Jack is 2!

Now we really do stop counting in months, I'm sure of it. This very lucky boy had a very special birthday, which was not at all intruded upon by the upcoming holidays, even if the subsequent blogging about it did get subsumed by gift-making, package-mailing, and Christmas-card-addressing. Lucky for me I can back-date this entry so we memorialize Jack's birthday on the actual day and not the several days afterwards that I came up for air from my holiday to-do list.

Jack's birthday actually started the night before, when his Lo-lo brought him a wonderful present that came in a box shaped like a car that was almost a present in itself. Lo-lo gave him the big stuffed iguana he has been eyeing at the choo-choo store every time he's been there for the past few months (so much so that we've considered renaming the choo-choo-store the guana-store, since that now seems to be the main attraction). He went to sleep with his iguana that night. The next morning, the morning of his birthday, his mommy came into his room singing happy birthday and Jack popped up in his crib and chimed in "to Dack!" at just the right moment. He spent the morning with his other favorite caretaker, Rebeccah, while mommy and daddy begrudingly went to work they couldn't get out of. Somewhere along the past few years, I have stopped going to work on my birthday, and I think it is a tradition worth keeping sacred. I want to foster this for my kids as well; it is totally worth 2 vacation days a year to take each one out on their own special day.  This year was unfortunately foiled, or partly foiled, by unrescheduleable meetings and/or holiday orders. But I think Jack was just as happy to get the morning with Rebeccah, who continued the gift theme, giving him a stuffed triceratops (cepa!) and stegasaurus (steggy-saurus!). Add to that another stuffed dino from the Oregon grandparents and a much humbler stuffed iguana that mommy had already bought him, and we had quite a menagerie. To top it all off, our friend Raven wrote him a book called "My Pet Dinosaur." Jack was tickled. I don't think he knows what to do with all his new friends.



We were able to get out of work just in time to pick Jack up after his nap, and we managed to pack a lot into that second half of the day. We had a video chat with Aunt La-la and cousin Thomas, who admired Jack's new toys (and added to the mix a great easel, so now Jack can make masterpieces of all the dinos in his head) and watched him blow out his candles and eat the first birthday cake he has ever enjoyed, since he was not at all interested last year.

I love those top pictures. He really was so delighted to get to blow out candles, and he very nearly succeeded. Just needed a little tiny bit of help from daddy. Then we whisked him away into the city for an afternoon at the Cal Academy to visit some animal friends and the House of Air to bounce the night away, two of Jack's favorite activities that are compatible with the cold and soggy weather we've been having.

We hadn't been to the Cal Academy for several months, and I think Jack is finally old enough to really appreciate it. He was excited about everything! We got there right as they were feeding the penguins, and he loved that, since one of his favorite things is watching things eat. And then he got to play with some little toy penguins in the kids zone. He also loved watching the fish. There were almost too many good things, he raced from one to the next, and I have never seen him so agreeable. Anything we suggested ("Jack do you want to go to the fish tunnel next?") received an enthusiastic "Yuh!"

(Do you love the shirt, Grandma and Poppa? It's still a little bit big but he was excited to wear it while visiting his underwater friends.)

Next came House of Air, a giant indoor trampoline park in the presidio. Jack wasn't old enough to take full advantage of all their amenities, but he was happy enough with just the bouncy house. He had it all to himself. I guess not a lot of parents take their kids out to bouncy houses on rainy Friday nights. Jack was less interested in bouncing, however, and more interested in running back and forth until he fell down. Apparently it's very hard to run in a bouncy house. I haven't seen Jack fall so much since he was first learning to walk. But he loved it, squealed with delight every time he fell, and spent a good hour in there exhausting himself.

(click for video)

He more than earned his birthday pizza. I don't have a photo of the pie itself, or the cute place we stopped in Sausalito on the way home, but I do have this one Danny took of us getting ready to eat. It makes me laugh.



Happy birthday, little Jack! You are not so little anymore. You can run and jump and sing whole songs and do all the motions to them and talk in sentences but mostly still stick to the two to three words that get your point across, you are a very succinct little man. (Why would you say "please come play with me mommy or daddy" when "come on!" with an emphatic arm gesture is all it takes to get your audience off their seats?) It is so fun watching you grow up, and seeing the person you are becoming. You are funny, and sweet, and oh so clever. I can't wait to see what you figure out next.