These are just a few photos from Oliver's birthday this year. Oliver is a late bloomer. He weaned a little after three years old, left our bed shortly after that, and potty trained when he was damn well ready at about 3 1/2 years old. He started preschool at almost four years old and through no fault of his own still doesn't have a good friend. I didn't have a mommies' group with similarly aged children when Oliver was born like I did with Stella, and I spent way less time at the playground in his toddler years. We still had a lot of fun, but we never found a family with a little one Oliver's age that all of us clicked with or that lived near enough to us for Oliver to hang out with on a regular basis.
Oliver is the type of guy who because of all of this calls a kid he's met for five minutes on the playground his friend. He is SO ready for kids and friends. He's the only kid out of the 16 at his preschool each day that doesn't speak Spanish, where it is immersion and no English is allowed, so he doesn't really have that going for him. With any luck he will start being able to communicate with the other kids and make some friends like his sister did when she was there. He's having fun now, but I'm sure he's hanging back like Stella did, trying to figure it all out.
For Oliver's birthday this year I brought popsicles (paletas) to his school to have after lunch at the end of the day. The kids took them home with them and some climbed to the top of the front steps above the school to eat them. Oliver stayed at the bottom at first, then we encouraged him to join the others. He went half way up, then some of the kids came down a few steps to join him. I just thought it was the sweetest thing.
Here is Oliver's third birthday party, a nautical Spongebob theme with mostly grown up guests, and here is his second birthday, which was a super small affair. xoxo
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