Four years ago, Mark was born, in one of the warmest places in the US—Florida!:) I thought about that nice warm December often this week as the weather has been really rainy, cold and yucky. Well, today is Mark’s birthday. He’s been counting down to it for weeks now. It is difficult for him to be the only one in our family who doesn’t celebrate his birthday in the summertime. Having a birthday three days after Christmas is tough too. Too many presents all coming at once, too many sweets, and too many parties.
This year, Mark had a very quiet family birthday. The night before while talking about what kind of food he wanted for dinner he said, “I would like tacos”. I said, “Ok, just regular tacos?”. He said, “Yes, regular pumpkin tacos”. Hmmmm, I have never made pumpkin tacos, but we did have pumpkin pancakes a few days before then, so maybe that’s what he was thinking of. In any case, we decided to make Japanese curry---one of his favorites! (although at dinner time tonight, he had a sudden meltdown that he did not want neither Japanese nor Ukrainian curry EVER—he rarely has meltdowns…).
One of the advantages of having a birthday on Dec. 28th is the fact that many times Robert is able to be home with us. Our tradition is not to wait till cake in the evening, but open presents almost as soon as we wake up.
I spent three hours at the British Toys R Us store last week, trying to figure out what presents to buy Mark in addition to his Christmas gifts. I guess that will always be an issue…
Now he can actually “fight” with Alex.
For the remainder of the day, we got to spend a lot of time with each other just hanging out with some Wii involved. We also went swimming for the Float Fun time at the Leisure Center near our village. The kids spent almost an hour in a half in the pool! And I signed up Alex and Mark for swimming lessons.
After our Japanese curry dinner, we, of course, had cake. Mark decided on his cake months beforehand. It had to be an airplane cake with marshmallows as clouds. Too bad we didn’t discover till the very last minute that we gave away all our food coloring right before we moved…so the cake ended up being a bit white-haha. Mark still loved it.
Someone has been licking the sides of the cake, I am sure…
Mark enjoying his Twizzler.
Oh, Mark…We love you so much! Yes, you do get extra mama-attention because you are the youngest…but he also lets me give him all the kisses, hugs and squishes I want. Such a fun little guy!
In England, children begin school when they are four. That means that I only get to be with Mark at home all day till next September. It makes me sad and happy at the same time. Right now, he is in playgroup/preschool for four times a week in the mornings and one of those days is going to start being till 3 pm. He is becoming more and more independent and loves playing with people. For now, I am going to just enjoy spending time with him while the big kids are in school.
And some stats for memory sake:
Height--42 inches (101 cm)
Weight—41 pound (18.5 kg)
Shoe size 10
Favorite thing to play with—cars, magnetic blocks, train tracks dinosaurs.
Favorite books—any book he can find…except none of the ones that used to be Alex’s favorite books at this age (non-fiction ones).
Mark, Happy Birthday!!!!
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