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Last weekend we also helped our nephew Jack celebrate his birthday. I’ve just been waiting for those little guys to get old enough to do this. When my girls hit the right age my sister, Joelle, would take them out for lunch and to buy their birthday present. One of my favorite stories with this was when Joelle took Jill out for her third birthday. Jill had just gotten a ballerina outfit and insisted on wearing it along with the crown she got at preschool. (The crown said ‘I AM 4!’.) Jill danced through the mall with Joelle, somewhat oblivious to the smiles she was getting. They made a quick pitstop in the bathroom and Jill kept sticking her foot out under the stall door. When Joelle asked her what she was doing Jill explained ‘I want people to know that there is a birthday girl in here!’.
I knew there was going to be no way that I could get away with taking him by myself so we had the whole crew come last Saturday. We started our day at Build A Bear where the normally boisterous Jack seemed totally overwhelmed. It didn’t help that we had a noisy birthday party in line behind us! Jack got plenty of help and guidance from his big cousins as we navigated through the store. (Notice Kate’s helpful foot ready to pounce at the stuffing machine. Impulse control kid!)
Then we stepped up to the wall of clothes where we made a few suggestions. We spotted the University of Washington T-shirt first and Jack liked that. We also showed him a cool Rock N Roll T-shirt which would have been great too because he comes from a musical family and loves guitars. We were so proud, however, when he insisted on keeping the U of W shirt!
Next we had our turn at the computer to make a birth certificate for his bunny. We kept asking Jack what he wanted to name his bunny and he kept looking at us like we were crazy. Unfortunately we couldn’t understand what he was saying when we asked that question. (We forgot to bring our interpreter along, but during the video playback it became apparent that he kept saying ‘It’s just a regular bunny.’) So we took it upon ourselves to help Jack name his new friend. It was unanimously decided (by the girls AND Jack) that bunny’s new name would be Bun Bun. Are we a pushy bunch or what?
The Build A Bear portion of our morning took about 13 minutes. Total. Okay, on to lunch. McDonald’s was a bigger hit with Jack. He was more in his element. We had him chatting about all sorts of things (his birthday party, his brother, etc.) and giggling at the girls. Here he is telling us new new age.
The best part of the day, though, had to be when we took him to play on all the climbing toys. Since lunch and Build A Bear went so quickly we had plenty of time for running and jumping and climbing before Joelle came to meet us. I had a great time following him around watching his imagination at work. Jack did get a bit frustrated that I wouldn’t join him on the boat, but I thought, for the sake of the other 2-3 year olds, that I shouldn’t climb on. (Although I was tempted to pull a Leonardo DiCaprio and stand on the front of the boat yelling ‘I’m the king of the world!’)
We had a great time hanging out with little man Jack and we can hardly wait for his brother Henry to go grow old enough for his turn to join the crazy crew!