Today is Sunday, and he will be in church and then at his paternal grandparents' home, where they will celebrate. Next Saturday is his birthday party for all friends and family, where I'm sure at least 30 people will be paying him attention. I chose to celebrate with him yesterday. When you're four, the attention is enough, it doesn't really matter if it's on the exact date of your birth. Hmmm... upon reflection, that's true at four and at forty-eight!
First Mommy and Daddy dropped him off on their way to attend wedding that they never quite made it to. When you're in a hurry, it's easy to overlook the car seat -- and turning around to bring it back takes more time than you'd think, even when you're only five minutes away. I promised Noah we'd go shopping for Mimi's house stuff and then he could pick out a special toy for his birthday.
This is the special toy he picked out. I asked him why he didn't want something from Cars since he's on a Cars kick right now and he said he liked Buzz Lightyear better than Mater. I asked him who he liked better, Woody or Buzz Lightyear and Buzz won again. The other adults around us were laughing and smiling as he went on and on about his birthday. How come everyone thinks it's cute when you're four but not so much when you're my age?
After he picked out his special toy, he told me that, given the choice of cake or ice cream, he wanted ice cream. (It was 85 degrees yesterday, and like most people from Western Washington, he thinks that anything higher than 75 is uncomfortable.) So we went here:
Cute place. Twenty different flavors of froyo you dispense yourself, then dozens of different toppings, which you also pick yourself, and you are charged by the ounce. Noah's didn't weigh much, but I put a lot of fruit in mine to offset the not-so-good-for-you factor in frozen oversweetened yogurt, so it ended up being a bit pricey. Noah wanted pink ice cream (he got raspberry sherbet) and cereal on top (Captain Crunch w/Crunchberries), plus blueberries, whipped cream and sprinkles. After eating half the bowl, he decided he didn't like the blueberries. He picked them all out and made me eat them.
At one point a yellow jacket flew into his bowl, so I had to scoop it out with his spoon and fling it on the ground so I could stomp on it. He was very impressed with that. He thinks I control and subdue the forces of nature, which you have to admit is pretty cool when you're 48 years old and well acquainted with your limitations. Then he said, it's cold now and threw his bowl, two-thirds empty, and my bowl, practically licked clean, into the trash for me. He wanted to do it himself.
On the way home he mentioned to me that he'd like another little brother but did not want a sister. We came home, one exhausted Mimi and one wide-eyed four year old Noah, both satisfied with the world at that moment. I opened his special present and he played with it until Lyndie and Micah came back. When they picked him up, I gave him the stack of clothes I'd also bought for his birthday, but of course, when you're four and a boy you don't care much about clothes; the Buzz Lightyear Rocket Bicycle is much more compelling.
Thank you, most gracious Heavenly Father, for blessing me with my grandsons Noah and Joshua. And thank you for giving me beauty for ashes when Noah was born on September 11, 2007.
