Pizza and a hot dog, please

While I generally don't care much about making a big deal for my birthday, the significance of a child's birthday is much more meaningful to me now that I'm a parent--the day of course marks not only his growth and milestones, but it's hard not to recall Boden's actual "birth" day and all the details and emotions that brings.  I certainly don't romanticize the event--it wasn't awesome, but the end result was this amazing, smart, sensitive and silly little guy.  If you're four year old boy, though, you don't seem to care much about the day you actually came into the world--the focus is on getting bigger and getting presents!

Boden's birthday fell during the middle of the week so we tried to make it as big of a deal as we could:  he got to bring treats (tattoos and stickers) for his pre-schoolmates, I picked him up early from school, he got to eat out at a restaurant (his choice), he ordered whatever he wanted which he did all by himself (chocolate milk, pizza, and a hot dog were his items of choice, though the restaurant thankfully did not have hot dogs on the menu), and we topped it off with presents and a little later bedtime.

Boden recently visited two firestations--one with our friend Dan who is a volunteer firefighter and one for his first school field trip ever.  Since then, fire trucks and firefighters have been all the rage.  So, Todd found a firefighter costume (accessorized with a very loud bull horn that I could do without) and a very large fire truck which he thinks is really cool.

Watching my little guy get older and bigger does make me a little nostalgic for the sweet toddler he was.  The thing that makes me most sad today, the day after his birthday, is that I can't say "You better behave or you might not get any presents for your birthday" because his birthday is 364 days away!  So, I've told him he better behave or I'll make him three again.  He stopped what he was doing (not listening) and asked how I was going to do that...logical question, right?  I told him I'd figure out a way which seems to be a good enough answer for now.  Hey, it's the only leverage I've got right now until I can talk about Santa and Christmas presents.

Family photo

Ready to fight fight imaginary fires