Procrastinet

Longest Day of the Year: a Photoblog

filed under: Dadditudes

Max was born on June 21, 2003 - the summer solstice. Lisa allows as how the longest day of the year has never felt longer. In her delirium that night, after 48 sleepless hours and, oh, you know, CHILDBIRTH, while Max cried and cried and failed to figure out breastfeeding and the nurses ignored her and she became convinced she was going to starve him or freeze him to death, she wrote him a little song, the beginning of which went like this:

His name is Maxwell Raymond Tolan
He screams so loud when he gets himself goin'
He was born on the summer solstice
He's got long fingers he can make in-to fists

To which I say: hey, man, YOU try to come up with a rhyme to "solstice" when you just had your first kid...

So yesterday I took off work to spend his birthday with the little tyke, and man let me tell you - I am not in tip top Daddy shape. Despite napping during his nap, I was wrecked by his bedtime. I don't know how he, or his Mommy, do it.

Here, then, is a photoblog of Max's big day.

It was a tradition when I was growing up that I got "sugar cereal" only on my birthday. We'd go cruise the aisle and I'd pick whichever box had the best looking toy in it - usually I went for those plastic dolphins that you filled with baking soda to make them dive and rise in the bath tub. Later, I started choosing by taste, and by early adolescence Trix was my cereal du choix. As it so happened, we had some left-over Trix from my weekend upstate with my theater company, so Max got to get down on Daddy's old tradition. At first, as shown above, he was too tired and spaced out to know exactly what to make of it.

Once the face-stuffing began in earnest, however, he cheered right up. Here, he appears to be trying to fit some up his nose.

Off we went to the playground, which is nicely devoid of screaming multitudes of children at 9am. Max allowed himself to be seen with me on the "big kid swing" even though my hair had already degenerated into some sort of "Paige Davis gone wrong" kind of look.

Max celebrated his new 2-year-old-ness by sitting all by his lonesome on the big kid swing, with Daddy hovering nervously nearby. It's actually kind of hard to take a picture while you're preparing yourself to leap bodily to your child's rescue should he plummet the death-defying 20 inches to the rubberized playground's spongy surface, thus risking severe bouncing and even mild rug burn.

More after the jump...

After we went "Up. Da. Hill?" to "Watch. Da. Cars?" (what can I say, the kid's inflections are unique), Max further celebrated his independence by running far, far away from me. That tiny speck in the center is him.

Once I closed the gap between us, Max had to find more creative ways to endanger himself. Here he is, sprinting uphill, into traffic.

Here Max indulges in his new favorite game, Sewer Sticks. Sewer Sticks is played like this: Step One - find a stick. Step Two - drop it into sewer to hear it go splash. Step Three - pause to eat part of torn-up Nerf football while Daddy isn't looking. Step Four - go "blechhhh" when you actually taste said football. Step Five - scream at Daddy until he breaks too-large stick into Sewer-Stick-able sizes. Step Six - repeat steps One through Five.

Our usual path to the Prospect Park Zoo was closed for tree-tending, so we took "The Ravine" instead. We had a difference of opinion over the purpose of our stop by this scenic waterfall. I thought it was to take a lovely picture. Max thought it was so that he could dispose of a binkie in the most dramatic and thorough way possible: hurling it down into a chasm of rushing water.

Despite Mommy's insistence that I be careful about losing binkies ("we're running out," she had warned me sternly), leaving Max on the path while I clambered down the sheer stone walls to retrieve it seemed an even less Mommy-approved option. Our day continued, minus one binkie.

I have no idea what exactly this big scary paddle-wheeled floating lawn tractor was doing harvesting duckweed and algae from the pond. I'm not even sure I want to know. Maybe we're not far enough into the future for them to have started making Soylent Green out of people yet.

Just outside of the zoo we found this bunny, clearly an ex-pet now gone feral. It was, actually, quite friendly and happy looking, and caused Max to shout "BUNNY!" at the top of his lungs for the next four hours.

Sure, it was warm in the sun, but I really think this sea lion was milking it for sympathy.

The zoo was still fairly empty, so Max got some serious quality time with the baboons.

Max and the baby baboon: kindred spirits.

Unlike the melodramatic sea lion, this baboon was clearly in the grips of some genuine existential crisis. Max and I christened him "Uncle Mister DeVore."

After the zoo, we retired to the Dog Beach. Since there were no dogs currently enjoying it, Max decided to pick up the slack. From now on I guess I have to refer to it as "the Dog Beach oh and my son plays there too."

Call him Fido.

Skipping ahead to the birthday dinner, at Max's favorite restaurant, Pizza Plus:

It's still early in the dinner, and already the boy is looking surly, not to mention shiny with grease. He's famous at this place for being the only toddler who can sock away more than half a pizza by himself.

Of course, more often than not he eats it laterally...

He was hitting the sippy cup pretty hard...

...and got a bit grabby towards Daddy's carbonara.

Back at home, we celebrated with birthday cupcakes from Two Little Red Hens. I had worried he'd be disappointed that it wasn't an actual cake, as he'd been screaming "Birthday CAKE!" at random intervals all day.

Clearly, I need not have worried.

At first, he wasn't sure what to make of the fact that his cupcake was on fire.

But he figured out how to eat it while warily keeping an eye on the candle. He steadfastly refused, however, to blow it out, so Mommy took care of it for him.

With the hazard of the flame taken care of, Max was free to stuff himself sick.

Ta-daaah! And the cupcake has DISAPPEARED!

We ended the day with a pretty remarkable cuddle at bedtime.

As if understanding that I'd overtaxed myself with a long day of toddler-watching, Max was kind enough to share one of his binkies with me. It was actually kind of soothing.

If the year is going to have one longest day in it, then I'm glad I got to spend it all on the birthday boy.

Happy birthday, buddy.

Posted by rjt at June 22, 2005 01:15 PM