Best Library Finds (6)

One Gorilla is beautifully illustrated. Every page has a different group of primates. This book would be a real winner for an animal lover. Beckett likes it too, and he isn't an animal fanatic.

Trainstop is a wordless picture book. This is our second time checking it out from the library, and I love the way the book illustrates imagination. It's a good little introduction to fantasy as well. This is definitely a good pick for train lovers.

Little Owl Lost is my favorite of the bunch and perhaps Beckett's as well. I love just about everything about this book: the story, the illustrations, the colors, the font. The design is basically perfect. Little Owl falls from his nest and a squirrel and a frog help him find his mama.

Almost 4

It's not Beckett's official birthday yet, but we've already celebrated. We decided to hold Beckett's birthday a little early this year. The kid has been 90% potty trained for quite some time, but he refused to wear underwear until his birthday. We kept telling him that he was capable of wearing underwear, and he would reply, "I wear underwear for my birthday." So we had his birthday. We are tricky like that and have the advantage of being able to tell time and understand the calendar.

The night before the birthday celebration I told Beckett the next day was a very special day for him, and he said, "Is it my birthday?" On the morning of his "birthday" Beckett came downstairs and said first thing, "It's my birthday. I need to wear underwear." So we opened a present with underwear bright and early and never looked back.

Beckett's only request for his birthday was that he have a yellow cake. Yellow is his favorite color, and I'm pretty sure he meant the frosting should be yellow because he knows about decorating cakes but not about different flavors of cakes. Beckett helped me make the cake. I made yummy chocolate frosting and then we decorated it with the yellow frosting.

Turning four is awesome. Everything was so exciting; the presents (even the present of pajamas and underwear), the cake, the candles. I kind of wish it could be Beckett's birthday more often. He was so happy and cheerful all day long. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about four. I can already see Beckett changing back into the cute kid we knew before he morphed into a demon 3-year-old.

We had our good friends and neighbors over for cake and ice cream. A couple days later I took a picture of the 4-year-old friends (and little sister) under the 4 banner.

After the party Nate and Felix took naps, and I took Beckett out for a photo shoot. Most of the pictures turned out pretty ridiculous:

 But we got a couple of kind of good ones.

 Happy birthday Beckett. I'm so glad you are 4 (almost).

Boys

JoLee is in NYC this weekend at Book Expo America with her friend Jessica. I'm alone with the two boys doing boy stuff.

The first night, Friday, did not go so well. I needed to get Beckett some underwear, so we went to Target. The car radio was tuned into Delilah's, "Girls night out". Then I found out that all the 4-year-old underwear was sold out. Meanwhile Felix took an interest in a My Little Pony doll. Then I noticed all the glazed looks on the faces of the other dudes in the store. That's when I realized that buying underwear at the Target was no way to spend a Friday night. We promptly headed to the monster playground where Felix fell down and skinned his knee. At that point, things were starting to look up for us boys.

On Saturday we went to the skills park at Rockburn and ran through the BMX track. Beckett was quite skilled at the curves and the jumps (while on foot). We also hiked some of the trails. Then we went to my office and drank soda, played pool, and made photo copies of our hands. We rounded off the night with a trip to Costco where we ate hot dogs, pizza, and cookies. On our way home we listened to "The Boys" from the Big River soundtrack and "Moves Like Jagger" from Maroon 5 (a.k.a the move-it song); that's when Beckett said, "I no miss Mommy". Of course he also said, "Daddy is nicer than Mommy" and "Daddy sings better than Mommy", which can't possibly be true. That guy is going to be a great salesman if he keeps that up. Felix doesn't talk, so I can't say for sure if he misses mom or not, but he did look content with all that chocolate covering his face.


On Sunday morning we had a breakthrough. Beckett pee'd at the toilet standing up. I told him the previous night that I would buy him a new train app on the iPad if he would pee standing up. The next morning I awoke to cheers of ,"I did it!" Beckett's week spot is obviously the iPad. I explained to him that now he can pee anywhere -- school, the park, church, even dad's office. He liked that idea a lot.

In summary, I'd say our boys weekend was really successful. We had a lot of fun without actually breaking anything. Here is a partial summary by the numbers:

• Head wounds: 3
• Scraped knees: 1
• Pizza meals eaten: 4
• Hours playing the iPad: not quantified
• Late nights playing video games: 1
• Phone calls to Mom: 2
• Bathroom breakthroughs: 1