What does a three-year-old know of birthdays? I don't think he understands the concept of a year, or being a year older. But he knows that sometimes people have birthdays, and then you have cake. He also knows he is three years old, NOT two or four. Dad said, "I'm also three years old. Is that right? Is Grandpa three years old?" This got a furrowed brow but no reply.
On Saturday, as I mentioned, we didn't open presents until after dinner. But we had BALLOONS to play with all day. There were five helium balloons: "3" (the biggest balloon), "Happy Birthday," a blue star, a smiley face, and Bluey & Bingo. BB would chase me through the house, or be chased by me, with all five balloons in tow. Or we'd go to the "elevator" (walk-in pantry) (this is balloon-related because we had to bring all the balloons whenever we went there) and then open the door and yell "BOOOO!!" to the immense surprise of everyone outside. Sometimes BB would be generous and give away all the balloons, one for each adult. Then he'd take them all back.
There were also several regular non-helium balloons. We played catch, and bonk (the standard game where you try and keep hitting a balloon without letting it touch the ground, except since BB is three, we were not fussed about it hitting the ground). Then BB devised a game where he would put all the balloons in his dad's study and close the door. My role was to say "Where did the balloons go?" I would search the foyer and eventually pick up the toy spyglass and spot the balloons through the glass windows of the study. We did this many times. We also sorta briefly played house? BB told me, "You're the dad, I'm the mom, and the balloons are BBs." From then on, whenever we put the balloons in the study, they were "sleeping" and we would tell them "Good night! See you tomorrow!"
(We do a lot of roleplaying proper bedtime, aka not making a fuss about going to bed, and BB enjoys it but it does not seem to help in real life at all.)
On Sunday, we played with all the new toys. In the morning we went to the playground to play with the sand toys—though we had more fun pretending to get stuck in quicksand. The thing about toddlers is that, if a particular scenario is fun once, it’s fun twenty times. We got stuck in quicksand a LOT. Then we went home and even more birthday toys were revealed. He got a rocket puzzle, an animal puzzle, four wooden cars with a racing floor mat, and some activity books. He also got a light-up fire truck (not technically new, but apparently it didn’t have batteries before, so it was new to him). No surprise he spent the rest of the day in a kind of ADHD toy haze, flitting to one activity after another. Like he’d put together three puzzle pieces and then he’d be off to the next thing.
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