Birthday Freakout 4: Presents!

As is traditional here, we reserved Iain's birthday gifts for after dinner. This is the way we do things. Unless by "we" you mean Mom, who likes to tear open her gifts the moment the UPS driver's fingers release them. If you want something saved for a holiday, send it to Charles.

Anyway. So Iain ate his dinner with presents all 'round. And, as you can see, he didn't care one bit. He was (as he always is) all, "what's to eat?" Now you see how he got to be approximately "A Little Off the Charts" tall.

Callie was more polite, though she enjoyed her hummus and Club crackers just as much, methinks.

The first present to be opened was a soft book. Then came a hard book. Iain loves his books, so he was pleased. Then there was a gift card disguised as a book. He liked that a lot, enough to wipe hummus all over it and then give it a taste.

Then he opened the first gift from Callie. Check it out:

In order to fully understand our delight, you need to know that one of Iain's grandfathers wears a blue polo shirt and tan shorts (note to our English friends: not khaki pants!) almost every single day. So Iain is his grandfather's grandson, for sure. Note the lobster detail - that's a little nod to Maine.

Once dinner was over, Iain retired to the den to commence the unwrapping in earnest. Here, he frolics among the discarded papers:

One of the next gifts opened came from the Colorado contingent. It was a toy that used to belong to Daddy. You can see part of it in Iain's hand above, but it was Callie who immediately glommed on to The Toy You Can Whack. Charles provided a tutorial, but Callie was a natural.

Mom was more excited about the jammies in the box, but Iain doesn't care about that. That's boring compared to a truck you can bang on. However, his next present was a huge hit. Huge. Of course, he only got to play with it the next morning, because Dad had to put it together. But that prolonged the fun of The Birthday, so it's all good.

Observe:


And a closeup of Mr. HappyPants:


One more gift came today, photos to follow...