Birthday Bonanza

I had planned on doing a "3-years-in-pictures" kind of post for today, but since our external ate itself and we lost every picture from the time he was born until this past summer, I had to nix it.  We should be getting said hard drive back in the next week, so maybe I'll get motivated then and do a belated photo heavy post.

But, nevertheless, Finn turns 3 today.

Three years ago at this time I was looking in wide eyed horror at the nurse as she informed me that she had just hooked up a bag of pitocin to my IV.   Color me annoyed. 

Today I'm staring in complete loving confusion at a little boy who is stomping around in his jammies and frog wellies singing a made up song all about Mommy.  Clearly things have improved.

 Oh, and underneath those jammies....underwear.  We dove headfirst into potty learning last Monday, with me just hoping he'd get past his love of screaming in terror at the sight of the potty.  And a week later he's had no accidents and even ventured out of the house sans diaper with great success.  Granted he's terrified of going in a regular toilet, and he insists on stripping from the waist down each time, so any bathroom breaks while out and about involve packing his little blue potty in the backpack and an extra 5 minutes for undressing and re-dressing in the bathroom stall.  But it's been well worth the hassle. The idea of doing diaper laundry for a newborn and a toddler was pretty daunting.

We celebrated his birthday on Saturday night with my Dad at our place. Just venison burgers and chips for dinner, followed by dinosaur cupcakes and ice cream. Nothing fancy.  We were supposed to continue the celebration yesterday by going to the Children's Museum with Steve's Dad, my Mom and her boyfriend, but Finn had other plans.  He woke up in a no-good-very-bad kind of mood (and that's the understatement of the year). He threw one continuous tantrum all morning. We managed to battle him down for a nap at 10, figuring if he was up by noon we could still go and have plenty of time to see everything. Then he woke up in an even worse mood than before. We somehow wrangled him into clothing and drove to Butler thinking if we just got him some food he'd be fine. Wrong again. Every tiny thing set him off: the length of his sleeves, his shoes, the fact that he could see his socks when he sat down, the way the seat belt was buckled.  Clearly the museum was not going to happen.  He did settle down for a bit at home, but he went to bed very shortly after bath time (kicking and screaming and half comatose).  Steve and I pretty much collapsed on the couch. I'm fairly certain that I'll enjoy 2nd stage labor more than I enjoyed yesterday.  Today, he's a completely different little man. Sweet, lovey, cuddly. Not a single truck or tractor has been launched at my head.  Go figure.

And after today, Cabbie has my full permission to make his entrance.  All I wanted was to make it past Finn's birthday, so come on kid. Let's go!