Avoiding the Balls and Other Useful Life Guidelines

This past weekend, we celebrated Sam's birthday with my parents. Having another birthday was a huge deal for Sam; he kept mentioning this was his "third" birthday to everyone we met. His first birthday was the weekend Joy's parents and sister came. The second was his actual birthday when we took him to eat ravoli (his current favorite food). I'm surprised when he received more presents yesterday (this time from his good friend Alexander) that he didn't declare the day his fourth birthday. At least then we wouldn't have had to explain to everyone that he was actually turning four, not three.

As part of the birthday celebration, we went to a local play place. Sam loves this place. There is a pretend village, a giant water table to splash in, a train table full of trains he doesn't have, an area for cooking and one for doing crafts, a sprawling outdoor playset, and the ball pit and plastic tubes to climb through.

Beforehand, Joy and I agreed to keep the boys out of the ball pit. With the flu and other viruses circling around the city like buzzards, we thought it best to limit exposure to the petri dish that is a ball pit. Then we noticed that everyone else evidently had the same idea and the ball pit was essentially empty. Then our kids, playing the next room over, began to notice the ball pit. Then it was all over.

Sam is an old pro at ball pits. He jumped and tumbled and threw balls through the bullseye and in general had a great time. Noah? He stood.
That's right - Noah treated the ball pit as his own private runway. I'm filing this one away for when I want to ruin his life by being a stage parent for his modeling career.

They both had a marvelous time the entire weekend, but the germy pit of balls was clearly the winning moment.