Happy Birthday, Dear Jack

Jack rang in his second birthday today with some of his favorite meals and loved family members. He had blueberry pancakes & scrambled eggs for breakfast, peanut butter & jelly sandwich and chickpeas for lunch, and spaghetti & meatballs for dinner. Late this afternoon, we drove up to Big Rapids to have a celebratory birthday evening with my parents and Trevor & Stephanie, and with Mick's mum who has been visiting for the past week.

We attempted to open presents but Jack was a bit overwhelmed and only got about half-way through, so we'll finish tomorrow. He's very diligent about throwing every scrap of paper and tape right into the trash can before he proceeds unwrapping. It's quite amusing.

I made him a soccer ball cake which, thankfully, he was able to identify.

Trevor: Jack, what is that (pointing to cake)?
Jack: CAKE!
Trevor: But what does it look like?
Jack: A ball!
Trevor: What kind of ball?
Jack: FOOTBALL! (Proper English response)

He loved looking at the cake, especially when lit. In fact, we had to light it again after he (I) blew out the candles the first time.

However, when he tried the cake, he decided it was disgusting (bad choice on my part I guess for selfishly making the dark chocolate cake, rather than the more mild-flavored milk chocolate version) and immediately spit it out. This isn't the greatest picture, but it captures a bit of what happened. He did enjoy three (small) servings of vanilla ice cream though.


Mick and I had an enjoyable bedtime with Jack, each reading him a story and cuddling with him as he drank his milk. How it has been two years since he came into our lives is beyond me.

Last year, I couldn't sing Happy Birthday without crying every time I got to the "dear Jack" line. This year, I was SO proud of myself for singing multiple times to him today without once getting teary-eyed. However, as soon as I finished reading his bedtime story, his lullaby mix on the iPod began playing "You Are My Sunshine" and that's when the waterworks started. That was the very first song I sang to Jack when we got home from the hospital when he was three-days-old. How time flies.