Alice Turns TWO Years Old

By the end of the day we taught Alice to answer "Two!" when asked "How old are you?" But on the morning of her birthday, she answered with "Thank you."

What every parent secretly wants to know is "How does my child compare to her peers?"  When I brought Alice's birthday cupcakes to daycare, I had a rare opportunity for some field observations.  Conclusion: Alice has an advanced cupcake eating technique that the other kids have not yet mastered.  She is definitely above average in cupcake consumption.

I think there are some things in life you can only fully appreciate at the right age.  I got Alice a helium balloon for her birthday, and she loved it.  She carried it around for three days straight until she accidentally popped it and experienced the first tragedy of her young life.  She cried for about ten minutes over her lost love, and is still talking about it days later.

Alice had to wait a moment while I brought all the birthday presents out, so she started out in tears. The irony was, once she opened the first two presents, she didn't care about anything else, and we spent the rest of the evening trying to coax her into opening more. It's four days after her birthday and there are two presents she still hasn't opened. We will wait until a rainy day to bring them out.

We'd bought Alice a few Hot Wheels cars at the grocery store over the last year, and we both came to the conclusion that she needed some tracks (to keep her from driving them on the walls and such).  Turned out to be a great gift--she loves them.

We sang the song (badly) and brought out the cake, but then Alice had some trouble with blowing out candles. We had to crop out the four minutes of coaching Zac did. See "Birthday Cake Part 2" for the stunning conclusion.

Four minutes after the end of "Birthday Cake Part 1,"....