X-man Turns 4: Normal, Sombreros and Song and Dance

When it comes to blogging about X-man's 4th birthday, I don't win any Mommy Awards on timeliness. But I swear it's because we're in the middle of his birthday week -- which is a bit hectic. Plus, our dishwasher broke. Plus, we have a cat going in for rechecks. Plus, I've been tagging all my clothes for the Divine Consign sale so I can afford some spring ones. School has been frightfully busy between classwork and my internship. And spring break is coming up next week, so I guess I'm feeling slammed on all sides and ready to vacate to Canada (that's right -- I'm blowing this popsicle stand next Thursday a.m. for a Loosey-only vacation to Toronto).

But here's what I wanted to share with you about how I experienced X-man's 4th birthday at the Children's Discovery Museum in Normal, Ill.:

The first time we went to the museum he was 16 months old and he had been walking without assistance for only 4 weeks, and he loved that grocery store. Now he's 48 months old -- and he still loves that play grocery store.

Apparently when we go there he has to wear a red shirt and khaki pants, too. After the museum, we came home and opened gifts. Then we took the kiddo out for dinner with the Wonder Twins at El Toro 2, where the staff sang happy birthday to him, let him wear a giant sombrero (that he loved) but he was a bit weirded out by the woman putting whipped cream on his face. He was a good sport about it though. After dinner, we headed to the Nick Jr. Storytime show at Assembly Hall, where we all agreed that having the Wonder Pets dressed up like giant puppets rather than people in regular outfits like the Backyardigans was a bad costume choice. 

That night was a late bedtime night. Kind of like my night tonight. But this is what happens when you're working all day the day before you have 10 people to your house for brunch on Saturday... after you run a 5k.