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.