rory's birthday was fun. the night before, we kept asking her 'who's birthday is it tomorrow?' and 'who's going to be 2 tomorrow?' and each time she would answer, very enthusiastically 'RORY!'

so yesterday, i left work early to do some errands and then head over to daycare for the school birthday 'party'. i'd made some gingerbread cupcakes with cream cheese frosting-mmmmm. the teacher placed one in front of rory with a candle in it and before she lit the candle, she told rory to be very careful of the candle because it was very hot. then she lit the candle and while everyone sang 'happy birthday', rory looked very warily at the cupcake with the candle aflame on it. when the song was done i said 'do you want to blow out the candle?' and she burst out crying. she didn't even want me to blow it out. but i did and then removed the offending ever-so-scary birthday candle and all was right with the world.

later, my mom and dad called and sang to rory and had what was probably the longest phone conversation with her that she's ever had with anyone. they had her singing her famous 'la-la'* and 'polar bear'* songs, and even got a bonus rendition of 'jingle bells' (with my help). it was great.

we did give her a few presents last night-slippers (or as she calls them 'leepers'), a puzzle, and 2 books. but the real haul will come this weekend when we have a little party for friends and family.

then of course, she wouldn't go to sleep, and when she did it would only be in our bed. that made comforter real estate scarce, and sleep kinda spotty, especially for brian, who was cuddling with her. but all in all, a good day.

*lyrics to rory's compositions are 'la-la, la-la, la-la' (repeat as necessary); and 'polar polar bear, polar bear, polar bear, polar polar polar bear, polar bear' (repeat as necessary). most of the time, the tempo of each song is beat out on the hand using 'dolly', a tongue depressor with a face drawn on it by her pediatrician from her last well child visit.