It's my birthday!

Quentin celebrated his second birthday yesterday but before we get into that we need to address the ice falling from the sky outside.  Yes, it's snowing.  It's exactly how I remember seeing it too.  It's cold.  It's windy and snow in real life looks exactly like the white stuff on TV.  We used to make fun of those people shoveling out in the cold as we watched from our couch clad only in our flip flops and shorts basking in the 80 degree sunshine.  Now, we are those people.  I guess that's irony, payback or karma.  Take your pick.  All I know is I keep looking at my driveway and I keep looking for a snow blower and back to the driveway and hello Mr. Snow blower?  Where are you?  Um, Santa, if you are listening...  I wasn't a math major but the driveway looks like an acre to me.  I might actually have to buy a shovel soon.  I am holding out hope some neighbor kid will stop by and do the whole thing for $5.  C'mon on neighborhood kid!

Enough about the weather.  It could turn out to be a balmy 65 tomorrow and maybe it will all melt before our 5 am wake up call.  Seriously, it could happen.  Quinny had his big bash on Saturday to coincide with the Badgers putting down another whooping on a Big Ten opponent.  I won't even brag about how it was the second most successful offensive output in the history of the Big Ten in a single season.  In case anyone was wondering Quinny was kind enough to break out the 19 inch black and white TV for the Iowa game in the basement for any fans that wanted to watch the mighty, well that may be the overstatement of the year, Hawkeyes lose to the Gophers. So it goes.  There was a lot of "next year" talk. Or was it next century?  

I digress. Unfortunately the Spiegelhoff clan was feverish and unable to make the trip.  If the fever breaks and that appears to be a pretty big if right now they will come down this weekend to celebrate.  Carrie's family was nicely represented with Grandma's and Grandpa's, Great Grandma's and Grandpa's, aunts, uncles and several cousins.  We had a full house to celebrate the big 0-2.  

For the first time Quinny really enjoyed opening up his gifts (plural).  The first thing he opened was a recorder.  You remember, like the one they gave you in music class when you were six.  It took him a few minutes to figure it out but then we had are very own Zamfir.  Don't even tell me you don't own some Zamfir CD's.  He's like Michael Bolton.  You won't admit it, but he's in your collection.  Even after mastering the recorder he still managed to open up gifts.  Usually he just falls in love with the first one and loses interest in the remaining gifts.  He received a soccer goal that encourages you to shoot accurately and "Score!"  This is a creative way to get that kicking under control.  No more kicking Lucky - hopefully. He received some books, cars, a sweet dump truck construction vehicle, a fire station, X-mas PJs, CD's and a shiny new Radio Flyer red bike. 

I thought he would be able to pedal the bike but no such luck.  It's adjustable so he can grow with it and he's much too big for the closest setting so that's not the issue.  We wanted one with a low center of gravity after reading reviews about two year olds taking tumbles.  I'm not one of those wussy parents.  I'm all for skinned knees and falling off bikes.  Helmets?  Really?  I mean we never had helmets and somehow managed to survive but I figure if today they build a better mouse trap than let's go with that one.  Well, the reviews forgot a crucial part.  Someone has to push that two year old while "riding" his new bike.  In that regard a low center of gravity equals Christmas at the Chiropractor.  Yowsers!  Of course he loves the thing and wants to ride in it every free moment, which means I'm 18 inches off the ground pushing him all over tarnation.  Being father of the year is not as easy as it looks. I am really really trying to get him to pedal.  "Just push with your legs buddy.  Yup, here, let me push your knees.  Got it?  What?  No, no, push with your legs.  Oh, man!?  Dude, c'mon just pedal.  You got it.  No?"  Hopefully he'll pick it up soon or I'm going to need back surgery.  One way or the other I guess the problem will be solved.  It is shiny.  For Christmas I think he needs a little bell or horn to go on the handle bars and maybe some streamers. 

After the gift opening we moved on to the monkey cake.  Carrie has a friend that made it and they did an excellent job.  It was the spitting image of the napkins, plates and balloons.  It took the Qster a few minutes to warm up to the singing but once his name was inserted it was all smiles and he was loving the attention.  He didn't know how to blow out the candles but after a few tries he blew it out.  He then pounded several pieces of cake.  He wasn't too interested in the ice cream, but loved the cake.  After that the Badgers wrapped up their Rose Bowl bid scoring 70 on Northwestern (that's a shame!) the guests filed out leaving Q to his new gifts to play with.

Since Saturday wasn't his actual birthday Carrie kept him home from school on Monday.  Who goes to school on their birthday?  Kids, tell you parents it's a national hooky day.  He started by getting up at 1am.  Yup!  One doesn't want to waste time when it's their birthday for only 24 hours.  I didn't fall asleep until after midnight so I was out cold.  By the time I woke up he was screaming bloody murder.  He was just screaming at the top of his lungs, "DADDY, DADDY, DAAAAAADDDDDDYYYYY!!!!!"  I got over there and I couldn't figure out what his deal was. After about 20 minutes I took him into our bed where he "hung out" for the next two hours "trying" to fall back asleep.  Around 4 he hit the sack and that screwed me up so I woke up super late for work and sprinted out of the house so I didn't get to give him a good happy birthday good bye.  After lounging the early morning hours away Carrie made him some pancakes with candles.  At this point he's getting pretty good at blowing them out. 

After breakfast Carrie tried to get him dressed.  He wasn't into that.  Nope, he decided he was going to wear his doggie jammies all day.  By the time I got home from work he's still sporting the doggie PJ's.  Carrie whipped up turkey dish number 417 so we had a little family feast for dinner.  This bird just won't die!  Of course we had to sing happy birthday again with the left over cake.  By this point Quinny was really into blowing out the candle.  I must have lit that thing six or seven times.  "I did it! One more! One more!"  Overall we had a great birthday.  It was nice to spend it with family and I think he really enjoyed it.  This morning he was still wearing the same PJ's.  Into the wash they went.  He finally took them off.

Here are a few pics from the birthday bash.