Tommy turned 3 this weekend!  As in previous years, we decided to keep gift-giving to a minimum and so came up with other ways of making his day special.  On Thursday night we went to the grocery store to pick out his “Special Happy Birthday Cereal” (his words).  He chose Cap’n Crunch Berry.  Sugary cereals are a rarity in this house, so this was a huge treat to him.  When he woke up on Friday morning (his  birthday) the first thing he said was “Is it time to eat my Special Happy Birthday Cereal?”  So we got right down to business and munched away on our partially hydrogenated treat.

After breakfast it was time for a Mommy-Tommy date.  We went to Peet’s to get a kids’ hot chocolate and a pumpkin spice latte for Mommy, another rare treat for  both of us.  Then we went Barnes & Noble to pick out a Happy Birthday Book.  Despite many good book suggestions (dare I say ‘pleadings’), he picked out a ‘junk food’ book that contained four pages of holographic images about trucks.  Sigh.  But it was his birthday, so the book was his choice.

After the bookstore, we headed home for a hot dog and french fry lunch (Tommy’s choice of foods).  Mommysettheovenonfire* so we ended up going to a l0cal hot dog joint instead.  Tommy got a hot dog and a WHOLE bag of chips to himself, another big treat, as the boys normally split a small bag of chips.

After a long nap time, it was time for dinner, this time pizza (Birthday Boy’s choice).  After pizza, he opened his present, which was a set of Automoblox.  To say that he loves these cars is an understatement...he is in love with them.

On Saturday we had our family party and got to celebrate Tommy’s birthday with the whole family.  Another part of his gift from us was a fire truck cake that I made.  I made it Friday afternoon and he kept asking to see it in the fridge every 30 minutes. 

He was so very happy during his party when it was time to blow out his candles and eat his fire truck cake.  I think Tommy had a great time on both Friday and Saturday, and best of all (from a parent’s perspective), he felt special doing things, rather than getting things.

* The night before, I had put a few sticks of butter to warm up in the still-warm oven, then forgot about them.  So when I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, it caught the butter on fire and made our house billow smoke.  Mark was home and put the fire out with the extinguisher.  The extinguisher left a fine powder all over the house, so the Happy Birthday Parents had to spend nap time cleaning the house.