5.11.19 - Jane's birthday party

Jane turns two on Monday, so we decided to celebrate today (the Saturday before) when we had time.

Despite us putting the girls to bed at about the same time Friday night as we do every night, they stayed up much later than usual. Jack went to get gluten free cake mix and frosting for me to bake Jane's cake the night before, and when he got back (near 9pm) they were both standing in the nursery window. I thought this was actually a good thing because maybe they would sleep in the next day, giving us time to clean up before having guests over and pushing Jane's nap back further. But no. They woke up even earlier than typical--about 6:30 am or so), and it made for a hectic morning. Also I'm reaching the third trimester and starting to feel the difficulty of getting up and down off the floor, which makes cleaning harder. But with Jack's help we still got everything clean and the girls ready pretty much on time.

A little light reading on the way to the zoo.

We met Henry at the zoo entrance and Clara was very happy about that. She said "Hello Henry elephant" so you know he's one of her people.

In retrospect we probably could have skipped the zoo. Most of the first set of cages were empty. The tiger cage was interesting because the tigers were very active, pacing back and forth right by the front. They have beautiful eyes. Clara and I watched from one end of the fence and Jack had Jane on his shoulder about 10-15 ft away from us. We watched for awhile and suddenly one of the tigers ran up to the cage and ROARED right at Jane. It made me jump pretty hard and it scared the heck out of Jane. Poor girl started crying really hard and I had to take her pretty far away and comfort her for awhile and hold her for awhile longer. After that she pretty much wanted to stay in the stroller for a long time. I felt really bad for her.

Clara, on the other hand, seemed to take the tiger in stride and enjoy the zoo. She was interested in the animals and even more interested in the cut outs where she could pretend to be animals, haha. Eventually we got to a farm animal section (horses, cows, bees, mules) and Jane was ready to get back out of the stroller and explore. The farm animal section's exit put us right in front of the nearby playground. Once you exit the zoo to the playground, you can't re-enter, so Jack and I considered backtracking to see parts of the zoo we had skipped. But the girls had already seen the playground and were making a beeline for it, and since this is about them--especially Jane--enjoying the day we decided just to go for it.

The playground has a Western theme, covered wagon, general store, etc. It's pretty cute.

It was a good choice. The Folsom playground is really cute and the section for especially little kids is well designed. Jack took Clara on the bigger kids section and Henry and I followed Jane around in the little kids area. She was very happy. Grinning and toddling quickly from one section to another. We stayed for awhile, and of course once we headed back Jane fell asleep in the car.

Henry drove separately and went to pick up In & Out for everyone for lunch. Sarah had taken the train up and was waiting at a nearby Starbucks for us, so she met us at the apartment complex once we were close. To our surprise, Jane didn't stay down for a nap when we got home--I thought she'd be exhausted but she was ready to be up and hang out. I was worried she would be super fussy the rest of the day from going to bed late, getting up early, and taking such a short nap, but actually she was in a great mood. We hadn't even started cake, presents, or balloons yet and she and Clara were having a great time pretending to be baby birds together. Plus Henry came back with lunch and the girls were delighted to eat fries.

Henry also left again to pick them up balloons. He got each of them a pink and gold bunch of about 6, and they loved them. They played with those for a long time before we moved on to cake.

When we did get cake and sing "Happy Birthday," it was interesting to see how different Jane's reaction was to Clara's at her own 2nd birthday. Clara had been pretty shy and held on to me while everyone sang, whereas Jane just grinned and grinned at us. To be fair, though, at Clara's 2nd birthday there had been a lot more people. Anyway we told Jane to blow out the candles and, from about 2 feet away, she did a quick burst of air that had no effect, haha. So I blew them out for her, and then we took off the girls shirts to let them eat cake, which they got everywhere. When they were done Jane had cake all over not only her face and hands but also her stomach and shins.

We cleaned them up and it was time to open presents. Jane is not that bad at ripping off wrapping paper once you get it started for her. She wanted to stop and examine/play with each new gift before opening the next, which was sweet. It was a little difficult for Clara to understand that these gifts belonged to Jane, especially an electronic puppy Beth got her. Fortunately Jane seemed more interested in the crayons and magnet toys than the puppy initially, so Clara got to play with it a lot.

We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting and keeping the girls from arguing over toys or tangling their balloons. It was overall a pretty relaxing enjoyable day.