Happy Birthday, #2!

Today is #2's birthday.  You might think that having a birthday this side of Christmas would help to alleviate some of the seasonal antsy-ness that most kids succumb to.

You might be wrong.

As soon as the calendar rolled over into December, this kid has been a stressed mess.  Sticky notes in various sizes, colours and editions have been appearing by my bedside for several months, including order of desire and cost at Target with his father's discount factored in.  Always an early riser, he has been seeing the dark, dark side of the morning for a couple of weeks now.

You can see from the stack of 3 (count 'em) gifts that we do not go crazy at birthdays or Christmas.  The top package is from his big brother, paid for out of his own money.  We don't schedule dozens of holiday events.  We don't shop for dozens of people.  We watch Christmas movies and listen to lots of Christmas music.  We have a basket of Christmas books we haul out every year and re-read.  We have suppers with friends.  We try to keep a peaceful and hopeful Advent season.

No matter how calm we try to keep life, #2 cannot stand the wait.  I think this is normal of any kid but when you add Christmas right on the heels of a birthday . . .

Today dawned grey and wet.  Luckily, no asteroid/meteor/apocalypse struck or we would have had one distraught birthday boy!  Tops on his list this year was a crossbow.  What on earth would an urban kid do with a crossbow?  For starters, he has his eyes on the escaped-but-domesticated rabbit living on the empty property across the street and the feral cats that roam freely in herds.  Clearly, we couldn't give this crazy kid a real crossbow so we did the next best thing.

Bass Pro did not fail us in a scaled down, NERF type crossbow that shoots foam darts 60 feet.  But you have to have a target, right?  Enter a small, inflatable buck complete with a decent rack and a velcro target over his heart and you have two boys spending most of the day in the back yard pretending to be Great White Hunters.  We only paused to have a Sushi lunch, as per a sticky note request, and to make birthday Cream Puffs, as per another sticky note.

We've had a quiet but a good day and I suspect he may sleep a little more soundly tonight.  Or do I mean, I hope?

Ah yes, the annual birthday photo-in-your-underwear-because-you're-too-excited-for-clothes!

I'm not sure why he is wearing Don's military issue, Icelandic parka!

This will see us through the long winter, I'm sure!

Even Don had to give it a try.

Bringing home the meat.

Birthday Cream Puffs.
Don't look at the chocolate -  I didn't get it tempered properly
but it didn't stop anyone from eating them!