Three years of adventures
Ben started asking for his birthday last April (interestingly, it was his weaning day that we first had the conversation) and I told him that it was spring. Then comes summer, then fall THEN his birthday which was in the winter.
So for the past 8 months, everytime Ben has seen a winter scene (ie: snow) he shouts out "That's when my birthday is!!!!!" It took all the way until November for me to realize that perhaps it was the wrong decision to tell him his Decemeber 11 birthday was in winter. He was expecting snow, and there would be none.
My brother-in-law Aaron heard this story a few weeks ago and said, "Why don't you take him up to the pass for his birthday so he can play in the snow?" and I said, "That's an awesome idea, but it would be pretty hard to work out, due to sharing a car with Stephen. We'd have to drop him off and then be back in time to get him after work ..." and Aaron said, "I could take you guys."
I started to cry.
Not just because it was an awesome idea and an incredibly generous offer, but because here was someone actually going out of their way to spend time with us, and on a very important day at that.
So the details were fuzzy for awhile, but it turned out that Aaron had his last final in the morning, so we had to get to Kent ourselves. We took FOUR busses to get here. The second one was 15 minutes late which threw off the rest of our schedule and we did quite a bit of improvising (including looking desparately for a bathroom in downtown Seattle on a limitted timeframe) but we got here. Then we got in the car and started out for Crystal Mountain. (The pass has no snow yet. Apparently its supossed to dump a bunch this weekend, but that hardly helped us) Ben spent an incencent amount of time in the car whining horribly because he was using his cousin's borrowed carseat and he hates it and couldn't get comfy for a nap he desparately needed.
(He was up until 1 a.m. the night before his birthday!!!!!!! It was frustrating, but a tiny part of me remembered being a kid and understood. He had been waiting a very long time for this day)
So he finally fell asleep about an hour or so into the drive and the rest of the way was peaceful. We promised him that when he woke up there'd be snow and there was!!!! We jumped in it and smashed it and threw it and slid in it and made footprints in it and even played a little frisbee golf :-)
We've got a lot of cute photos and a great memory. Was it worth eight hours of traveling for 45 minutes of fun? Well, that's hard to explain. On the actual day, not particularly. But as he gets older, he won't remember the four bus rides or the horrible car trip. He'll have the photos from his snowy birthday and that's what he'll retain. I know this for sure because he keeps asking to go back to California with his Nana, even though he was miserable for about 85 percent of that trip, he doesn't remember it. His little toddler mind only remembers the highlights and that he had a lot of fun. :-)
Happy birthday to my sweet son. I can't believe he is three years old already! He amazes me every day. I'm so proud of the sweet, caring, thoughtful, empathetic boy he is growing into. But in some ways, he'll always be my baby.
So for the past 8 months, everytime Ben has seen a winter scene (ie: snow) he shouts out "That's when my birthday is!!!!!" It took all the way until November for me to realize that perhaps it was the wrong decision to tell him his Decemeber 11 birthday was in winter. He was expecting snow, and there would be none.
My brother-in-law Aaron heard this story a few weeks ago and said, "Why don't you take him up to the pass for his birthday so he can play in the snow?" and I said, "That's an awesome idea, but it would be pretty hard to work out, due to sharing a car with Stephen. We'd have to drop him off and then be back in time to get him after work ..." and Aaron said, "I could take you guys."
I started to cry.
Not just because it was an awesome idea and an incredibly generous offer, but because here was someone actually going out of their way to spend time with us, and on a very important day at that.
So the details were fuzzy for awhile, but it turned out that Aaron had his last final in the morning, so we had to get to Kent ourselves. We took FOUR busses to get here. The second one was 15 minutes late which threw off the rest of our schedule and we did quite a bit of improvising (including looking desparately for a bathroom in downtown Seattle on a limitted timeframe) but we got here. Then we got in the car and started out for Crystal Mountain. (The pass has no snow yet. Apparently its supossed to dump a bunch this weekend, but that hardly helped us) Ben spent an incencent amount of time in the car whining horribly because he was using his cousin's borrowed carseat and he hates it and couldn't get comfy for a nap he desparately needed.
(He was up until 1 a.m. the night before his birthday!!!!!!! It was frustrating, but a tiny part of me remembered being a kid and understood. He had been waiting a very long time for this day)
So he finally fell asleep about an hour or so into the drive and the rest of the way was peaceful. We promised him that when he woke up there'd be snow and there was!!!! We jumped in it and smashed it and threw it and slid in it and made footprints in it and even played a little frisbee golf :-)
We've got a lot of cute photos and a great memory. Was it worth eight hours of traveling for 45 minutes of fun? Well, that's hard to explain. On the actual day, not particularly. But as he gets older, he won't remember the four bus rides or the horrible car trip. He'll have the photos from his snowy birthday and that's what he'll retain. I know this for sure because he keeps asking to go back to California with his Nana, even though he was miserable for about 85 percent of that trip, he doesn't remember it. His little toddler mind only remembers the highlights and that he had a lot of fun. :-)
Happy birthday to my sweet son. I can't believe he is three years old already! He amazes me every day. I'm so proud of the sweet, caring, thoughtful, empathetic boy he is growing into. But in some ways, he'll always be my baby.