Time flies, it's no lie. You just have to do your very best to enjoy the present, and take lots of pictures.
Jordan thoroughly enjoyed her 2nd Birthday; it was action packed. And I think she got it, a little bit, that it was a special day for her. First, she woke up in the very best of moods with a huge smile and mooned for my camera. She picked out her own clothes, and chose a girly dress (see above). Somehow, she knew.
Jamie and I stayed up the night before assembling her new play kitchen, and she fell in love with it right away: moving pots and pans around, turning knobs, "answering" the phone, arranging her cupboards. We only had time to open one other gift before Daddy went to work. I couldn't justify making her a big birthday cake (or cakes) for just the 3 1/2 of us, so I did cupcakes instead. Jordan is always requesting we draw her Elmo ("Melmo"), Ernie ("Knee"), and Bert (just "Bert"), whether it be on the magna-doodle, patio with sidewalk chalk, or paper and crayons. So, she got Sesame Street cupcakes, and she could recognize who was who and make requests on which to eat. I think she eat three that day... Oy.
After I finished cupcake icing, Nana and I took her to ABQ Jump, a huge indoor inflatable jumping gym. It was nuts, so much fun. She wore me out. You have to be at least two to go, they should maybe change that to three. In my opinion, you should also have to be under 30 and be capable of maintaining a 150 heart rate. The kids are wild. the slides are huge, and there was no way Jo could get up there by herself and no way I wasn't going to take her down the slides. So, 90 minutes later we rushed home to meet Daddy for lunch and open presents.
We got distracted by cupcakes instead; presents take a backseat to sugary food with fire in this house. Jordan LOVES to have Happy Birthday sung to her. With Jamie's help, she figured out the whole candle blowing thing. And with no one's help, she figured out how to eat cupcakes.
Somehow she fell asleep on her normal nap schedule. For Birthday dinner I made her favorite: meat loaf ("MEATS!!"). Then, more presents, more cupcakes, more gourmet creations from the play kitchen and the 20 billion pieces of plastic food now scattered about the house.
Saturday, we took her to the Aquarium and the Botanical Gardens. She liked these much better than the zoo. They have this really neat children's garden where everything is super sized. All very creative. You can walk through carrots and a huge pumpkin, ride pony-sized ants, run through a termite mound maze. And the entrance to the garden is through a castle guarded by a smoking dragon. I was impressed; it's a nice place to spend the morning and have a picnic lunch, and not at all crowded.
So that pretty much wraps up Jo's 2nd Birthday. She had a great time, loves everything everyone sent her, and when you ask her how old she is, she says "I Two!!"
