Happy (I'm not buying it) Birthday Pal

Today is Elliott's birthday - at least one of those all too frequent baby birthdays. His age depends on the method you use to track it. He is officially one and a half. But if you're counting birthdays as half years, he would actually be 3, since that's technically the number of half years he has seen. Of course if you're using the baby counting method that many baby aging purists use, he is 18 (months). That would make him a teenager of sorts, so I prefer to adhere to the adult method of counting and recognize the milestone of his birth annually, which would mean my one year old boy did not have a birthday at all today and the day of celebration he and his mother engaged in was a bit fraudulent.

Elliott and mama used this manufactured excuse for a celebration to treat themselves to breakfast at McDonalds. I think mama's craving for the golden arches was stronger than Elliott's as he didn't want to pull himself away from the "dump trucks" and "buh dozers" doing work on the road just outside the restaurant. After getting their food, they had to find a prime location in the parking lot for Elliott to get the best view of the large pieces of machinery at work. It brings back memories of finding a prime location in those wide open acres of gravel lots to watch the old drive in movies. Mama eventually talked Elliott into leaving before the story had ended. But don't lose heart pal, if the normal pace of roadwork is followed here, it won't be ending anytime soon.

The two party animals then made their first visit to the Ashland town library. Elliott got to check out his first books, which I'm sure mama is reading to him at this moment as she settles him into bed. It is a nice little library actually. I've got to say that since I got my library card there, the first library card I've had in recent memory, I've been astounded by a couple of the parameters of that card. Most notably the limit on the number of books I can check out. 75. Yes, they restrict me to taking out 75 books at a time and I can only keep them a month. So the first question I asked Katie was if she also got a library card. I blissfully report the answer is yes. So now if we combine our cards, we can check out 150 books at once. I can actually picture us bringing 150 books to the counter and carrying them out to the truck. I can see them piled in the bed of the truck like a large mound of dirt as we drive through town and people standing along the sidewalks thinking that family does a lot of reading.

I'm sure the celebrations of this summer will only continue and we look forward to sharing them.