It smelled like muffins...

So, again, I'm so sorry you haven't heard from us in a while. But today I'm blogging for a great reason, possibly the best reason ever. You see, today is my little Xander's birthday.

Let me preface all of this by saying that I love birthdays. Not just certain people's birthdays, or my birthday, but all birthdays. I love the idea of birthdays, that there is a day in the year where your mind and your body and your history mark a milepost. I love that that a name written on a paper calendar on someone's wall or fridge or desk can cause them to take a moment and think of you. I also love discovering when two strangers share a birthdate. It makes the world a bit smaller and establishes another connection between two otherwise completely separate lives. I also really love chocolate cake.



Back to Xander. Today is his second birthday. He is TWO years old. Now, I've been trying to prep him this entire week, because when people find out it's a child's birthday, they love to ask them how old they are. And for the first few years they are always answered with a sort of blank stare, like, "You're the grown-up. You tell me." So I've been trying to get Xander ready, which is a futile effort on my part. Felicity, as the First Born Child, was willing and ready to repeat everything we said and answer all of our prompts, like animal sounds and greetings and her name. But Xander, as the Second Born Rebel, is neither willing nor ready to do any of that, and instead responds by either giggling (as in "nice try"), or running away, or growling until we can't remember which animal we were asking about in the first place. He has been really into counting lately, so I thought he would be really into learning how old he was. And for a while it was going well. I would ask "Xander, how old are you?" to which he would answer "Three!". I wasn't about to get picky, because it was an honest-to-goodness answer. But now we're back to the answer-free Xander, the master in the art of evasion. He'll make a great spy.



I layed in bed this dark morning listening to Xander reenact a scene from Finding Nemo (Memo!! Get back! Memo!! Blahblahblahblah boat!! Memo!!!) and remembering my first morning with him. We'd had a scheduled c-section, so the first day is a blur of OR rooms, visitors, and drugs. Lots of drugs. However, the next morning I woke up at seven to the soft sun filling my room, and while he slept peacefully I quietly got ready for the day. Every once in a while I'd peek over the top of the bassinet and watch him for a few moments, his strawberry hair peeking out from the hospital-issue cap. Then I'd go back to applying my makeup, or getting changed, or whatever I happened to be doing verrrry slooooowwwwly. All of the sudden I realized that I smelled muffins. Really yummy, sweet muffins. I thought maybe we were above the cafeteria, or that I possibly could be having a stroke. I poked my head out the door and asked the nurse across the hall "is it just me, or does my room smell like...muffins?". To which she replied that the Tim Hortons a block away was the reason for my olifactory delight. Now, every time I see a Tim Hortons I think of that first, and only, quiet morning with my little Xander.