Michael's Bday

Michael's third birthday got a little overshadowed by our move. My strongest memory of the actual day centers around the worst grocery shopping trip of my life that took - seriously - four hours. (It involved an ridiculously overcrowded store, trying to figure out what to buy in Hebrew, Michael getting mauled by five-ton shopping carts pushed by some pretty aggressive shoppers, and losing the car in the parking lot.) At the end of the day we did end up going to one of the most amazing parks ever and eating some cake, but I still felt bad about the bad part of the day. So I figured I'd try to help him make some new friends here by throwing him a birthday party 10 days later, once I could manage it.

 He was happy as a lark. We did a treasure hunt, beach ball tag, and a played in a room full of balloons. I'm sad I didn't take a picture because it was pretty awesome. We have a small sunroom where I rigged three table clothes to hang a couple feet over their heads and we loaded them up with balloons. They had fun hitting it with long balloons from underneath to knock them out and then played around in a room full of balloons. It was really fun the night before to watch SNL while blowing up all those balloons. I got super light headed and the jokes have never been funnier.

Of all Michael's birthday presents, I think he has spent the most time playing with the abacus. It's like he is kissing up. It makes me so happy that he has such interest to do math with me. He has always had a natural fascination with letters and numbers so he knows a ridiculous amount (I think) for his age.