Happy Birthday Joshua or in other words...where did my baby go?!

My brother-in-law, Jon, recently sent me this blast from the past.

This is Joshua at about 6 or 7 months playing out in my sisters backyard. And here he is on his birthday. My baby is growing up.

I have been playing up Josh turning 3 for almost a year now. Mainly because I made the mistake last year of telling him that he could keep his bottle until his next birthday. Yes, we let our son have a bottle until he was three years old. I was mainly okay with this becuase we let Nathan keep his till after Josh was born, so to about the same age, and it was really great for relaxing him at night so bed times were super easy. Jessica put her foot down a while ago so Joshua had been going without a bottle easily over there. Richard tried a few times before his birthday, but usually just when he was frustrated with Josh about something, so as soon as Richard felt better, he let Josh have the bottle back. But I had been playing up Josh's birthday for months, always including that "when you turn three, you will be a big boy and you won't have a bottle anymore."

Well, he turned three, the bottles went into the recycling, he is a big boy and he doesn't use a bottle any more. He did ask a couple of times for his bottle but I think it was just to check if I was serious. I do feel a litlle bad because he loved his bottle so much and he looked cute drinking from it. I would guess though that he wouldn't appreciate it if he was still using it in middle school.

My baby is growing up.

Happy Birthday Richard!

Yesterday was Richard's 36th birthday and I think that he had a pretty good day. He didn't get much in the way of presents but that was because he bought his present a few weeks ago: a motorcycle and driving lessons. And if your worried about it, he also bought himself a helmet, riding jacket, boots, and gloves. It's all good stuff; the helmet covers the entire head, not just the top. Richard's tennis instructor gave him some pre-riding lessons lessons and they included some cautionary tales that included an examination of one of his helmets that he (the tennis instructor) was wearing during a minor crash. Actually, I don't mind that he wants to ride a motorcycle. It's something that he has wanted to do since as long as I can remember. But now he has a healthy view of his own mortality (birthdays after 35 do that to you) and I think that he looks at how the boys view his riding habits so it all helps keep him honest. I'll get a picture of it all one of these days.
The rest of his birthday celebration included cards from me and the boys, a few small presents and while Tifarrah (Richard's sister) watched the kids, we had dinner at Richard's favorite restaurant and did a little shopping. We ended it with birthday cake back at the house, shared with Tifarrah, R.J. and Cris (Tifarrah's boyfriend).
A word about the cake. I didn't have time to make it and didn't get over to Goldilocks's (Filipino bakery and restaurant) so we just stopped at the local grocery store. I was trying to get Joshua to pick out the cake but he kept focusing on the Dora the Explorer cupcakes. Luckily, Nathan picked out a nice strawberry shortcake cake. Yummy!

Memories

I love what kids remember. Last week when we were up in Sacramento visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, we took a trip over to San Francisco to check out a museum at Golden Gate park. While walking around the park outside the museum, we came across several pieces of statuary and one made an impression on Nathan. Tonight while I was putting him into bed he said "Remember that man we saw that was naked? He had a sword and we saw his penis. " At this point he pauses and giggles. "At least he had a cape."
You're right kid. At least he had a cape.