Happy Birthday Oliver!

My labor with Oliver was long and tiring.  On this day four years ago , I was so exhausted and not even the euphoria of having given birth to a child was enough to counteract my desperation for a good night's sleep.  Fast forward four years and Oliver allowed me to sleep in!   I was surprised and thankful when I woke up this morning and saw the clock read 7:30 a.m. and heard not a rustle of activity from either Oliver or Soren's rooms.  It was almost 8:30 a.m. by the time I got out of bed.  Such a "late" morning is unheard of in my world anymore. 

Since Oliver's birthday falls on a Sunday this year, he ended up with a weekend full of fun birthday activities.  In lieu of a birthday party, he invited one of his best buddies, Archer, to spend yesterday afternoon at Como Town, a little amusement park adjacent to the city zoo.  We had visited the zoo earlier this summer and he spotted the "playground," which he was more interested in than the animals.  He was so upset he wasn't allowed to go in, but yesterday he finally got his chance.  He and Archer "raced" cars around a track (top speed was probably 1 mph!), rode a train and laughed themselves dizzy on the spinning teacups.  Jenn and I enjoyed catching up while the kids rode the rides and then the four of us went out to dinner afterward. 

The weather was glorious today - cloudless skies and unseasonably warm - the perfect day to celebrate a four-year-old's birthday with a bouncy castle and a Twins game.  I can thank my neighbors for the bouncy castle. I was out for a walk with Soren when I saw that they still had the bouncy castle up they had rented the day before for a party.  The family was in the yard playing, so we stopped in to say hello.  Chris was at home getting Oliver ready to head out to the last Twins game of the season, so I texted him to come over.  Oliver and Soren loved bouncing around in the castle and going down the huge slide.  I even climbed in there and bounced with them.  Then Chris announced it was time to leave and Oliver wanted to stay so badly that I literally had to drag him out of that thing. 

The trip to the Twins game ultimately beat the experience of the bouncy castle.  Oliver got to ride a train to the game, eat every possible not-good-for-your-health food the stadium has to offer and then run the bases after the game.  He even got to make a sandcastle in the infield.  It was quite the birthday for a four-year-old.