Ian's Namesday

Yesterday, June 7, was Ian's namesday, so I picked up a cake, candles and a couple of small toys on the way home. We also had some books from his grandmother and Amy had an abacus lined up for him.

When I got home, he was watching "Bob the Builder" with Daniel.

Quick kiss and hug: Happy Namesday, Ian.

Ian: Thank you, Daddy, but I didn't have a very nice namesday.


Very nice days are days when three or more fun activities are undertaken - most or all of them must be outside of the house to qualify. Chuck E Cheese is the best guarantor of a nice day, but even this quality venue is of limited value by itself.

In any case, Aunt Ann and the Fam called up and sang to him, and then we got out the cake, from Market Basket (where better to find cakes a four-year-old would like) - this one was a summery smile-face cake - yellow with real sunglasses.

Ian quietly mentioned that the sunglasses cake wasn't the one he had wanted; he wanted something taller. But he liked it anyway, I think.

The boys opened their presents (yes, we bribed Daniel), and then Ian played with his abacus. Amy started us off, and soon Ian was eagerly adding and subtracting beads and very proudly reporting the calculations. He also got started making graphic patterns with them, with a zeal and creativity I couldn't have forseen. (The boy has an excellent sense of symmetry.)

Of course, the abacus "isn't very interesting."

Daniel disagreed. He started playing with it, and when Ian proceeded to take it from him, Daniel complained to Amy, "Mommy, Ian's taking away my present." [sic]

In honor of his namesday, I changed into my t-shirt that shows him at the age of roughly one-and-a-half, smiling, with the caption "I love my daddy."

We were going to go to Birthday Central (Chuck E Cheese), but we didn't have time before it got to be too late (I didn't fill him in on that near qualifier of a nice day.) We'll probably go later this week. But don't tell him...