Toby's 2nd Birthday

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in a while, but we got busy celebrating the hell out of Toby’s 2^nd birthday.

It always happens that way; when you decide not to bother too much with something it ends up exploding in your face as a weeklong birthday fiesta extravaganza. The kid is two. He will likely never in his life remember how we chose to celebrate this birthday, nor will he really care. It was my full intention to let the day pass quietly by and enjoy one last peaceful March 4^th before he reached the age of knowing what it all means…All I can say now is this; if he hadn’t known before, he sure does now…

It started off with my mother’s birthday – a low key dinner at our house which quickly (because my mother was involved) evolved into Toby opening HIS presents, followed by Toby opening HER presents followed by rounds of the Happy Birthday Chorus to each of them.

That clinched it. He was INTO this.

A few days later, on his actual birthday, he got to celebrate with his daycare friends. And NO ONE makes birthdays more fun than a roomful of preschool kids and their two fearless and unceasingly energetic leaders. Apparently he got sung the birthday song every 15 minutes. He also ate the MOST cupcakes of ANYONE and, in case I didn’t believe it, had an appropriately splattered outfit to prove it. They TRIED to get him to wear the birthday hat, and he did...for about 5 seconds before he placed it on Owen’s head. And Owen obliged. I mean, it WAS Toby’s birthday. When he got home that night, in a post-sugar coma, he managed to utter only one thing about his day, “it was Owen’s birthday”.

This weekend, just to top it all off, we celebrated with both sides of the family. “A casual dinner” at my parents place turned into a full on Thomas the Tank Engine reinactment complete with bubbles, balloons, party hats and matching tablecloth, along with the essentials; three different kinds of ice cream and triple chocolate mousse cake. See paragraph #3.

By today, after traveling to Burlington to make sure ALL SIDES OF THE FAMILY had had their fair share of watching Toby eat cake and open presents, he was almost expecting “the usual”. He waited patiently for lunch to be done before he began asking where the cake and presents were, and even let his cousin help him blow the candles out. It WAS his fourth birthday cake. We had yet another fantastic and fun filled morning and once again, left on a sugar high with our car overloaded with generous gifts.

Tonight at dinner, shoving some leftovers into our cake filled bellies, as Rob and I smiled peacefully to ourselves at the thought of NOT having to finish he meal with cake and presents, Toby opened his mouth and let out a loud….BURP.

“What do you say?” we asked him in unison.

I can’t say we were at all shocked to hear his answer, said with a devilish grin,

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOBY!”