What a DAY!

It's been an amazing St. Patrick's Day for sure.

First and foremost of course is that today Nicky turned three. He's gotten so big, so fast. It's amazing watching him grow up right before our eyes. I haven't gotten around to doing my video montage this year with grad school and everything, but you can be sure I'll subject you to it sooner or later. ;)

For his birthday we're throwing his party this coming weekend. We're having a Bob the Builder/Construction themed party, and he's going to have a house full of people. We'll have plenty of photos of that I'm sure, but of course we had to do something today to celebrate his actual birthday too.

So this morning daddy and Nicky stopped by Publix and picked up some St. Patrick's Day cupcakes to share with his class. Tom called me to tell me it was the second easiest dropoff ever. When he left Nicky was wearing a birthday crown and had already had a round of Happy Birthday sung to him. Tom said he was grinning ear to ear.

While he was at school, Tom was going to pick up his birthday present, but then decided it might be more fun for Nicky to pick it out himself. So instead Tom went home to await the delivery of our new washer and dryer. Yes, that's right. A new washer and dryer because our washer blew up (or really, blew down, cause that's the direction all the water went) last Thursday night. Friday we orchestrated the Great Washer/Dryer Purchase of 2009 and they were delivered today. Tom is in Laundry Heaven right now. He actually told me he'd bring them to bed to sleep with them if they weren't so difficult to move.

This evening, Tom picked up Nicky at school and me at work. Nicky was still wearing his birthday crown when I got in the car. And eating a shamrock cookie. He was also so strung out from sugar overload and no nap that I thought about maybe changing our evening plans, but we decided to go for it. Heck, you're only 3 once.

So we took Nicky out to the Macaroni Grill (where you can color the paper covering the tables). He had the macaroni and cheese which to our surprise he actually enjoyed eating. He was a little wired, but Tom took him for a walk while we waited for our food and that helped. He also got to open his little presents at the table and play with them. He got the airplane and helicopter, and then the matchbox set of construction vehicles. He really loved those.



After dinner they came to sing Happy Birthday to him and our waitress let him blow the candle out twice. He refused to eat any of the chocolate cake though. Silly boy must take after his mommy and just isn't that into chocolate. Instead he kept eating his macaroni and cheese for a bit.



After dinner we went to get his big present for the day. We went to Petsmart to buy him his fish. He'd been talking about getting a fish for some time now, and I'd actually already planned the ivy bowl for the fish, but we decided to let him go all out and pick a fish, bowl, rocks and plant. He picked a nice red beta and we gathered all the accouterments needed to give this fish a nice home. By this time Nicky was pretty well fried and REALLY needed to get home and go to sleep.

He sang and babbled like he'd been out drinking green beer with the rest of the town all the way home. Something about cupcakes and Bob the Builder and helicopters.

Once we got home he declared he wouldn't be taking a bath tonight, so we told him that was fine, but he'd be taking one tomorrow in the morning. He doesn't have the vocabulary to fight that argument yet since his only answer is "not today!" and we're all "okay, not today, tomorrow!"

But the REAL challenge of the day was yet to come.

See, when Tom took Nicky to the pediatrician about his ears (the first time, because we just had to take him again Sunday and he has ANOTHER ear infection now) the doctor showed Tom that it's time for the binkies to go because they're starting to affect his teeth. Well, we'd known it was getting close, so we decided that we'd make the transition clean at age 3. We hung a calendar in Nicky's room at the start of March, and every day we mark off the day. I had his birthday on there, and the day before his birthday was marked with a picture of a binky as the Last Day of Binkies. We'd talk about it every night before bed. That his birthday was coming up, and he was going to be three years old, and when you're three you don't have binkies anymore, because binkies are for babies, and when you're three years old you're a big boy...etc. I gradually started throwing away the binkies as I found them over the week before his birthday and we'd gotten him down to four binkies last night.

So tonight was The Night Of No Binkies. And Lo, it was Horrible. There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth. And the Daddy did hide in the den from the terror of it all. And there was a Great Guilt across the household. But the Mommy did persevere in her unwaveringness and did empathize and talk sweetly and kindly to the Boy With No Binkies. And he did fall asleep in her arms with the help of Benadryl.* (Thank you to the makers of Benadryl who had the foresight to put it into a tasty little chewable. I love you more than you know.)

And there you have it. A heck of a day.

But wait. There is YET MORE!

Because beyond the birthday. Beyond the addition of one more pet to our household. Beyond the milestone of the first binkyless night EVER.

I won a contest today.

And not just ANY contest. A contest at We Covet with a really amazing prize! A prize so amazing that I barely dare to speak it aloud and tried hard all day to pretend I wasn't just on the verge of fainting with the excitement of it all.

I won a Coach bag. A COACH BAG! For those not in the know, this is THE brand of purse that costs more than any single thing in my entire wardrobe. INCLUDING jewelry. This bag is so far outside of my price range it's actually funny. I was thinking about it today. I'm not sure I've ever even spent as much as $30.00 on a purse before. What could any bag possibly do/be to warrant being this expensive. I don't know, but I'm finally going to find out. I've already promised to take a photo of it for my friend @Jodifur when it arrives.

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Oh and just so you know, as I was writing this blog entry, Nicky woke up very, very angry and very, very sad and had to be comforted for a good 45 minutes by both his Mommy and Daddy simultaneously to go back to sleep. It's going to be a very, very long night.



*Just to clarify, we gave him the Benadryl because he has a cold and an ear infection, not actually to drug him to sleep. But it was quite helpful anyway.