Happy 2nd Birthday Emmy!

Wow, I am BEAT.

When Emily woke up this morning, I walked into her room and said "Happy Birthday Emmy! You turn 2 today!" She thought about that for a moment, then said "Get Pessicks (presents)?" I laughed, and said "Yes, Mommy and Daddy have some presents for you downstairs." Then she said "Get Trains?" That's my girl!

Our train table is looking quite respectable these days, we're going to have to start building upward to fit more things on it :-) Oh, and find a place for it to live, because right now it's smack in the middle of our family room, in the same place where I assembled it a couple days ago.

I decided to take Emily on a trip to the zoo for her birthday today (pictures here). The rain was supposed to stop by 9ish, and then it was supposed to get into the 70's and be sunny for the rest of the day, so I figured it would be a good day to go, considering it has rained every day for the past week and a half. On the drive up, it POURED. I was grumbling to myself the whole way and wondering if it would even be worth it to go if it was raining. Luckily, it stopped raining the moment we got there. It was kinda overcast and chilly though, so I felt like a terrible mother when Emily did her little theatrical shiver and said "Cooooooooold!" and I realized I hadn't brought a jacket because IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE 70's! I lied to the front desk lady and told her Emily's birthday was tomorrow so that she could still get in for free :-) I'll work on my honesty before Emily gets old enough to notice.

Emily had a blast picking up rocks and throwing them into various bodies of water. She even glanced at an animal occasionally. She eventually discovered that throwing animal food pellets to the fish and the geese was basically the same as throwing rocks into the water, so it was also deemed an acceptable activity.

She was really good the whole time and enjoyed herself, but we both got covered in mud from head to toe. I headed for one of the 3 bathrooms on the map of the zoo, only to discover it was a port a potty! Of course, in bad mother move #2 for the day, I hadn't brought any wipes or paper towels with me because I had assumed there would be sinks and soap and paper towels. Unfortunately all they had out in the park were hand sanitizer dispensers, and that doesn't do much for mud. We had to eat all of our food with forks, even our sandwiches, because I didn't want to touch our food.

Eventually we made it to the exit, and there was an honest-to-goodness bathroom there, although they were cleaning it when we got there and we had to wait, and when we DID get in there still was no changing table :-( I had to change Emily on a little 5"x12" rectangle of countertop next to a sink, and the poor girl was terrified she was going to fall the whole time.

After we came home, she decided that she didn't want to miss a minute of her birthday, so no nap was needed. We had her fave, macaroni and cheese for dinner, then we went downstairs and I assembled her entire city of Cherry Blossom Markets and Rose Petal Cottages.

And as a gift to ME, Emily took her first bath in her bathtub since Christmas! She just hopped right in without a fuss, like the last 4 months of extreme bathtub avoidance never even happened. I was SO happy not to have to hold a wiggly wet Emmy in the shower after our exhausting day!

So Happy Birthday Emily! Let's make the twos not-so-terrible!