2 years

Eli gettin' his mud on.

This is the last of the monthly posts. Part of me worries I'll never blog if not for the nagging monthly "birthdays," but I think it makes sense to switch to a more event-geared blogging style at this point.  Elias doesn't change as much from month to month like he did the first 18 months or so.  It's just one big blur of getting not quite enough sleep....Just kidding!  Wait, no I'm not.

Anyway...Since his second birthday (over a month ago, yikes!) Elias has been a little more difficult than usual.  I thought he'd already flipped his toddler switch but I'm now starting to think of it more as a dimmer.  He's been slowly amping it up over the past year until he clicked it fully into the on position (I think. I hope.) right around his train-themed birthday bash.  Rather than expect things to get easier any time soon, I like to think of his second birthday as the halfway point to a time when it seems like most toddlers evolve into "big kids," and, dare I say it, thing seem to be maybe just a tiny bit easier.  Or more enjoyable. Or something.  I'm sure my readers with older kids are thinking there's a very good possibility I'll be eating my words in a couple of years, but that's my hope.  For my readers with younger kids, sorry for the spoiler alert. When they told you at your baby's miraculous birth that the first 3 to 4 months were crazy, what they really meant to say was the first 3 to 4 years.

But things have been a little calmer in the last week or so (hence the blogging...I'm also doing just about everything but packing for our move next week.  Oh yeah, we're moving.  Again.  Didn't I tell you?).  Pretty soon, seeing as how Elias is getting his last set of molars, I won't be able to blame teething.  But that's the latest scapegoat, in addition to a fun summer cold that he passed on to me.  Before I get too ahead of myself, though, let me a share a few images from his birthday festivities.

Well, I guess the birthday boy can have a cupcake before the guests arrive, can't he?

We had his party, the theme of which was very loosely based on his obsession with Thomas the Train, the weekend before his actual birthday, at one of our go-to playgrounds, Berkeley's Aquatic Park.  Other than being insanely windy that morning, the brunch bash was a success.  You can read more about the overall event design on my other blog. 

Elias gets a lesson on gift-opening from "big kid" buddy, Ivan.

Here he is getting a little instruction on opening gifts from his "big kid" buddy, Ivan (who will be 4 in September. We're counting on him to show Elias the ropes.).  It was a small party (and I think therein lies the success).  We invited just a handful of little ones, including a few friends from daycare.  Since his actual birthday was on a Monday, rather than pull him from daycare for the entire day, where I figured he'd probably have more fun playing with his friends than running errands with Mom, we picked him up early and took him to nearby Fenton's for a little birthday mac 'n' cheese and first banana split.

The amount of ice cream we left behind still haunts me.

Even ordering the "junior" version between the three of us we left a staggering amount of ice cream behind (not realizing then that you can get your ice cream leftovers to go!).  He's not a huge fan of ice cream because it's, in his words, "too cold." I'm hoping he'll get over it between now and his third birthday so that we can make this an annual tradition.

It's a train! It's a cake!

I made this train cake to take to daycare during the week for Elias and his daycare buddy, Hazel, since her 2nd birthday falls just a few days later.

Sadly, he had to wait almost an entire week to ride the much coveted tricycle he got from his Uncle Ryan and Aunt Kelly. Even though we've only been here a year as a family and I can't say I'll really miss our apartment or apartment living in general, I will miss this neighborhood, where Neal and I lived for about six years before moving to Boston.  It's been a great landing pad for our return west, with so many family-friendly destinations within a ten to fifteen minute walk, especially considering the first half of our first year back I was home with Elias full-time.  But we're also looking forward to moving into our first house and exploring our new neighborhood in a couple of weeks.  I have a few other blog posts I'd like to get to before the move but realistically I should probably bid adieu until the dust settles later this summer.

Oh, and uh, wish us luck. With just over a week to go, we have, to date, one box packed. Yep, it's going to be a great week!