Well it was a very special weekend in this house – my big boy turned 3! He officially is no longer a baby, can’t quite believe what a big boy he has become. Ever since our new baby boy has come along, it has made it even more apparent how much big boy has grown. 3 is a fantastic age though, and we are having way too much fun with him to dwell on lost babyhood for too long.
So anyway – the celebrations. Well, sad as it sounds, we don’t really have enough friends here in Bristol to have a birthday party! He has plenty of pals at his nursery but we don’t really know the parents, and we were happy enough to have a family day anyway. The lack of local friends is much more of a problem to me than it is to my big boy, he is more than happy with his mix of busy nursery days and time spent with mummy and baby brother.
We decided to head to Cardiff and have a day out at the excellent show Madagascar Live. During the time when baby boy and I were in hospital, my big boy was looked after by a series of grandparents – obviously it was a rough old time and the toddler tantrums came into full force during those confusing weeks. Anyway, I think the grandparents coping strategy was to have the DVD of Madagascar on a constant loop! It has become his favourite film, and when we saw that a live show was being performed on the day of his birthday, it seemed like the perfect celebration.
It was so lovely to witness the awe and wonder of his first experience of a live stage performance, we have never even been to so much as a pantomime before so this was a real treat. It was, however, highly inappropriate for a 3 month old – really noisy! So my husband and I took turns in wearing baby in the sling at the back of the arena, where he slept blissfully throughout. We rounded off the day back at home with a bit of a pizza party followed by this dinosaur birthday cake I made, much to his delight!
I thoroughly enjoyed choosing presents for my big boy this year, opting to get lots of little bits rather than one main gift. We got him a lovely doctor set from wooden toy company Pintoy, as he is very keen on hospital role play since baby boys op. We also got him a little hippo and hippo calf toy from gorgeous toy company Scheich, which have not left his side since, coming to bed with him each night (he loves hippos!).
Finally, one of the biggest successes were these wooden pirate figures, an ebay bargain that have provided hours of fun. I love that his young innocent age means he is so easily delighted with little trinkets, while his older cousins are providing parents with wish lists of iPods and expensive clothes. Perhaps our day of this will come, so we plan to make the most of these simple birthdays filled with simple pleasures.
rosylittlecheeks 