Happy Birthday, Peter!

My little boy is two years old today, and it’s not at all weird for me like I think it should be. I guess I’ve been saying Peter is almost two for so long, I feel like it’s about time it’s official. He definitely hit two early, if you know what I mean, but is generally still a sweet, delightful boy.

So here are some things I want to always remember about his second birthday.

He and Benjamin came into our room this morning, Benjamin giddy with excitement and Peter oblivious to what was going on. Paul said “Happy birthday, Peter!” to which Peter replied, “FIRE!” Every time we would ask him what he wanted for his birthday, he’d say candles.

For his birthday cake, I wanted to use raspberries because he loves them so much and they're such a rare treat around here. Then I whipped up some heavy cream for the frosting and used chocolate chips and grasshopper cookies for the details. He loves bugs, and especially ladybugs, so that's what I made him.

Ironically, when the candles came out, Peter started crying and running away from the cake. We had to coerce him to come stand by his cake by “showing” his new monster truck and dump truck the cool ladybug cake and handing him a shovel to dig in. He got into it before long, and was laughing and laughing at the whipped cream beard he had given himself.

We had to intervene when his exuberance led to spitting on the cake.

He wasn’t sure what to do with the first present we gave to him. He started playing with the tissue paper, and we had to show him that there was something even better (better than tissue paper?! yeah right...) inside.

When he finally had it unwrapped, he was beaming. Then, totally unprompted, he came over to me and gave me a tender hug. It was a really heart warming moment.

He’s just like that though, he doesn’t expect much and is delighted by the smallest things. He really is the perfect middle child for our family. We sure love our Peter Julian!