Turning three

This past weekend, Sonia turned three and is officially a "big girl" by her own account. We had decided not to have a birthday party for her (a combination of realizing that it was more of a party for us, and also an acknowledgement that Sonia is not a big fan of 25 "strangers" staring at her and singing). But, as the day approached real parental guilt sent in that maybe we were just being lazy, and it did not help that we received invites to other kids' birthday parties and Sonia seemed oddly fascinated with a book she has which features a birthday party. Oh well, we will definitely ring in year four in style!

Perhaps to compensate for our guilt on that front, we ended up have a multi-day affair of mini celebrations. First off, Sonia celebrated at school on Friday (the day before her birthday) with cupcakes which were bright pink with purple sprinkles, as requested...or should I say demanded. She received a cardboard crown that she wore that day, and then insisted on wearing for much of the next two days. She also insisted on wearing her fanciest dress (a gift from Dada and Bebe earlier this year), which is just another milestone on her path to increasing fascination with all things girly, including wanting to wear a dress every single day. Here she is with some of her preschool classmates enjoying being queen for the day (or, no doubt, princess).


The next day (her actual birthday) we started the morning with presents from Mommy and Daddy. Sonia remains a marketer's dream in that she received (as requested) all things Minnie Mouse. Here she is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, wearing Minnie Mouse PJs, drinking milk from her Minnie Mouse cup, wearing her crown from school (non-Disney, but apparently still okay), holding her Minnie Mouse socks, and sharing the couch with "big Minnie" and "big Daisy". Yes, we are those parents. But, you only turn 3 once, and we did draw the line at giving her Minnie Mouse candy at the same time.


Later that morning, we went to the Stanford / Oregon football game (Sameer somehow convinced Sonia that this was what she wanted to do on her birthday, which is a testament to his sales skills). We were joined by Sanjay, Melissa, Maya, and Kai -- all sporting green, but we sat with them anyway. Stanford unexpectedly won, so the day was off to a great start, and got better when we all went back to our house and met up with Dada and Bebe who joined us for more celebrating. This time we had cake and the fancy animal candles she had picked out herself (I should note that Sonia specifically requested "pink cupcakes" for school and "pink cake" for home...we decided to agree since it was cheaper than the party we skipped). She still did not actually smile when we sang happy birthday, but at least this year she participated in trying to blow out the candles (with some help from Daddy and Maya) and actually ate one bite of cake, all of which is a big improvement over last year.


Finally, on Sunday we trekked up to the city to visit the California Academy of Sciences which is one of Sonia's favorites (but since Chuki always takes her, we never get to join her). Sonia showed us "big fish" which is her favorite, and we ran into the Glotzbachs who were also at the museum, so Sonia got an impromptu lessons in ring-around-the-rosy from Reese and Alex. Finally, we returned home, ready to collapse. Sonia was up for one last sugar high, so here she is closing out her birthday weekend by "eating" one more cupcake (which mostly involves just licking it).


Until next year!