3rd Birthday!

Ishish celebrated his 3rd birthday this week, and we decided to spread the celebration over two days. For his pre-birthday we let him pick where he wanted to eat for lunch. He chose the local frozen custard restaurant. He added that he wanted birthday cake first. Fortunately, he accepted the fact that we didn't have any yet. Then he said he wanted the ice cream right away and not the grilled cheese sandwich! I told him we had to wait until everyone finished their sandwiches. Then he happily ate the usual grilled cheese followed by a dish of vanilla. That evening we opened presents from our extended family, and he had tons of fun playing with them.

The next morning we asked Ishish how old he was and he said "Three!" while holding up three fingers. Dada and I find it so funny that he does it the European way (using the thumb instead of ring finger).

Next we picked up balloons from the party store. I wish I hadn't had Ishish along. He kept seeing ones he wanted "I want race car one! I want dollhouse one!" Fortunately our order was ready so I could just grab them and dash out the door. On the way home he said "I want more balloons! I want 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 balloons!"



Earlier in the week Ishish had picked out an underwater ocean theme for his party. I set out the decorations and picked up his cake. In the many, many times Ishish had a pretend birthday party he would include party hats so I made sure we had those on hand.



Some of his best friends were able to come to his birthday party that night. Comparing this year's birthday to the last there was quite a difference in his ability (and desire!) to blow out the candles and open his presents!

Everyone's singing Happy Birthday to me!


Bring me my cake, already!


That night Dada and I gave Ishish our present. I try to come up with gift ideas for him that I think are meaningful, and this year it took me a long time to come up with one! Airplanes are such a huge part of our conversations now that Dada's out of town a lot, and Ishish has a big airplane he likes but no little ones to go with his other cars/trucks/helicopters. So that was his primary gift. I added a couple other things to the package that I already had in the "give to him one day" bin. They were a Mr. Happy t-shirt and Mr. Tickle book, because he loves his Mr. Happy squeeze toy. When I tried to get a picture of him with his presents he ran into the other room and hid. So... you'll just have to imagine his pleased expression!