Bam turns 4

Bam turned 4 on Friday. I'm not sure exactly how this is possible. The years are becoming more and more of a blur. Is this because I am too busy, or just getting old? Perhaps both.

Bam is the sweetest of boys. He is tender hearted and cuddly. But he knows his own mind. This means that he ALWAYS knows what he wants/needs and can very rarely be dissuaded. This is particularly a problem when he can't actually articulate what he wants. We're working on that.

Since this has unwittingly become the year of no friend birthdays, we just kind of glossed over that part of the celebration and went straight to planning cakes. Bam said he wanted a Billy Blazes cake. For those who have no boys or are otherwise uninitiated into the world of the unfortunately discontinued toy line (no, we haven't told Bam they are discontinued) "Rescue Heroes": Billy Blazes is a firefighter. So, I found a fire engine cake online and constructed my best approximation.



Everything was going well. DH was picking up pizza for the birthday dinner (a compromise from the originally chosen Happy Meals), the cake was ready and local relatives were coming for presents and cake. Then Bam began to cry that CE had hurt his ear. He was crying genuine tears of pain, but CE swore she had not touched his ear. He cowboyed up a bit once the pizza arrived, so I blew off the prior calls of trauma. Pizza was the best $5 can buy (Lil Caesar's, his favorite); family came, presents were opened and then it was time to blow out candles and cut into the fire engine cake. Bam stood up next to the cake, blew out his candles and said he didn't want cake and could he go to bed now. Really he did.



So, while helping him change into jammies, I asked him if his ear hurt (YES!), gave him Motrin and we cuddled him to bed. An hour later when we were quietly bringing up the rest of the hooligans, Bam was up and playing. I chalked it up to powerful drugs and we moved toward bed time. The next morning, the boy was whiny and said his ear hurt, so DH took him to the doctor and it seems our lovely birthday boy burst his eardrum for his special day! Antibiotics were applied and we moved on.

Or so we thought.

Grandpa T came to play with us for the weekend (which was lovely and we are so glad he came and hope he will come again soon, even though he spent longer in the airport trying to leave than he was actually at our house due to unfortunate community events like the PRC championship and a NHRA race, in addition to the usual conventions in this strange town) and we had tons of fun playing with him.

Sunday morning, I gave Bam his second dose of the amoxicilin and we went to church. Half way through the sacrament service, I began to notice spots on Bam. The spots multiplied and spread all over his body. So, on the way home from church, I called the pediatrician and he agreed that spots were bad and he issued a new prescription and directed me to give Benadryl until the spots abated.

What a birthday for Bam! But true to his sweet nature, he is happy. He is playing with his new toys. His new medicine is not itchy (a big plus) and even tasty and life moves on. Never a dull moment eh?