Derrick's Third Birthday

So for the past several months I've been saying things like, "back when Derrick was two," or "Derrick did that when he was two."  And then I'll realize, "wait, Derrick is STILL two."  I guess that's what happens when your kid is the size of a four year old.  

Today Derrick finally turned three.  Last year his second birthday was pretty awful.  He woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was grumpy most of the day.  He didn't want to play with his presents, he didn't want to eat, he just wanted to be grumpy.  It was hard because I'd put so much effort into his birthday.  So this year I decided to just focus on doing the few things he'd liked last year.  

The first thing was candles. About the only birthday related thing he'd liked last year was blowing out candles.  We started our tradition of blowing candles out over and over again on his birthday last year.  He loves to watch the video of him blowing out his candles.  He calls it something like, "Da Di Da Da" (Derricks' birthday cake.)  Every time we sing Happy Birthday he will make a blowing sound at the end.  

So when we went grocery shopping yesterday I handed him a package of candles.  He held on to them pretty much the of the rest of the day.  He called them "Day-ah" which I think was a mash up of Birthday Candles.

He even went to sleep holding them.

 During naptime the girls and I worked on his cake.  My sister gave me a train engine shaped pan so I was going to bake a cake in that.  But then I had the genius idea to make rice crispy treats and put those into the pan.  That worked really well and was so much easier than worrying about the cake.  I did use a cake mix to make two train car shaped cakes with bread pans.

The girls helped me frost the engine.  They wanted it blue like Thomas the Train.  I frosted the rest of the cakes after all the kids were in bed.  I had fun decorating it with leftover candies. My latest Netflix show is 30 Rock so I watched that while working on the cake.  What's kind of funny is that Derrick and I used to stay up and watch 30 Rock when he was a newborn and when Brandon was at basic training.  I remember a lot of the episodes from those late night parties with my buddy.

 Last year everything went south when Derrick woke up because I was trying to force him to experience his birthday.  This year I decided to just let it happen.  I put balloons out because I knew he liked those, but other than that I didn't have any other birthday stuff out.  When he woke up Derrick went right to his train and played with that for a little bit.

 Then he asked to watch "Hul."  Which means the last 20 or so minutes of the Avengers movie.  Derrick has recently picked up an obsession with the Hulk.  He likes to roar along with him.  It reminds me of when Lydia was two and loved the Hulk.  (She called him "Huck.")

 I tried to get a picture of Derrick's grin when he watches the Hulk.  He has these cute little dimples that show up when he's truly enjoying something. You can see that he's still hanging onto the candles.

 Eventually Derrick wanted breakfast and all the other kids followed him into the kitchen where they all had cheerios. Derrick wanted to watch the movie while he ate.  (This is pretty normal during breakfast.)

 And then it was back to playing with the train and watching the Avengers.

I figured this was a good chance to get the cake ready so I hurried and set it up.  Derrick was really excited to blow out the candles.  Here is a video of that.  (The girls blew out the candles for him, but he was still happy.)

 Lydia burned herself on the candle's wax so I hurried to get the baking soda to take out the heat. (It works like magic.)  And then we cut the cake.

 Someone remembered that we needed birthday hats (probably Charlotte, she loves hats).  I had them out I just forgot to have everyone wear them so I hurried and helped everyone put them on.  I was really impressed that Derrick wanted to wear one.

 He took it off after a little while though.  I made sure I had two match books handy and we spent a while lighting the candles and blowing them out.  Everyone got turns to blow out candles, but Derrick got the most turns. He was so happy.

 The kids mostly just licked the frosting off the cake and ate the candy.  I threw away the bare pieces.  That's one reason I like buying cheap cake mix - I can throw it away without feeling like I need to eat it.

I helped everyone get cleaned off and then we went into the living room and gave Derrick his presents.  I'd bought him two train books.

He was so excited and looked at both of them for a long time.  

 Around 10:15, Courtney, Derricks speech therapist came for their last therapy session.  Now that Derrick is three he is no longer eligible for ECI.  Since we are moving I'm not going to worry about finding a new therapist until after we are settled in Alabama.  And even then I might just wait until he goes to pre-school in the fall.  We'll see.

Courtney has been a good therapist.  Derrick has always been really comfortable with her.  We are all going to miss her very much.

 The kids all had major sugar crashes during therapy.  They were all whiny and clingy and it was super annoying.  I also started feeling weird.  I was light headed and just felt weak.  I had been planning to take the kids to a park or something, but I didn't feel up to it.  So we just stayed home.  The kids had hot dogs for lunch (Derrick's favorite food).and then the kids played in the back yard while I wrote a letter to Brandon.

Later Derrick and Veronica both took naps and I did too.  Charlotte and Lydia entertained each other.  (They are so good together.)

I woke up feeling better, but Derrick woke up super grumpy.  For a while there is was just like his birthday last year.  Finally I got him to tell me that he wanted to watch Dumbo (bum-boh) so I turned that on with Netflix.  He calmed down for that.

Later in the evening we had a visit from some of the Young Women in our ward.  Yesterday one of their leaders asked if they could come do service for me.  Of course I said yes.  I had them wash my walls and windows.  One of them did my dishes, and another weeded my front flower garden.  It was super nice.

 Then they did even more service by helping to eat the rest of the birthday cake.  That was great.  

After they left I put the kids to bed.  Derrick went down easily, but later I heard him crying.  He'd gotten his arm stuck in the bars of his crib (which he still hasn't tried to climb out of yet).  I got him free and then rocked him in the rocking chair for a while.  He liked that and smiled at me with his dimple showing smile.  I thought about how it so many ways he is my hardest child.  He's difficult to understand and he gets frustrated easily.  But in so many other ways he's my easiest child.  If you know what he likes he is easy to make happy.

A few weeks ago he started mimicking me when I said "I love you."  I put him back into his bed and my heart melted when he repeated, "I-you."  No matter how old he gets he'll always be my little boy.