Birthday Countdown! (well...up.)

It is August. Wow. I kept telling myself if only I could make it August, everything would be OK.

And, well, it is! There are evenings that seem crazy if not boarderline meltdown, but we are really doing great.

But that isn't the point of this post. No, no. This is about a very special boy and his birthday (THIRD birthday to be exact) that is quickly approaching. And since I am *blessed* to be stuck at home alldayeveryday right now (D.C. is not the kind of place you can run to the grocery store real quick or even find a Target for a sand pail and shovel...that would take a few hours with traffic, etc.), I decided to take naptime to create a little something for my special little guy.

I started with a pen, a marker, paper, stencils (cuter than my own writing), double sided tape, balloons and thread.

For each balloon, I made a little card with a picture of a hiding place. Each day, Bean would pop the corresponding balloon and search the floor frantically for the card. And then search the house frantically for the hiding place and then search the hiding place frantically for a small gift (stickers, noise maker, a balloon not for popping, etc). I stuffed each card in a balloon, blew it up and tied it.

I then strung a balloon on to a thread with a needle. I then popped a balloon with said needle. I then thought better of it and secured the needle in its holder and tied the remaining balloons on to the thread the good old fashioned way. So don't use a needle.

After tying all the balloons on about 8 inches apart, I secured the "banner" to the wall and put streamers on the big "11"--his birthday!

I taped the numbers on last so they would be relatively even in placement and all facing forward (or backwards, I suppose, if you are standing in the kitchen. But whatever).

I am sure you could do a real count down, but since his birthday is only one day after 10 (where a countdown would naturally begin unless you wanted to find 20-something little gifts), and we are in the business of learning the calendar and birthDATEs and other important life skills, we went for the countUP. Brilliant, I know.

After Daddy got home from work, we popped our first balloon...

 

And frantically searched for our first gift: a lollipop from Halloween. And he knew it too.

But he didn't mind.