Birthday Boy

The days are just slipping past me, here. January is more than half over. In just two weeks, I fly to Tucson for three nights for the gem and mineral (and bead!) shows. And my little boy turned four on Sunday!

We had a nice play date with some of his friends from preschool, and then Oma and Opa came over on his birthday to celebrate with us. He was hilarious as he opened his presents, which included some new wooden trains from the Thomas the Train collection and a brand-new Radio Flyer tricycle from Oma and Opa!

After a dinner of deer meat (Colden's request), vegetable stew and homemade bread, we had birthday cake. Colden made sure that we all wore our birthday hats, and he thoroughly enjoyed it when we sang to him.

Later, Colden and I were hamming it up for the camera and Tom snapped this picture of the two of us cuddling in a living room armchair.

Trying to get myself and Colden prepared for my trip to Tucson in two weeks. I'm so excited about the bead shows and the shopping and getting to meet so many of my beading heroines, but I'm a little worried about how Colden will deal with my absence again. I'm putting a positive spin on the trip, telling Colden that he gets to spend all this time with Daddy while I'm away and that I'll be bringing back some beautiful rocks and crystals just for him. I hope it works this time!

I'm also looking forward to getting some sleep while I'm away. The trip out to Tucson is going to be hellish - including a four-hour layover at the Las Vegas airport - because I won't land in Tucson until 11:10 p.m. AZ time, which is what, 2:00 a.m. East coast time? Bleagh. But sleeping around here has been difficult at best lately. Colden still insists on getting into bed with us at 1:00 a.m. every night, waking us up after only a couple of hours of sleep. And then he thrashes around in bed, kicking and hitting and pulling on my hair. What usually happens is that I end up abandoning ship and going to sleep in HIS empty bed until he wakes up around 5:30 and crawls in there with me.

Last night was particularly bad. Colden was restless, and we had some bad wind storms with gusts over 50 mph rattling our 80+ year old house. When I did fall asleep, I was having tornado nightmares. I'm writing this blog this morning in hopes that it will get my writing brain moving again, but so far, it doesn't feel so good...

Oh, well. Maybe a couple of other inspirational blogs before I get down to the other work I need to do today!