Becky kept asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday -- anything special, a certain food, a certain cake perhaps? We were in the midst of a glut of leftovers and Halloween candy, so I pushed a birthday request for yellow cake with chocolate frosting to a following weekend. As for an activity, I chose sledding at the small hill at the neighboring grade school.

The sled was new and needed to be broken in. Also, Henry's snow pants aren't getting any looser, so we need to use them as often as possible.



The hill is very mellow and he loved it. After about 6 runs it became obvious that the hill was very smooth and steady, so we decided to push our luck. We laid him flat in the sled, gave a gentle push, and watched him zip solo down the hill. Call DCFS if you'd like, but he smiled the whole trip down.

After some time on the swings and the slides at the playground, coupled with endless pointing at the planes buzzing through the sky, we called the hour complete. After having his gear stripped off back home, within minutes he had his burp rag in hand and a finger pointed up the stairs. His nap demand was quickly met.