Birthday Round-Up

January is a big month in this household as we celebrate two birthdays. Olive was due on April 23, which should have put her in my birthday month, but as it turned out, she instead shares Dain's birthday month. This year was fun because Olive is mostly obsessed with birthdays and all the accompaniments. Singing (or kind of shouting) "Happy Birthday." Birthday cake. Birthday candles. Wrapped presents, the contents and recipient being completely inconsequential. Have a birthday celebration? Need a hype girl? Olive's got you covered.

The best sous chef around. Especially if you're not in a hurry.

First on the docket was Dain's birthday mid-month. The big 3-2. Not exactly ancient, but we're creeping up there. It was on a Wednesday, which we all know is not the best day to have a birthday, but we made do. Birthday morning banana bread baked with love from his two ladies. The green light to treat himself to a nice lunch out. And a dinner out at our local haunt with the aforementioned ladies followed by a homemade carrot cake at home, candles, singing, and a few presents. Can you tell at least two members of this family really like to eat?

Olive is always available to help with birthday candles. 

I'm the first to admit that it's not exactly relaxing to go out to eat with a toddler, especially since she isn't really lured by food like most kids. You better believe we would order her all the chicken fingers or mac n cheese or even corn dogs (~shudder~) if she'd eat them, and we could get in a few minutes of adult conversation. That doesn't happen. It's more like order as fast as we can, pray it comes fast, and shovel in the food while asking for the check before Olive loses interest in the bags of activities and little toys we've lugged along and decides to climb into someone else's booth.  And now that she is potty training, we of course have to visit every single bathroom wherever we go. So that eats up a little bit of time.

As I write this I'm realizing how immersed she is in a culture of food. Olive actually prides herself in ordering pickles at most establishments. And she wants her own drink and her own plate, where we divvy up a small amount of whatever we are eating. She usually tries everything even. Unfortunately that's where it stops at this point. She will take a tiny lick of whatever she is offered, pronounce that it is delicious, and then turn the pieces of food into boats and break into "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." It's frustrating to say the least, but at least she is experiencing food in all sorts of normal environments.

This bowling ball weighs four times more than Olive did on January 30, 2012.

Dain enjoyed his day, and then we moved on to the third birthday blitz. Our first celebration came a few weeks before Olive's actual birthday due to the stars aligning for all four of her cousins being available to celebrate with us while we were visiting Rochester. Enter her first visit to a bowling alley. She loves everything about her cousins, and she was so excited about doing something special with them. It didn't disappoint. She bowled (with some assistance), cheered for her cousins, people watched, visited the bathroom like a big girl, finagled her own bag of cheetos from the vending machine (and Papa) that she proudly carried around, and stared in awe at the arcade games. Then we headed back to Papa and Gigi's for pizza and cake. Of course the birthday girl didn't really eat anything, but we still make her a plate and give her the experience of eating with her cousins. It was a perfect, simple and casual birthday get together.

Team assist from her cousin Tristan. We only got two balls stuck halfway so that's a win.

Next on the birthday agenda was Olive's first trip to the Mall of America the day before her birthday. The MOA is one of those places that I avoid at most costs, but I made an exception for Olive as I knew she would love it. We went with Dain's family, and hit up the aquarium, Nickelodeon Universe, Legoland, and a sit down dinner. It was an action packed Thursday evening, but Olive had a time of it. She especially loved the rides, as she had never really been on any before.

Riding the dragon on the carousel at the Mall of America.

Then on January 30, we celebrated the actual big day. Olive awoke to streamers and balloons in her doorway. She ran out of bed and said "oh dear, what happened here?" We had a pretty chill day at home, with a visit to the store to pick out a few more art books (as Olive is obsessed with the do-a-dot dabbers.) Since we'd already had a big cake at the bowling party, we let Olive pick out a cupcake from the grocery store. She chose a lemon meringue masterpiece because she's fancy like that. After presents and dinner, we sang to her one last time and she tried her best to blow out the candle. Then she proceeded to annihilate her cupcake. Do most three year olds have a smash cake? Nope. Most of them want to eat the cake. Our sweet daughter took a lick of the frosting and said "it kind of tastes like milk from the grocery store." Whatever that means. Then, two years late, she smashed that cupcake into pieces, enjoying every minute of it.

The night ended with a "birthday bath" including dimmed lights and glow sticks in the tub. It was pretty fun. And well worth $2 from Target. She loved it. Pinterest for the win on this one. We then washed all the glow sticks and put them in a cup for a special birthday nightlight and tucked in our three year old. A solid birthday and a solid month of birthday celebrations.

And now our teeny tiny baby is THREE. Birthdays seem to bring about reflection on the past year and the upcoming year, and this year hit me harder than the first two. It's been a long three years. And the night before Olive's birthday, all I could think about was what we were doing three years prior. Sitting in a hospital room. Terrified. Waiting. Everything beyond our control. But I try not to feed my fears, and I talked myself down from that thought train. Inhale the future, exhale the past right? Because the future is bright for this little girl.