This is Melissa writing on July 20. Tani turned two-and-a-half last week. (The photo here is from the beginning of June at Longwood Gardens). We had a spontaneous party the evening of July 14, his half birthday. We bought cupcakes and then called up our friends the Wilsons (or in Tani's language, Rebecca's house) and went over for a little celebration. Tani and Rebecca each blew out a candle. Tani has been calling himself Mickey Mouse lately; although, today he was a dog.

We went to Dorney Park today-- it's a popular amusement park here in Allentown. Tani loved it. We went on the flying bus ride about 6 times and a ferris wheel and a jeep ride (a little train that looks like jeeps) and even a small rollercoaster. Tani was mostly in great spirits; however, he got very anxious waiting for the jeep ride (for the 2nd time) and started screaming. I told him that if he screamed again, we would leave that area, which we needed to, and he had a bit of a tantrum, but then calmed down. He gets quite dramatic when he wants something and can't have it, but then calms down. I imagine that we'll be going back there.

On Saturday night, Neysa, Tani, and I went to an outdoor concert in Bryn Mawr with our friends Debra and Levana (who is a few months younger than Tani). This was a Tom Chapin concert-- Tom Chapin is a wonderful children's folk musician, and Tani loves listening to his CDs. It was so exciting for all of us to see him in concert-- we sat right up front, and he has such a nice manner as a performer. Neysa bought Tani his latest CD, which Tani has been calling "my favorite CD," transporting it back and forth from the car to his CD player in the house.

I got a wonderful book out of the library-- Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. The illustrations are gorgeous, and Tani loves it, particularly the page, "respect is offering your very first cookie to your grandmother," as well as the page, "greedy is eating all the cookies yourself, hee hee hee, yum yum yum." We also have loved the They Might be Giants "Here come the 1-2-3's", and we've been watching the DVD that comes with it-- just returned it to the library. I think we'll probably buy ourselves a copy, and I saw that there's an ABC DVD as well.

Tani is a loving, sweet boy (we often call him "sweet boy"), and he brings joy and laughter and love to our lives each day.

Fireworks

I was putting Tani to bed last week and there were fireworks going off outside.  Dorney Park is only a few miles away and I think they set off fireworks some nights right before closing the amusement park.  Tani asked what the noise was and I explained it was from fireworks - they also give off pretty light if one is close enough to see.  Tani hasn't seen fireworks yet as these shows occur right around or after his bedtime and I also worried he might be afraid of them.  But Tani seemed very interested in the fireworks sounds.  He called them "fireworkers".  He also asked if they were like thunder.  I explained they were very similar except that fireworks were set off by people but thunder and lightening by Nature.  Last night at bedtime there was a big lightening/thunder storm so we opened the shade to watch the display.

When explaining fireworks I didn't tell Tani they came from Dorney Park because I think he'd want to go over there and not go to bed.  About a week ago we went to "Ice Cream World" which is right across from Dorney Park.  Tani got a cone with mint chocolate chip ice cream, which he discovered he liked after eating some of Mommy Malka's a few weeks before in Wilmington.  Melissa didn't get an ice cream, and I got a cone with vanilla soft serve dipped in chocolate sprinkles.  Tani was eating his ice cream until he saw mine.  Then he wanted to try mine.  He decided he liked my cone with vanilla soft serve and chocolate sprinkles better and passed his off to Melissa.  So I took mine back and got him his own.  By then he had eaten so much of mine that he didn't really eat his new cone.  He wandered outside and saw the tall roller coasters across the street.  "I want to go over there!" he exclaimed pointing to Dorney Park.   It was 7:30 pm and we weren't about to go to Dorney Park right then.   Tani then started sobbing "I want to go to Dorney Park, I want to go to Dorney Park."  He couldn't ride any of the rides he saw since he's under 48".  We've heard there is a kid's section called "Camp Snoopy" which Tani would probably like.  There is also a big swimming pool and some small water rides for kids.  We thought about getting a season pass for Melissa for $100 (Tani is free), as a single admission is $40 plus $10 for parking.  She hasn't taken him there yet but I suspect he'd have a blast.