One King Day

Our Captain gets the perpetual bummer of having a birthday right as the post-holiday burn-out settles in.    I'm hoping that I can minimize the bummerliness as he gets older and more aware of being short-changed.  But so far this time around, I am not quite prepared to give myself a gold star.

But, there WERE balloons, so the most important base is covered.



I selfishly decided that having a yummy cake was going to trump having an exciting cake, so I had the Captain help me make a marbled chiffon cake.  It probably would have turned out a little better if he hadn't helped me, but I'm still calling it a success.  I drizzled chocolate ganache over the top and called it good.  Then Sir O put the idea into his head to want a "Lightning McQueen Cake".  Drat that.  So this was my compromise.  Not exactly what they had in mind, but still a very yummy cake.





Despite lots and lots of hinting from me that we ought to look for alternatives, we found ourselves at the Mouse House last night.  At the very least, my worst concerns were never realized and there were no meltdowns or fits.  At least not THERE.  There may have been a few before we left the house.

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And then we came home, and gave our Captain his perhaps less-than-thrilling gifts.  He finally got a big-boy-bed since he's been throwing fits about not wanting to sleep in his toddler bed for the last 6 months.  Happy birthday kid, here's a mattress.  At least the Maisy game was exciting.  That was a serendipidous HomeGoods find.  One of those moments when you KNOW you're supposed to go in that store at that time, but you don't quite know why.



And now he's dreaming peacefully in his new rocket ship sheets, on his new pillow in his new bed.  And I officially have a new three-year-old on my hands.



It's easy to forget how quickly this little man is growing up.  His speech isn't keeping up with his mind or his body, and somehow that renders me forgetful.  But as his speech is slowly improving, wonderfully complex thoughts are finding their way through from him to me.  He shocks me at least every day with a reminder of how much he understands and is processing and is trying to share.



I have my fingers crossed that this next year of Captain-ness brings enough improvement in articulation that I can leave him with people who don't speak Captain-ese for perhaps long-enough to have him in a regular preschool class come Fall.  And for him to feel understood.  I'm sadly certain that he's never yet felt genuinely understood, even by me.  But I think he's felt loved, and that comes first anyway.