A Memorable Birthday

Yesterday was Liam's fifth birthday.  For the past two years we have gone to the zoo on his birthday and ridden the train around the African exhibit (for an extra fee.)  This year he wanted to do the same thing, but he wanted Devin and Mommy to come too.  If Devin had been born on his due date there would have been no way I could have made it for a trip to the zoo.  As it was, I figured I could just manage it if we kept the trip short.  The trick was managing expectations.  I figured we were doing pretty well with this until the day before his birthday when Liam announced that he wanted to "invite people" to his birthday celebration.  I told him I'd already invited one friend who couldn't come, but otherwise it was too late because people need to plan ahead.  And anyway, who would we ask?  He didn't know and was then upset because it was too late to think of who to ask.

On the actual day of his birthday, though, he was prepared to enjoy the special day and did not focus on how it might have fallen short of baby-brother-free birthdays.  The day started for him with an hour or more of video watching while Allen and I slept in.  Sleeping until ten in the morning is tricky with a one month old and may not actually be advisable when breast feeding, but I was tired and it was going to be a long day and I managed it.  Then the usual rounds of trying to time getting my breakfast and dressing done around the baby's need for milk, a clean diaper and navigating through morning wakefulness into morning napping.  This can be enough to leave me ready for a nap on a regular morning, but yesterday I also managed (with help from Allen) to wrap Liam's presents and help him get dressed and make his lunch before desperately popping a fussy Devin into his sling and getting Mom and Dad on Skype to sing Happy Birthday and watch the present opening.

Missed the flash on this one, but it still captures the excitement of the moment.  Also, it catches one of the big ironies of the day, which was that while I was focusing on little things like trying to find clothes for Liam that weren't stained up and actually fit him I hardly thought about the detail of the store-bought birthday cake, which was a highlight of the day for him.

He was pretty happy about it, but who wants to wait around to actually eat it (especially right after lunch) when there are presents to be opened?

This present from Grandma and Grandad arrived in the mail a few days before his birthday and we convinced him to wait until the actual day to open it.
 

I had gotten him a cool K'nex helicopter set, but then he announced that he wanted Lincoln Logs instead.  Thank goodness for returns.  Turns out this set has a huge number of the really short logs and not so many of the longer ones.  A detail we would have had to have been more observant in our examination of the picture on the box to figure out since the type of pieces is not spelled out.

We couldn't decide if we should get him a bike (what kind?) or a scooter so we copped out and just got the helmet.  It's mostly that I feel he should have something like this and he has finally started to express interest and to ride the ones they had at his preschool.  This helmet did spark his imagination, but using it for riding provoked very little interest.

This is for when he gets a "big kid bed."

Devin was in the middle of the action - fast asleep.  As you can see from other pictures he slept for most of the rest of the day - other than a brief period after we put him in the van when he screamed.

Allen and Liam did finally get around to eating the cake which was extremely satisfying to Liam because of the large amount of icing that did actually turn his mouth blue.

And something else that Mommy was too frazzled to think about but Daddy filled in the blanks on - hugs and snuggles.

Throwing coins in the fountain was one of the attractions that we had agreed to include in this zoo trip.  Liam actually made a wish for each coin he threw including wishing for his own zoo, lots of presents, another baby brother, a spiffy haircut and his own fountain.

Then we were on to the arctic exhibit.  The water in the seal tank was not only that scary shade of chlorine blue, but also had tons of bubbles and little bits floating in it.  The seals are still amazing.

Liam loved to find photo-ops.  This one felt pretty random to me.

We have taken pictures with this stuffed polar bear other years.  This year Liam hit his head on the bear but still smiled bravely for the picture.

The polar bear exhibit was actually crammed because they have two baby bears.  It was hard to get a good spot to see and hard to get good pictures.

Outside they have a series of stations about surviving in the arctic.  Liam thought this one made another great photo-op.

Usually just one parent has gone on the train with Liam but since he wanted Devin to come too we all went, so Allen took pictures while I nursed the baby.

We didn't have to wait long for the train, thankfully.

Devin wasn't really into the zoo.  Being outside is still pretty over-stimulating for him.  He had that very determined "don't bother me I'm doing some serious sleeping" expression most of the day.

We grabbed the nearest passer-by to take a family shot.  It wasn't that bright, but I realized when I got to see the pictures that we were all squinting pretty badly.  Except Devin who was still asleep.

One last penny - with an actual airborne penny in the shot.

And one last photo-op.

And then we headed to a restaurant that has a build-your-own sundae option.  We hadn't been there before and it worked out pretty well.  Although the ice cream was extremely soft and turned into mush when Liam tried to stir in the hot fudge.

He needed a little help to polish it off.

A couple of kinds of help actually.

We had one more present which we'd saved to help bribe Liam into leaving the zoo.

It seems we picked the right present to round out the day on a fun note.

When we got home I started to upload the pictures right away.  It took three tries to get them up on Facebook and I realized, as the "likes" started to pour in, that documenting the day had been a huge focus for me - and for Liam.  I hope he remembers more about the day than our attempt to remember the day!  Anyways, taking pictures seems, at this point, to be a fun activity in itself for him.