Birthday Girl.

Yesterday was my darling girl's third birthday. Last weekend we had already thrown a huge party for her, so the festivities yesterday were far more low key, but fun nevertheless. Thank God we got her out of the house, though, because the terrible threes are officially here, and have been for some time. So, we had some lunch and then hit up the park.

She hopped on a swing and asked for "another big one, mama! Ready, set, GOOOOOO," she went down a few slides and then it was onto the duck pond. I sat her on my shoulders and we pointed out the turtles, floating on the surface for air, and watched some ducks dive down to eat algae on the pond floor.

We then ran up a hill, counted the waterfalls that cascade down and fall into the fountain pond at Reid Park, and I am SO happy I got a zoo membership because hey man, there's a zoo right by the park. I was like "Hey Alex, want to go see some tigers?" and she was all three-year-old-equivalent of "Hell yes I want to see some tigers," so we just popped into the zoo, watched the tigers for about five minutes and left. She wanted to ride the train so boy howdy, we rode that train.

She is all about pizza lately, so we got a couple of pies from Papa Murphy's and a chocolate cake from the grocery store and went home for her nap. She woke up at 5pm and basically was like "I'm so tired, I just need some cake" while languishing on the sofa watching Word World. Dramatics, thy name is Alexandra.

Pizza time, and cake time, perked her right up, though.

When I saw how her eyes lit up when we turned out the lights and brought in her cake, three sturdy little candles ablaze with the glory of youth, I shrieked "NOT YET I NEED TO GET MY PHONE NOT YET DON'T BLOW THEM OUT" while I scurried around the house looking for it. You know how dogs try to round a corner on a wood floor and it's like hurling a bowling ball at the pins? That was me, desperate to capture this moment.

Luckily for me, she waited as patiently as a freshly minted three year old could. I was hoping to catch her blow each individual candle out, but wasn't that skilled. I just kept pressing the capture button.

This is when shit started getting real. Her little puffs weren't strong enough from the previous distance, so she got down to business. And in three short pfffts, it was over, and my girl blew them out.

"This is the best, I got the actual moment that the very last candle flickered out. Get it gurl! Time to eat some chocolate cake. Nothing says intelligent parenting like chocolate right before tub time and light's out, right? Happy birthday to my dearest angel. You are the light of my life and the essence of love in my heart.

Now if you could just go to the bathroom on the toilet.