotten it for $4. It was in really nice condition but very plain, so I painted all the handles silver and added the back-splash. I also added a little row of hooks on the other side that I painted to match, and found the accessories at Target. At which point I also found a really cute kitchen made of wood and painted blue and red complete with an oven and a fridge, but it was $100. Which is a lot more than $4, and it was not made with as much love as this one.
The look of surprise on his face is totally fake. We bought this back in December during after-Christmas sales after reading dozens of rave reviews on Amazon. We meant to save it for his birthday and "hid" it in the garage, but one day while play outside Jack came marching up the driveway announcing happily, "Look Mom, I found my Noah's Ark!" He was devastated when we told him he'd have to wait. It's a really great little Ark, the animals are really cute and incredibly sturdy. Which is good for them, because I have a feeling they're going to take some abuse.
This was perhaps the best moment of the whole evening, which we sadly did not capture on video. Jack's favorite movie is "Cars," and for Christmas Aaron and Conrad both got him several of the cars from the movie. He did not get Sheriff or Luigi for Christmas, so Conrad very thoughtfully got them for his birthday. I've never seen Jack tremble like that before. He opened the bag, removed the tissue paper and shreiked "It's Sherf and Uigi!!!" with a quiver in his voice. He was positively vibrating, and couldn't even speak properly.
Before all the presents and cake mayhem, we made sure to feed Jack a good dinner. We let him pick the menu, and he asked for steak. We also had Caesar salad which Jack informed me "I'm not really groovin' on, Mom." He did however, majorly groove on his steak, cucumbers and celery. I'm very proud of the fact that my son loves vegetables, and will actually have to be encouraged to eat the other things on his plate if he's given anything green and crunchy. He even loves broccoli. But he ain't no sissy vegetarian either; while he's eating broccoli he is a brontosaurus eating trees, but when it's steak time he becomes a T-Rex, efficiently devouring pieces of other, less-fierce dinosaurs. I have no tips or secret recipes for how to get your kids to eat vegetables, Jack just likes them. I'm sure it helps that Aaron and I eat a lot of vegetables and encourage Jack to try new things, but you just can't force a kid to love asparagus and green beans, you can only embrace it when they do.
We started the morning off with some special Birthday Dutch Babies. I asked Jack what he wanted for breakfast and he said "Baby stuff; you know, the yellow kind." I was a little puzzled for a while but figured it out after he clarified: "Duck babies, Mom!" All in all, it was a great birthday.
March 7th was Jack's 3rd birthday, but we waited until last night to have his party. We decided to keep it mellow and just invite Grandma and Grandpa, Tristan, Conrad and Damien. I am now a firm believer that it is just crazy to invite young children to a young child's birthday party; Jack was so wound up that I cannot imagine the chaos had other kids been here. I think he's too easily stimulated to have birthday sugar, presents AND other kids all at once. Divide and conquer...
Jack experienced great difficulty trying to eat his cake. He was too impatient to use his fork, so this happened a lot.
I asked Jack what kind of cake he wanted Mama to make him for his birthday. He said "a round circle with chocolate and panilla(vanilla) ice cream and a cherry on top." I think I delivered pretty well. He did not specify that he wanted chocolate ganache on top, but I figured it was implied.
I've wanted to get a little stove for Jack for a while. His cousin Charlotte has a really beautiful wooden one that was pretty pricey, so we'd been checking craigslist and trying to find something reasonably priced that wasn't pink and purple plastic. I was pretty thrilled when my sister Moira called and said she'd seen a little wooden stove in the donation pile of her thrift store, and that she'd make an offer on it for me if I wanted. Here's the beauty of sisters: there are very few people I'd feel comfortable sending off to buy me something sight unseen for an unspecified price, but Moira has lovely taste and a killer's instinct when it comes to bargaining. We agreed that she'd try to get the stove for under $15, and she called me later to tell me she'd gotten it for $4. It was in really nice condition but very plain, so I painted all the handles silver and added the back-splash. I also added a little row of hooks on the other side that I painted to match, and found the accessories at Target. At which point I also found a really cute kitchen made of wood and painted blue and red complete with an oven and a fridge, but it was $100. Which is a lot more than $4, and it was not made with as much love as this one.
The look of surprise on his face is totally fake. We bought this back in December during after-Christmas sales after reading dozens of rave reviews on Amazon. We meant to save it for his birthday and "hid" it in the garage, but one day while play outside Jack came marching up the driveway announcing happily, "Look Mom, I found my Noah's Ark!" He was devastated when we told him he'd have to wait. It's a really great little Ark, the animals are really cute and incredibly sturdy. Which is good for them, because I have a feeling they're going to take some abuse.
This was perhaps the best moment of the whole evening, which we sadly did not capture on video. Jack's favorite movie is "Cars," and for Christmas Aaron and Conrad both got him several of the cars from the movie. He did not get Sheriff or Luigi for Christmas, so Conrad very thoughtfully got them for his birthday. I've never seen Jack tremble like that before. He opened the bag, removed the tissue paper and shreiked "It's Sherf and Uigi!!!" with a quiver in his voice. He was positively vibrating, and couldn't even speak properly.
Before all the presents and cake mayhem, we made sure to feed Jack a good dinner. We let him pick the menu, and he asked for steak. We also had Caesar salad which Jack informed me "I'm not really groovin' on, Mom." He did however, majorly groove on his steak, cucumbers and celery. I'm very proud of the fact that my son loves vegetables, and will actually have to be encouraged to eat the other things on his plate if he's given anything green and crunchy. He even loves broccoli. But he ain't no sissy vegetarian either; while he's eating broccoli he is a brontosaurus eating trees, but when it's steak time he becomes a T-Rex, efficiently devouring pieces of other, less-fierce dinosaurs. I have no tips or secret recipes for how to get your kids to eat vegetables, Jack just likes them. I'm sure it helps that Aaron and I eat a lot of vegetables and encourage Jack to try new things, but you just can't force a kid to love asparagus and green beans, you can only embrace it when they do.
We started the morning off with some special Birthday Dutch Babies. I asked Jack what he wanted for breakfast and he said "Baby stuff; you know, the yellow kind." I was a little puzzled for a while but figured it out after he clarified: "Duck babies, Mom!" All in all, it was a great birthday.
1 comment:
Kateri took one look at the cake and asked in a paranoid voice,
"But is it all gone?"
Then she asked when we can go there.
Cute job on the stove.
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