I took a half day off so Dylan and I could have a birthday “date” day. We had talked about having a special brunch or lunch, but when I offered to take him out, he told me that he just wanted to stay home and play together…so that is just what we did.
Much to Tom’s chagrin, we gave him some crazy mega marble mania thing (“over 330 pieces!!!” the box proclaimed, as if that were a good thing!) but he loves his Quadrilla set and this thing was a woot.com deal AND has a motorized elevator!!!
Dylan immediately became obsessed and I immediately realized this thing was complicated!! I was not building it fast enough–he was so eager to play! While I was struggling to assemble the elevator, he pulled out his Quadrilla set and decided that we just absolutely had to hook the two sets up together. Oh, my gawd, I thought. I nearly gave up on the elevator and suggested we head out to Kaleidoscope to get am (unspoken) “better” marble set, a Quadrilla expansion. But, Dylan was not to be deterred. He encouraged me to make it work…and it finally did!
The integration points were all suggested by Dylan. He impressed me with his creativity and his ability to analyze what might work and what wouldn’t.
We spent hours on this thing…Then, once Taliana was out of school, she, Heather and P. came over to play and wish him happy birthday. We set up the bounce house out in the backyard, but the kids quickly lost interest in it in favor of playing marble mania indoors.
For his birthday dinner, Dylan chose sushi. We get nori sheets and sushi rice and let the kids roll their own.
This was Cameron’s first time at a sushi restaurant (though she can eat nori and rice like there’s no tomorrow!). She enjoyed as well.
After dinner, the kids spied a ladybug in the plants.
The ladybug was a topic of intense conversation.
Even though it was already late, we served the kids celebratory happy birthday ice cream.
Overall, the day was incredibly uneventful with dinner being the most “eventful” activity! But, I am so glad I spent this special one-on-one time with him. He is so patient with Cameron and so undemanding when she’s requiring so much of our attention. At first, I felt a little bad about not having done anything “special” with him during the day, but he told me had a great day and I realized that playing together with no other distractions is exactly what he wanted to do.
