Two!

Oli turned two at the end of last month and I haven't even mentioned our celebrations. For my own sanity I needed to keep it low-key. His best friend was there, though. That was easy, being as it is, his brother.  A few friends came for tea and I surprised myself by getting the bunting up and even producing a chocolate cake (It's taken four years but it seems my kitchen is finally well-equipped enough for baking). Oli however looked either serious or seriously disappointed in all the photos we took.
A little background here - the boys' father loves to gee up a birthday. Days, even weeks before, there is a ton of preliminary chat about how the day is going to pan out, what's going to be eaten for breakfast, the flavour and consistency of the cake, the size of the slices at teatime, what it'll feel like being a year older.  I, on the other hand, down-play the whole event; my theory being that you can't then be deflated. But in truth, a lot of the fun is in the anticipation and I know this, so I should probably join my husband's ranks.  But since it falls heavily on my shoulders whether or not my child gets enough birthday attention, and there's always something I've planned that I haven't managed to get done in time, I just can't enlist.
So, this year, Dom had asked Oli about his forthcoming birthday and how he was feeling about being two. His answer was a flat denial, 'No'. No? How could he not want his birthday? He is obviously more like me than we thought. Turns out he most certainly did not want to be two, he wanted to be three.  Therein lay the disappointment (and the difference between he and his mother). Hence the two candles did not elicit a smile of any description, although the cake consumption was overseen with much concentration.