June 21, 2011

Happy Birthday, Ariel! She’s now 4 years old. I was told that 3 ½ is the toughest age, so I’m ready for her behavior to improve dramatically. And…begin! Now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Ariel’s birthday celebration goes on about as long as the NBA playoffs. We had people over last weekend to celebrate, we of course celebrated on her actual birthday, and then the official party is next Saturday. Which is great for her, since this schedule provides multiple ice cream eating opportunities, and that’s just about the most important thing about birthdays at this age. That doesn’t mean we didn’t get her a gift of course, but at least at this age you can get them something silly and small, spend almost no money, and they love it anyway. So we have that going for us. However, that’s just what they would be expecting us to do, so we went the other way, and got her a motorized car that probably has more horsepower than my first Honda accord (and cost more too). Holy-Waste-Of-Money, Batman! But it’s worth it, because she was so excited and happy when she got it that within a few hours of giving it to her she called me an idiot and told her Mom and I she was throwing us in jail. So that was a bit of a set-back.

We took her to a hibachi restaurant for her birthday, decided it would be a nice change of pace from her usual fare of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. She thought for a while about having a melt-down when she realized grilled cheese wasn’t on the menu, but she got through that OK. Shockingly when the cook came out and lit the fire for the hibachi grill, it made both Ariel AND Jasmine immediately burst into tears, so that was impressive. They were both pretty scared of the fire, but once that was gone, they both liked it. Even Jasmine ate, and she doesn’t really eat. So score one for the Far East. Ariel made sure to tell the hibachi grill-master that it was her birthday, which probably would have resonated more with him if he had even a passing understanding of English. She also told the woman sitting at our table that one of her friends has a brother AND a sister, and the woman was suitably impressed of course. How could she not be?

Only 364 days until she turns 5.