Birthday Boy
Zack celebrated his third birthday this weekend. The official day is tomorrow, but we had a party for him on Saturday. His Grandpa Jim flew in from Wyoming, which was a real treat.
All of Zack's great buddies came to the party. The neighbors are still talking about the spectacle of 10 two-year-olds trying to break open a pinata swinging from the tree in our front yard. Even though we ditched the blindfold, the game befuddled out band of little people. Here they were... being goaded by the grownups into whacking this pretty toy as hard as they could with baseball bats... contrary to everything we've taught them up to this point about being gentle with their toys. Their tentative swipes made little progress to burst the pinata. In the end I had to disembowel it with a steaknife to achive the desired effect. I'm sure they'll all be in couseling for that.
"Pin the Tail on the Donkey" was equally entertaining. We did attempt blindfolds for that, and the requisite spinning around before nudging our little tail-pinners toward the poster tacked to the door. Our kids are too smart for our antics, though. As soon as they were released from our grasp they each lifted the blindfold, marched surefootedly to the poster, and pinned their tails squarely on the donkey's nose.
Zack was very impressed by his crocodial cake -- complete with scary marshmallow teeth. As his friends left, one of the moms called out "Happy Birthday, Zack!" to which he responded, "Yes! I know!" He insisted on sleeping with his new scuba mask and snorkel last night.
Today we attended the world's shortest parade. It's an annual St. Patty's Day parade that goes for about four blocks in our neighborhood, and is fielded and funded by neighborhood folks each year. My favorite part was the Asian lady bagpiper. Despite it being a very local event, I think everyone in Portland who own and Irish Wolfhound was in the parade. There were also the requisite fire trucks, boy scouts and people in convertibles throwing candy. It lasted about 10 minutes. I told Zack is was a parade in honor of his birthday. He was awestruck.
So... all in all a successful birthday weekend. The weather was gorgeous -- 70s and sunny the whole weekend. Jim Sr. headed back to the snow plains of Wyoming this afternoon. We hope memories of the fine weather will make him want to come back really soon. That, and Zack promising in his parting words at the airport, "I'll miss you Grandpa!"
