C turns FOUR!

My first gorgeous son turned four years old today. I can hardly believe it. We've had a wonderful day and I'm just so proud and amazed at the incredible boy he is and is becoming. He continues to be sweet and gentle and smart, just like he has been for so long. His creativity and imagination is expanding and he especially loves to hear his nana tell him made-up stories. Additionally, for the past several months his questions have become more abundant and more challenging, as the "why" enters into the picture. For example, a couple months ago we were talking about J and I before we had him, and he asked where he was if he wasn't in my belly or born yet. Although I am nonreligious, I have to say the heaven and angels explanation for what is before there is life came in very handy! I mean, I sure wasn't expecting the "what is there before life" question from a 3 year old! Today I also told him the story of his birth, which he made me retell several times. He then asked about the day I was born and the day J was born. He is starting to grasp more complex ideas and put more and more together. Over the last few months his drawing ability has become much more interesting as well now that he can draw (for the most part) a house or a person or an animal. Yesterday he drew a picture of my head complete with eyes, ears, nose, lips and teeth. And there was also a house and a rat in the picture. Awesome. We still battle with discipline, but it feels that things have really turned around the last couple weeks. At least I don't feel like I am getting as frustrated with him as much as I was.


His birthday started off with the opening of far too many presents. I always feel we end up going overboard at holidays and his birthday. But I suppose that happens to the best of us. As you can see in the photo, he's very into superheros at the moment. He also really likes dinosaurs, which I'm pretty happy about (they're so interesting!). He still likes cars, etc. but they aren't the main focus any longer, thank goodness. I was getting so bored of cars!


For the rest of the morning he played with his new toys and then we went to the water park. We had a blast, as we have the other 2 times we've been. It was just him and me and I loved the time to have him to myself.


And when we got home our driver gave him a ride on his motorcycle, which C asked for when I asked what he wanted to do today. It was just around our housing complex, but he had fun.



And tomorrow we're off to Bandung, which is about a 2 hour drive from Jakarta. C has been asking for several months to see a volcano, and so we thought it would be a good thing to do for his birthday. So tomorrow morning we will leave for Bandung and plan to have a relaxing afternoon at the hotel or in the area. Sunday morning we will go to the volcano and take some walks around and maybe check out the hot springs.

The following weekend C's birthday extravaganza continues with his birthday party. Many of his friends are still returning from long summer trips home, so we chose to postpone his party by a week so more of his friends would be here. He also starts back at school on Monday so he is a very busy boy!

Happy Birthday sweet darling C!