42 Months

Around our house, a half birthday is pretty important. We have been honing the tradition year over year. This year, since Jeremy and I decided to stop buying birthday gifts and throwing parties and just letting the party be the gift, we added a small shopping trip to buy the "un-birthday" girl a special gift.

(My un-birthday gift, by the way, seems to be the best family picture we've taken since Sydney was old enough to know to look away from the camera.)

We started the day at Monument with coffee, of course. Sydney still enjoys a cup of decaf, cooled with ice cubes, a little bit of cream and one Splenda.

After Monument, we drove down the the Austin Nature Center -- one of Sydney's most favorite places to go.

Well, at least that was the plan. It turns out that they have different hours on Sundays. When I saw the "12n" I looked at Jeremy and asked what time it was. The answer? 10:10. Oops.

Oh, well. On to plan B... going to the Riverside park to play with the fountains was the original plan for after the Nature Center, so it was no big deal to go there first.

At least we thought it would be no big deal....

Hmmm. Plan C was the Children's Museum, but the un-birthday girl vetoed that because of the probability of other screaming children, so we settled on Zilker Park.

It was extremely easy to spend an hour at the playground and then walking along Barton Springs.

Soon enough, it was noon, and we were back at the Nature Center. Sydney has brought a bucket with her, you see. Her daddy assumed that the bucket was for the sand at the Dino Pit, but Sydney had made her plan clear to me.

She brought that bucket to fill up with water.

She scooped water into the bucket, splashed around, jumped in the water, and overall, had a super fun time.
I cannot tell you how many children passed by us and how many parents had to say, "No, you can't get all wet. I didn't bring a change of clothes."

Well. I did.

So after the water play was over, both kids got into dry clothes and we settled down in the part of the Nature Center that Sydney calls "Prince John's Backyard" for a snack.

At one point, a family with three boys, one older than Sydney, one Sydney's age, and one Jack's age came into "Prince John's Backyard" and asked "what can we do here?" Their mom looked around at the view and said, "just look." Then Sydney asked the dad what the baby's name was. She then told him that her baby was called "Jack-a-baby" and that he is her "great brother." The look on that mom's face was priceless. "I wish my boys felt that way about their little brother," she said.

I don't know what I have or haven't done to get Sydney to that place, but I am so happy that she feels that way about her brother right now.

After the snack, we went to play in the sand pit. This part was very hard for me since the last time we were there, it was Uncle James and Grandpa playing in the sand pit with Sydney, but I made the point to bring up Uncle James and remind Sydney of which dinosaur he and Grandpa had dug up for her and Will. Her memories of her uncle are so important to me.

I thought we were ready to go after the dino pit, but Sydney wanted to see the animals and then she also wanted to look around inside, and since it is her half-birthday, I let her.

On the way out, she found this caterpillar and the whole image of her and the caterpillar looking eye to eye is very reminiscent of Labyrinth for me. "If she'd 'ave kept on goin' down that way she'd 'ave gone straight to that castle." Anyway.

We drove the super-long-way-so-the-kids-can-nap-in-the-car route back to the north side of town and stopped at the toy store. Sydney has been playing with the Calico Critters (that would be Sylvanian Families to all you children of the 80's) there for almost two years. I gave her my Maple Town (Syvanian Family knock-offs also from the 80's) Bear family for Christmas, but this was her first brand-new-she-picked-them-out-all-herself Calico Critters.

She and I enjoyed playing with the dollhouse in the store. I actually have one of these in a box in the garage for her, waiting for Christmas (Ebay rocks), so it's nice to see that it is still her favorite toy at this toy store.

She even negotiated the privilege of taking her new Cat Family into Red Robin where we went for lunch.
Because of course all epic Nolen days end with a milk shake. Yum.

Happy 42 month birthday Sydney!