Let the Birthday Begin

It is important to celebrate a birthday in style. Especially when last week didn't go so well (I had many late nights and even managed to get home so late as to not see Penny at all for a whole day), we had to seriously spice it up this week. So the birthday celebrations began when Amanda and my dad arrived from Ohio on Friday. They got home before I did, so Penny got to have some serious fun catching up on old tickle bugs with Aunt Amanda. Then on Saturday, everyone took me to work, where I rapidly abandoned them to make my final preparations for our big Halloween party. The day started off so well, with Penny thrilled to have so many family members all around. Then I disappeared to get some work done, Dan went home to go get the Halloween costume I'd forgotten (doh!) and Penny's ideal day seemed to be going downhill fast. By lunchtime we were all together again and had a lovely meal together in the cafe. Afterward, the crew headed off for a driving tour of Manhattan (Penny caught a lovely three-hour nap in the car seat through that portion of the program). I got home from work around midnight - earlier than expected because my spiffy spouse picked me up from the ferry.

The weekend improved on Sunday. Amanda and Dad pulled out some exciting birthday presents for Penny. She now has her first John Deere tractor and several farm animals to care for. She's quite fond of making all their noises for them. I remember going out to Great Uncle Phil's farm in Indiana and the best toys were his John Deere farm implements. He had everything - tractor, plow, conveyor, silo, tiller - ok, those are all the ones I know names for. They were metal and they all were just mini versions of the real things. So we were visiting a farm and we could actually pretend to do all the big machinery tasks that they actually do on a farm. Pretty cool. So Penny's on her way to knowing where her food comes from. Aunt Amanda got Penny a 20-sided die to "help with her counting" and maybe get her ready for role playing games. She also gave her a stuffed Stegosaurus, which goes nicely with Penny's favorite bedtime story these days: "Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp."

Sunday continued to be awesome because both Dan and I were home to play with her all day. Then I've got today as my regular day off, Election Day off and a bit of Wednesday off to make up for some of the ridiculous hours for the Halloween party. I am glad to get some time off to spend birthday time with Penny. However, it's going to really suck going back to the office with all the junk piled up from being out so much. Plus, we're holding a little party on Saturday for Penny for which I had to switch my usual work schedule. I am now working on NYC Marathon day. Ugh! The Verrazano closes that day because it's the only way to have the race go to all five boroughs of NYC. So...to get to work I'll be taking the ferry and a whole bunch of delayed trains. Wish me luck on that one.

Just a fun picture of Penny and Nanna in spinning class.