Opulence. I Has It.

The big 0-4! My Precious was celebrated last weekend with, among other things, strawberry cupcakes with vanilla frosting and sprinkles, per his request. Kat Von D and I approved of his selection.

Instead of a party this year, we allowed him to pick one friend to go with him to the children's museum downtown. So we picked up Marjorie Stewart-Baxter at noon then hauled our brood down to Moe's for lunch.

The two of them ate and sang songs about chopping down trees with their juice box straws (?) and crawled under the table and pretended to be lions. Very loud lions. Then Phil and I thought, "Hey, now let's give them cookies and take them on MARTA!"


MARTA was a big hit, excepting the ridiculously long wait for each train in the blazing heat, nasty loud MARTA bathrooms and wetties in shoes, and the time Andrew, MS-B and I were nearly slung the length of a train car on our faces (a kind rider caught us before we hit the ground).

After a more substantial walk that I'd anticipated from the station, we arrived at the crazy madhouse of a children's museum. I've been wanting to take Andrew there for ages, so I was really deflated to see the place in complete chaos. It was trashed and there were so many kids everywhere it was really hard to imagine our two big kids getting to actually do anything. Fortunately, Andrew is often quite content to be an observer and he found the place facinating to watch. And after a time, the crowds thinned a bit and the kids got to do a few things ... like dress up!

I'd like to take Andrew back on a non-weekend, non-summer day so he could really get into it, but even with the pandemoniom, Andrew had a really good time. And Elsbeth was an angel throughout the adventure, even with no nap. 1,000,000,000 points to Elsbeth, for without her sweetness on that day Phil and I would have surely gone mad.

My darling, big, 4-year-old boy. He's such a great conversationalist these days. Often when I tell him of something we need to do, he'll look up at me and say, "I can handle it." Now that Elsbeth is running around, the two of them will play this game where they throw themselves down on the living room rug over and over, laughing together for tens of minutes at a time! He gives out lots of spontaneous hugs and kisses and "I love you"s, swoons over playing board games and hide-and-seek, and can work any appliance set before him. He doesn't usually want to read to me if I put him on the spot, but he regularly asks me about things he'd only know to ask from reading a sign or package ("Why is that place called Food Mart?"). He generates 127 questions per hour ... things like, "Why do they call these 'crackers?'" and "What would happen if the car didn't have wheels?" and "What are you and Daddy talking about?" And his adorable smile continues to light up my world.

Happy birthday, My Precious! You are so loved.