I'll start by saying that so far, having a 2-year-old is absolutely splendid. Yes, he's definitely already acting like he's two going on twenty, but the spark that ignited in him after his birthday has made life so much fun. He's grown and changed in so many ways in such a short period of time that it's hard to keep up with, but we absolutely love living life with our little two-nager.
Our next stop of the day was to make a dapper dude out of the birthday boy. We visited EJ's Little People, an adorable hair salon for children where Simon received his first haircut at 18 months old. This was Simon's third haircut at EJ's and his stylist, Daneece, was happy to make a little gentleman out of our boy. The haircut was quick and easy and Simon enjoyed pawing through the basket of fun toys while sitting atop the barber chair.
The big surprise of the day was taking Simon to the Sacramento Children's Museum! I'll admit that I didn't know much about this place except for what I'd read online, but now I can say from experiencing it that this place is freaking awesome! Eric and I had as much fun playing and learning and exploring as Simon did! We spent a lot of time at the Cityways exhibit playing with trains on the giant activity table modeled after downtown Sacramento. The table was interactive and had several stations for building bridges, skyscrapers, and automotives. Simon was playing here so long that we practically had to tear him away so we could see other areas of the museum!
We were able to get Simon over to the Neighborhood and Market exhibits, which had the best pretend play setup I've ever seen anywhere. So much detail down to mail in the mailbox outside of the playhouse, laundry hanging from a clothesline, and rare vegetables and spices to purchase at the farmer's market (none of which I got pictures of, bah!). Simon was spotted in the farmer's market by the museum's manager who noticed his birthday shirt and brought him a special button and announced his birthday over the PA system. He loved his birthday button so much and was excited to have it pinned to his shirt.
After lunch we checked out the Waterways exhibit, where Simon was only interested in playing with the Lego wall, and then we headed over to the Art Studio for crafts. The activity of the week was a Valentine's card and Simon was really engaged in coloring his card, using every available marker he could reach. I got him to use a Valentine's stamp on the front and then (because he saw another little boy do it) Simon wanted to put his whole hand on the ink pad to make a hand print on his card. It actually came out really cute! He then proceeded to continue coloring on the inside of the card until we turned his attention to painting. The studio was partitioned off by a large series of clear windows on which the kids had free range to paint. Simon totally dug this! He ran from color to color, making little designs on the window above each paint canister. He was into this for a long time, and even now sometimes asks to "paint" when he really means to color with crayons.
We hung out until afternoon storytime at the Story Factory, which was the best part of the day. All kids who wanted to participate gathered near the stage and the story leader led a song to introduce all of the friends who were present for the day's story. When it was Simon's turn to introduce himself, he proudly announced his first and last name and the story leader noticed his birthday pin. At the end of the song, the group--kids and parents alike--sang 'Happy Birthday' to Simon and he grinned from ear to ear! The story leader then read the book, 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,' which was one of my favorites growing up. Our little entertainer got on stage with the story leader and helped read the story, bellowing out his "BOOM BOOM" with every accompanying "Chicka Chicka." I later realized that we had this book at home and we ended up reading it to him again that night before bed... and have for several nights since (it's become frequently requested!).
We were all exhausted after hours of fun at the children's museum, but we had such a blast laughing and learning with our boy. Later that evening we were joined by Cho-Cho, Pappy and Laura, Auntie, Uncle Bucky, and Uncle LunchboX and Auntie Eat (Simon's name for Brianna!) for pizza at our house. Eric and I shared about Simon's day while the birthday boy played and showed off all the goodies we brought home from our adventure. Our entire celebration was absolutely perfect and Simon seemed to be bursting with joy. This birthday was so fun and magical, and the fact that Simon understood it was his birthday and continued to be excited about everything we did made it that much more special. Eric and I felt extremely lucky to be the parents of this wonderfully awesome TWO-YEAR-OLD!
