Kentucky Fried Meyers: Henry's FOURTH Birthday

Last weekend Henry turned FOUR! For some reason though it wasn't that hard to believe. Sure time has moved quickly but I think with Scheffler doing so much more growing and advancing over the past year, Henry seems relatively the same as last year. That's not to say this year wasn't eventful with him. The cliche is "the terrible twos" but anyone, and I mean anyone, that has children will tell you "Forget that. It's three. Three is the worst." We like the term "Threenager" in our house. It's like a switch flipped and he became so much more self aware and he knew he had the power to do what he wanted when he wanted. I remember going back to football in the Fall and so many of my athletes' parents were asking how I was doing. All of the questions centered around Scheffler "Are you sleeping? Isn't it hard taking care of a baby and then coming here?" And my answer was always the same, "The baby is great. The baby sleeps through the night, eats, and is incredibly happy. I know how to make him feel better. The three year old? Now that's a different story. I don't know what is problem is. Ever. He could be throwing a tantrum because the sky is blue or I made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he asked for. He's horrible." Because that was the truth. Scheffler was so easy. He rarely got upset. Henry on the other hand, woof. I would have conversations with him that would literally go like this:

"Henry, what would you like for lunch?"

"A grilled cheese."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Henry, I am going to make you a grilled cheese."

"Great. Yes."

"Henry, you want a grilled cheese for lunch?"

"Yes, that sounds great."

"Okay, I'm making a grilled cheese for you."

"Okay, thanks mom!"

/fast forward 10 minutes

"WHYYYY DID YOU MAKE ME GRILLED CHEEEEEESEEEE?!!? I HAAAAAATE GRRRRILLLLED CHEEEEEEEEESE!!!!!"

So, yah.

Things are starting to come around now. He had a very hard time for awhile when I was nursing Scheffler. He didn't understand why it was always me that had to feed him and Nick couldn't. Finally he accepted that it was going to be me all the time. Now he's searching for that attention again, somewhat, because Scheffer is at the age where he can't be left alone because he's scooting and getting into everything. We are getting a lot of "Look at me! Look at me!" type moments.

For his birthday we wanted to do something fun with the just the three of us. We wanted to make the day all about him. Well it turned out, that for the first time this year, his birthday was going to fall right on Derby. This is only a problem since we live in Louisville. The Derby, as you can imagine, takes over the town. There isn't much to do with a four-year-old on Derby Day in Louisville. I mentioned to Nick that I'd like to take him to St. Louis. My parents could watch Scheffler, depending on what we would decide to do, and then we'd have more freedom with our celebration. He agreed and then we realized the Cardinals would be playing at home that day and we knew taking Henry to his first baseball game would be a great event for a 4th birthday.

So we headed into St. Louis and had a great day with are little man. The morning started off with presents from us and my parents. He is very into legos right now and so he got two bigger sets of those from us, a smaller one "from" Scheffler, and a few other little items I'd picked up over the past few months. My parents got him a bike! He was excited about it but still trying to figure out how exactly to pedal. It'll be something we work on this summer. After breakfast we relaxed for a bit and then made are way downtown. We decided it would be fun to take the metro link down since Henry loves trains so much. He thought the train was pretty cool and it was great because it dropped us off right in front of the stadium. At the game we had wonderful time and although, he started asking to leave during the 2nd inning, we made it to the 7th due to food bribery. Side note: the itailian ices they sell in the stands at Busch were delicious. It was a very warm day but luckily we were in the shade. If we hadn't been we wouldn't have made it very long. When we got home we grilled and ate with my parents. I hope Henry enjoyed his birthday as much as I did.

Happy Birthday Henry! You are an amazing little boy. Even though you have your very rough days, you are overall happy and healthy. I am amazed at how many words you are "sight reading" and how good your memory is. You know more about trucks then I ever will. You love yo watch YouTube but also play outside in the sandbox. You love your little brother so much but I know the fights are on their way.

All he wanted for his birthday from us was legos. We went to Target several times to pick out and discuss which ones he wanted. These things are expensive! But he loves them and has gotten really good at putting them together somewhat on his own.