Patrick Turns Three!

We can hardly believe it, but we celebrated Patrick's 3rd (and Donald's 36th) birthday this weekend. Patrick had been looking forward to it for weeks, and had been relishing the power of bestowing pieces of cake on some of his favorite people (both Donald and Mariel rated "big pieces"). On Saturday we were blessed with good weather, a football (and soccer ball) cake, and the ever-dependable Gran T and Aunt Whitney to help us pull off a very fun pool party with the playgroup and Patrick's Abra classmates.

We loved having Cousin Colton for a visit, and Patrick was thrilled to discover that a love of balls runs in the family (Colton's first word when he walked into the house: 'ball!'). Patrick received so many wonderful gifts, but he was really charged up by his new Nike "sports" outfits from Gran T. He insisted on trying on each outfit, and informed us "I'm a baseball player; I'm a basketball player" as he put on each athletic short/t-shirt combo.

My favorite part of the whole weekend was putting Patrick to bed on Saturday night, hours past his bedtime. He was clutching his new football and his eyes were shining. "Tell me a story about a bear named...me, and he had a birthday party at the pool with all of his friends," he asked. I happily obliged. We've been going over the party every night since then too, and Patrick is vaguely aware that it was a special day for his dad too. He's been telling us "Daddy was born on my birthday!"

My second favorite part of the weekend was watching Patrick and Cousin Sophie eat leftover pizza and watch Finding Nemo on Sunday. They are really becoming little people. Wonderful, hilarious, exhausting, amazing little people.

Creeping, Crawling, Standing, Falling...

In the last few weeks we've watched our girl go from creeping, rolling, and sliding backward under furniture to legitimate crawling—especially when she wants to get a special toy or get to her mommy or daddy. And she loves standing up and holding on to the lego/train table, where she can survey her brother's antics and get her hands on all of those wonderful toys. She still has the occasional spill, but she's getting very steady. Yesterday I watched in amazement as Madeline pulled herself up from sitting to standing--all by herself! I turned to Donald, expecting to share a poignant parenting moment. He was completely unfazed. "She was doing that all weekend. You didn't see it?" he asked nonchalantly. Our poor second child. It was still amazing, even if by now it's an old trick.

The Glorious Fourth

We spent a lovely 4th of July weekend at Grammy and Grandaddy's watching the sun sparkle on the water, chasing seagulls, building sand castles, and tooling around town in the new bicycle trailer. Patrick and Cousin Sophie played with the old Barbie dreamhouse, tasted their first lobster, and pushed a very compliant Madeline up and down the driveway in her stroller. On Saturday we celebrated Grammy, Patrick, and Donald's birthday with a delicious lobster dinner, sparklers, and visits from Aunt Melissa, Uncle Greg, Aunt Lissy, and Uncle Tommy.

We took a different route home Monday to avoid traffic, and after a nap Patrick kept a constant commentary going, frequently peppering his thoughts about the scenery with the inevitable "Are we there?" When Donald told him the sad truth somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, Patrick told us, "I don't like far away." He entertained himself with putting stacking cups on his head and mimicking the storybook Caps for Sale, arguing with me that S'mores were dinner, not treat, and looking for meatballs under bushes, as per one of his favorite songs, On Top of Spaghetti.