Will's birthday

 

Kids from a recent trip to the zoo. Visiting the Heart of Africa.

Four months flew by in the blink of an eye. Four months. That is how old Ethan is. We fed him his first taste of real food-a concoction of broccoli and mommy milk. I held the spoon up to his month and he nudged it with his lips, unsure of what to do. After I urged a couple of spoonfuls of broccoli mush into his mouth, he started trying to lap it up. I'm not sure he knows how to eat it but his attempts improved in just one sitting.

Today is Will's birthday so dinner was his favorite pepperoni pizza from Pizza Cabin. Carter shockingly ate bites of pepperoni pizza until he decided that the pepperoni was spicy after 4-5 bites. "Spicy" is what the kids would say to show their dislike of something. "Spicy" and "hot". I've caught them using it to describe cold salad. Ainsley is our little wanna-be vegetarian with her predilection towards greens. She has even eaten lettuce from my homemade salads before and loves green beans. Unfortunately, that love was not extended to meat and she refused to eat the pepperoni pizza. After several tries and the "no playground" threats - Really? The threats of grounding have already started? - Ainsley peered at the underside of the pizza with interest. So I folded the pizza in half hiding the cheese and pepperoni and she took the smallest bites possible from the crust. I would normally say that it is great that she loves her vegetables but both our kids on on the smaller side of the growth charts which causes Will to lose sleep at night.

After dinner, we headed off to get Rita's Italian ice in downtown Powell, a quaint little family friendly area. The plan was to let the kids try and pick out flavors that they like and then take it to the playground at the park down the road. Will and I used to make this same trip for ice cream and tennis except we used to visit Jeni's ice cream first. Jeni's ice cream is a Columbus-based gourmet ice cream shop made with fresh, local ingredients. Milk from the Snowville creamery is the main one that comes to mind. Their flavors are all delicious whether it is their signature Salty Caramel or more exotic Goat Cheese with Sour Cherries (my favorite!). I use the word gourmet to describe her ice cream as a pint will cost $10. 3 small scoops will cost $5 at the store though you might be able to stretch that by trying as many flavors as your taste buds can handle-totally encouraged in the store. Unfortunately, Jeni's ran into a hiccup in their operations where listeria was found in some of the flavors of their ice cream. Upon this discovery, Jeni's closed all their shops and recalled all of their ice cream to find the cause of listeria which was eventually traced to one ice cream spout dispenser. They have announced that they will not continue operations until this situation has been completely remedied.

With Jeni's being closed, we all went to Rita's and Will took the kids through the line to try various flavors of Italian ice. Both tried only a couple and Carter picked the Swedish fish while Ainsley got juicy pear. Two large Swedish fish gelatis and two small ices in hand, we all went to the playground at the park. Rather than parking near the tennis courts we used to play, we parked near the playground. The size of the playground structure was perfect for the twins age. It wasn't too big where I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving them to roam free on. I sat on a bench with dessert and Ethan and laughed as the twins struggled with whether to play on the playground or to eat their ice cream. Carter solved this dilemma by holding onto his cup on the playground and refusing to let anyone near it including Will. Will had finished his own Swedish fish gelati and was trying to eat Carter's. I gave mine to him as I normally do after eating 1/4 of it but that didn't even last very long in his hands. Hilarious. It is his birthday today after all.