Happy Birthday William!

I can't believe William is three years old.  He has been an absolute joy from day one.  Even giving birth to him was a joy--William came too fast for me to be in much pain, and it was all over with so quickly, I was left with a profound feeling of amazement that suddenly the precious, sweet baby was mine.  I fell in love with him immediately, and so did Joel.  William was born with hair all over his body, even on his ears, which earned him the nickname "Bear" for a time.  He was also born with deep chocolate eyes, which were midnight and luminous at the same time.  The fact that his beautiful brown eyes were framed by a thick fringe of dark eyelashes made him all the sweeter.  I was sure that no one had ever given birth to a more beautiful baby boy in the whole world.

(a week later and still hairy!)

And now my baby is THREE.  Excuse me while I try to get over the shock.

Nope.  Not over it yet.

It took William a while for us to convince him he was turning three.

"Your birthday is happening soon!" we'd say.  "You're going to be THREE!!!!"

"No I'm not," William would reply, "I'm just going to be bigger."

And then dear William would get irritated when we pressed the issue.

After enough times of this, however, he began to come around.  Now he knows he is three years old.

Our traditional lunch date with Papa helped smooth things over.  William was thrilled.  He never gets to go anywhere with one of us by himself, but he has never complained about it.

They went to Wendy's.  William brought home most of his frosty, and let Everett finish it off, then immediately regretted sharing it.

I kept asking William what he wanted for dinner.  "My Own!" he'd say forthrightly.

"Your own what?  What kind of food do you want to eat?" I'd try to clarify.

"I want. . .my OWN!"  hands raised, voice exuberant, William was as specific as he felt he needed to be.

So we settled on pizza.  And instead of letting everyone have their own, I only made William his own serving.    It seemed a fair request to me.  In a family with four small kids, the value of having your own is not to be understated.

He was too excited to eat it, even with his magical party hat. 

(Joel is hamming it up for the camera.  Or, that is just how is face is.  You decide.)

I served blackberries along with the pizza, forgetting completely that William was only a fan of blackberries the first day we had them.

And Joel is not a fan of pizza with no meat on it.  No, I didn't forget that when I made it.

Presents were fun.  William requested "orange presents."  Orange has been his favorite color since before he turned two.  He also requested a little car or truck.  William can never have enough trucks.  I don't mind buying him some, because I know he will lose many this summer when he buries them in the dirt pile out back.

So each of the kids gave him a little monster truck.

William was thrilled.

I think he could have stopped there and felt perfectly content.

But he also got a sleeping bag and a night-light (which he was surprisingly excited about) from Joel and me. 

(You may notice that our enthusiastic Everett is jumping up and down because he cannot contain his excitement.  What ever would we do without him?) 

AND, an orange balance bike from his grandparents.  We love balance bikes in our family.  Ashley and Everett are both confident on their two-wheelers with no training wheels because of our old balance bike, which is now about to fall apart.  I expect William will take to it as well.

I actually took a video!  It is of William riding his bike in the house.  

Password: bike

And, of course William had an orange cake!  He didn't care what flavor it was, so I made my favorite vanilla recipe and filled it with a cream and mascarpone cheese mixture.  I ate more of it than I should have, but if you're going to have cake, you might as well have good cake, right?

The kids couldn't keep their fingers off.  William didn't even touch his cake; he was too worn out.  He was ready to dig in the next day, however!

I'm glad we got to celebrate William's day.  I'm especially glad I had a chance to be reminded of what a wonderful little person he is to our family.