The "day" part of birthday is misleading. . .

Pack up the party favors and put away the dinosaur cake pan for another year—the multi-stage celebration known as Henry’s 4th birthday is finally over! Somehow, the anniversary of our dear child’s birth has become less like Christmas (lots of preparation leading to a one-day spasm of gifts, treats, food and song) and more like Hanukkah (ceremonies, events and presents, presents, presents spread over many days). Henry had his first birthday cake back in April, when my parents were in town, and will have Cake #4 when he travels to California to visit Tom’s parents. (I guess, technically, the celebrating isn’t over yet, but I’m not going on the trip, so my role is finished.)

Cake #2 was served at his birthday party, which due to multiple conflicts took place a week before his actual birthday; Cake #3 was enjoyed with his preschool classmates on his actual, calendar birthday. So, phew! I have been very busy pulling together all this celebrating. Of course we had a dinosaur-themed party with dino plates, dino decorations, a dino cookie decorating activity, and—most importantly—a dino cake. A dino cake that I made myself. Woo-hoo! It was fun. Henry was thrilled with his party, no one went home hurt or in tears (although there were tears during the party from one kid who was clearly having a bad day), and for the third year running I was able to host almost a dozen small children in my home without having the place trashed.

We got Henry a dino bike for his present. It’s pretty big for him now, but he’s doing an admirable job riding it with the training wheels on. He’s not the most physically adventurous/reckless child, so I imagine it will be quite awhile before we take the training wheels off. Now we just have to get him a new, more grown-up style helmet—the one he has is uncomfortable due to its heavy padding (seriously--it looks like something you’d wear to jump the Grand Canyon on a motorbike, not a helmet to protect a kid from a 12-inch fall off a tricycle)!

Enjoying Cake #3
Off for a ride