Tree!

So Connor turned the big 3 this past weekend. Friday, Steph and I went to his school to do the whole cake-n-ice cream thing with his class. It was fun sitting at the table with Connor and his friends, in those little chairs that are 10 inches off the ground. Christian, the ham of the table, amused us by applying the ice cream to his nose and cheeks like makeup. There's something about the way that kid talks that really cracks me up-- he's a born comedian. Of course, Connor inspires a gut laugh on a regular basis too.



After that, Steph went back to work, but I took Connor to his first movie-- Cars. He has been going on about "the movie where the cars talk" for weeks now. I guess the promo blitz did him in. Anyhoo, he was beside himself. He loved it. (Me too-- worth it for adult viewing.) He paid attention for the entire 2 hours. We only had two problems-- one, he kep getting swallowed up by the movie theater chairs, so he spent lots of the movie on my lap. And he ain't light anymore. And two, he was so excited that he was... loud on several occasions. He'd yell at me, at the top of his lungs, "DADDY, YOU SEE THAT CAR?????" with a corresponding volume drop on the movie to dead silence in between the "YOU" and "SEE." I actually saw a couple in front of us give dirty looks and eventually move to the other side of the theater. (I should add that they didn't have kids.) Yeah, so now I'm "that parent" in the movie theater who can't control his kids. Whatya gonna do? Anyway, let's just say that "Cars" has been a BIG part of our lives since then.

The next day (his actual birthday), we started the day with breakfast in bed, which was a big hit on Father's Day a few weeks ago. (Acually, we still have crumbs in the bed from that...) Then, we took a trip to the Peabody Park sprayground. I'm ashamed to say, this was Connor's first trip there. (I could write some long-winded excuse about living in east Memphis, but I'll just leave it.) After about a half hour of uncertainty about getting wet, he dove in and had a blast.





After he developed a good case of raisin fingers, we went home to greet Mimi and Bwana, who had just arrived for the big day. Grammy, Tiff and Cullen joined us for a frenzy of consumerism, mostly directed toward broadening Connor's transportation choices-- a bike, a Razer scooter, and roller skates. The skates were especially funny-- he of course couldn't even stand up in them, but it was serious business to him. As we all giggled at his spaghetti legs, he scolded us all with a "DON'T LAUGH!"

Chloe participated too:



After that, there was the usual ritual of us all standing around watching Connor make a huge mess with his cake and ice cream. Including taking the car for a few laps around the top of the cake.



Wait, do I really have a three-year-old? Ohhh jeezus, Mary and Joseph, my sciatica...