Gideon's 4th Birthday!!

Sooooo, bet you can guess what this post is going to be about, huh?  Yep, today was Gideon's 4th Birthday!  We had a great day.  It began at around a quarter to 9am (thank you, Daylight Savings Time), when Gideon, Sandy, and my nephew (who had spent the night) came bursting into our bedroom, with all the excitement that morning seems to bring when you're under the age of 10.  The children, of course, never bother to try to wake up Daddy (a lesson in futility learned at an early age), so they all came clamoring over to me for juice and breakfast.  I smiled and reminded them that today was Gideon's birthday!  At which point, Gideon burst into a big smile, grabbed my arm and said, "It's my birthday?  (I nodded.)  It's a FLURBLE birthday!", and promptly "flurbbled" my arm.  (Now, you might be wondering...."What the heck is a "flurble?", and I can't blame you.  It's the name we given to a little game we play where you place your open mouth on someone's exposed skin and then blow out.  It makes a sort of "farting" sound and sort of tickles...you might have your own name for said game....or not, but the kids love it! lol)  I couldn't help but laugh and got up to get the day started.

After breakfast and all of Atticus' morning meds, etc, we all started getting ready to go to Chuck E Cheese's (CEC) per the request of Gideon.  He had been looking forward to CEC for about a month, as most any child that has EVER been to one usually does.  The funny thing is that what Gideon had been looking forward to was not the pizza, not even the wide variety of games, but for 1 game in particular.  This particular CEC has a Spongebob Squarepants Bowling Game.  And for the last month, I've heard nothing but how Gideon was going to play that game when he went to CEC!!  And boy did he!  And what's even funnier, is that he doesn't even want to play as Spongebob.  No, no, no.  Gideon's favorite character is Mr Krabs, SB's boss!  ROFL!!  He must have played that game for about an hour overall....for 30 minutes straight at one point!  But, to be fair, he probably won the most tickets (on his own) than any of the other two.  He kept getting strikes (7 tickets per) and spares (5 tickets per).  We even had to call the employees over to put more tickets in the machine so he could keep playing it!  I did eventually manage to chase him off it so some other kids could play.  He found a few other games and rides that he liked.....and then he found the Spongebob coin drop game and spent the last of his coins winning a few more tickets!  :)  Sandy, meanwhile, was running everywhere spending her coins on air hockey with my nephew, a Barney ride, a phone game, and whatever else grabbed her attention.  Atticus even managed to come with us, and we even got him out of the stroller long enough to let him ride some of the "baby" toys.  Of course...with my OCD,  I grabbed napkins and hand sanitizer and wiped down each ride and even the slide before I'd let him play on it! LOL!  (And all I can say is ewwwwwwww........)

After a few hours at CEC, we piled back into the car and headed home.  Grandma Hemrick picked up his cake for me and met us at the house, shortly after we got back from CEC.  I was so happy with his cake.  It looked and tasted great.  One of Gideon's other favorite characters is Super Why (with the Power to Read!) from PBS.  The local bakery had a Super Why design and Gideon LOVED it!  Before we dived into the cake though, we let him go ahead and open his presents.  Gideon is on a big "robot" kick right now....and he had a robot birthday.  Robot blankets, robot sheets, robot socks, a little robot, a big robot, robot wall stickers, robots, robots, robots!!  And he loved all of it.  He also got some Super Why stickers and a movie, and a tracing book, and a plane, so a pretty good birthday overall!  Then the kids all played with his new toys, and Gideon and I put up his new robot wall stickers, and I washed his new sheets so he could put them on his bed.  The adults talked for a while, and then all the grandmas and aunts went home.  We put Gideon's new robot sheets on his bed, and put everyone to sleep.

I'm so thankful for my sweet little Gideon.  He really is a great little boy.  He's the quite one....by comparison only.  He can definitely be loud when he gets in the mood.  He's also very smart, though he took so long to talk--he really surprises you with how much he actually knows and understands!  And even though his name means "the hewer, the bruiser, the destroyer" in Hebrew--and he can be--he's really a gentle soul, quick to forgive and quick to love.  He's a comedian and a prankster.  He loves music and to dance....especially like a robot!  He was my biggest baby, weighing in at 10lbs 4.2oz and 20.25 inches long (and no....I didn't have a C-section....) and sometimes he still is.  And even when he's rotten, I wouldn't trade him for anything in this world.  Happy Birthday, Gideon!  I love you!