Tomorrow is this little cutie's 2nd birthday party. I am going to do my best to entertain her and her guests at the carnival themed celebration.
But for me the party really started today with the renewal of a tradition I started years ago.
When my nieces and nephew were little I used to make giving them their birthday present an occasion by letting them picking it out themselves.
I would pick them up on a Saturday around the time of their special day and take them out for lunch to McDonald's. It was during one of these lunches that I invented "the french fry game". If you want to know what that is, just ask.
After lunch I would take them to the local toy store and let them look around. It was a lot of fun letting them look at all the toys. Of course they wanted everything but could pick only one. After the tough decision of what they liked the most it was off to the register and home to play with the new toy of their choice.
It's been a long time since those days. My nephew, the last one I did this with, is now 22 years old.
But today Paula and I had the opportunity to restart my birthday gift tradition with our granddaughter.
This afternoon, we met our son and daughter-in-law at Toys R Us. For about 45 minutes we walked around through the aisles with Aria letting her look at and play with what ever she wanted.
She picked up a stuffed cat from the FAO Schwartz toy line, sat in the motorized vehicles and, finally, became enthralled with the toy train sets.
We left the store with a starter toy train set and a traditional "corn popper" push toy.
We didn't go though my traditional "pick your own birthday present" process but it was still a lot of fun.
Perhaps next year when she's a little older "Nana" and "Papa" will take the birthday girl out for lunch. But for now I'm happy with the start of our own birthday tradition.
Now it's time to focus on getting ready for tomorrow. I've got a carnival side show to get ready for. I'm very excited about the party.
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