My tiny little (great big, huge) baby is THREE years old! I’d ask where the time went, but I know damn well what happens to time. It gets swallowed up by the Time Monster.
On the 25th, his birthday, we went to Santa Cruz and spent the afternoon at the beach. We have family in town (my mom, my aunt Toni, and my cousin Matt). Tristan absolutely adored it. He wanted to go into the water so badly, but we only let him jump the end of the waves with some adult help, mostly from my mom. I think he needs to see some of us go into the water first before we can truly show him how the ocean works, but it was intensely cold. Tristan was fascinated by the lapping waves and spent at least an hour dancing among them. Then he firmly ensconced himself in the sand, covering himself in a bit of sand-water paste that stuck well to him for hours. I’m very glad we went on Tristan’s behalf – it seems like an amazing experience for him.
Today was his birthday party! Tristan started out the day by going with James to his class at The Little Gym, attending another birthday party for his friend Alek, and then coming back to have his own party also at The Little Gym.
The party went very well, though it kicked all of our asses. We had a wonderful turnout, all of the details went as planned (the new party time worked well; we had been previously double-booked which was a scary experience), the food was delicious, and the kids generally made it through the festivities. Imagine about 11 one- to three year-olds in a room full of child-sized gymnastics equipment, no head injuries, and everyone having fun. After the hour of that, we corralled the kids and parents into a tiny party room and served pizza and cake. Tristan eats neither on a regular basis, but he did enjoy pepperoni (he says this as “pepper-noni”) and the whipped cream frosting from his cake. One of his friends helped him blow out the candles, but that’s to be expected as we did not rehearse the “your face is near fire: do something about it” aspect of candle extinguishing. We still haven’t gotten the gifts out of the car, let alone opened – there was a strict 2 hour time limit on the party as there was another party following ours, and the face-stuffing took the second hour entirely. Thank you to everyone who came and everyone who took pictures and of course the the gifts; thank you to my mom and Aunt Toni for help with all of the details!