IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY!!!
I don't usually make a big deal about my birthday, but N certainly does. I took a half day on Friday because BBZ's school was closed and N was home with him. I walked in the house and was presented with a table full of birthday presents. My birthday wasn't until Sunday! We don't really follow the gift-giving rules aorund here. It's hard for us to wait until real holidays to give presents, so birthdays usually do come a few days early. He and BBZ bought me a can opener, a tile that BBZ painted, a photo collage frame for the hallway, and a beautiful dress from Ann Taylor Loft. The lady at Ann Taylor convinced N to buy me a petite because he told her that I was her size, so the dress he wanted to buy me he couldn't get because it didn't come in petite. I tried on the one he bought and it wasn't quite right since I prefer regular size dresses. So we ventured out to Ann T and I tried on the dress N wanted to buy me and loved it! So returned the other one and got the one he planned to buy anyway.
Then we headed to the Zoo! They were open late for some music and evening fun so weheaded there and took advantage of the small crowd. The highway was backed up everytime we drove by the rest of the weekend so I think we made the best choice to go on Friday. We parked across the highway from the Zoo and walked through the turtle playground, which is basically just a park with huge concrete turtles to play and climb on. BBZ loved it! While we were climbing we walked over a hill and I saw a young woman with her baby girl, who was about 3-4 months old. I could tell by the way she was holding her that she was about to feed her. I looked at the stroller that was nearby and didn't see a bottle. I saw her fidget a little and keep looking around. I could tell that she needed to nurse her baby, and flashed back to this moment, when I was so worried about nursing at a park during a festival. That feeling of knowing my baby needed to eat, not wanting to feed her in my car, feeling like I was alone and then suddenly having someone around and worrying about nursing in public. I walked by this young woman and said "isn't it a beautiful day to nurse outside?" She said, "I was going to go in my car, but it's so pretty out here". I told her that it is too nice and too natural to hide nursing her baby in a car. We walked around some more and when we walked back by she was sitting quietly nursing her child. She fit more in to the park we were in than the concrete turtles for which it was named. I hope that her experience was much like mine was when I sat on that bench and felt liberated. Empowered. Perfectly comfortable nursing my child in public.
So the Zoo was wonderful and BBZ had a blast. We woke up early on Saturday and started the next phase of our wonderful weekend. We had breakfast and headed downtown to the Botanical Gardens for the Japanese Festival. The weather was better than perfect and there were so many fun things for all of us to do! There's a pond with HUGE Koi fish that BBZ had fun feeding. There is a children's garden with a tree house and musical instruments and a place for a puppet show and a slide and lots of other things that little boys love. We also ate some sushi and edemame while sitting in a rose garden. It was a lovely day. Then we headed home and laid the little one down for a nap. When he woke up ready to go, we went to our friend's house for a BBQ. They had some old friends over and it was nice to chat with new friends and old ones.
On Sunday, N and BBZ and I stayed in bed watching TV and enjoying each other's company. N went and bought donuts and we all had a nice relaxing breakfast. We had a big day ahead! After an early nap for the little man, we hopped on a metro train and headed downtown for the Blues Fest. For some reason, N and I cannot understand that a little boy is probably not interested in sitting on a blanket and listening to blues music. We each took turns walking down to the river to throw rocks and see horses and helicopters. Who wouldn't rather do that than listen to blues music anyway?
Considering how cranky BBZ was, he did remarkably well. He hasn't been sleeping that great and after a trip to the doctor last week that resulted no ear infection and likely teething. He also took a nasty fall at our friend's BBQ that made his mouth bleed. Once we were on the train he and N were laughing and playing and I actually got a good look in there. All 4 of his molars are trying to hard to push through and they are red and swollen. I also saw that it was his tongue that was bleeding the night before. So just to push our luck, we took our teething little boy back onto the metro train and stopped off at the Greek festival. We had some delicious greek food and headed home for a relaxing Sunday evening.
Today we cleaned our house from top to bottom to get ready for N's family and some friends to come by. N made some delicious BBQ and we ate and visited and watched the kids play. BBZ only slept 30 minutes today, so he was exhausted by the time bedtime came around. He loved singing happy birthday to me and helping me blow out the candles and opening my presents. I guess it is good practice for his birthday, which is just about 2 weeks away! Weekends this great make it nearly impossible to feel good about going back to work tomorrow :(
Happy Monday!
