Birthday #2, an historic #2 and a zoo

The second round of Zoe's second birthday celebration went down this weekend while Busia and Dziadzia came to town for a couple days. The photo above is pretty self-explanatory (kudos to Mommy for such a great action shot), but the one below isn't quite so clear. This particular blow on the blowout (yes, the official name is "blowout") was in recognition of a different kind of No. 2.

Allow me to explain:

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Busia and Dziadzia came to town Saturday night so we could attend the wedding reception of our friends Kerry and John in Detroit (held in a very cool building downtown called the Scarab Club). Amidst a fun night, about 9:30 p.m. -- when we foolishly assumed Zoe would already be soundly asleep -- we called Busia's cell phone for an update.

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That's when we heard the news... Zoe had pooped in the potty for the first time! I think it was more of an at-the-right-place-at-the-right-time occurrence than anything, but we were still initially disappointed that we missed the occasion. Who could ever imagine they'd be disappointed to miss any occurrence involving poop?

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A couple minutes later, I was spreading the good word around the reception's second stop (a bar called Cliff Bell's). Yes indeed, Kerry and John's reception will forever be ingrained in our minds for a very unusual reason.

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That's actually only the first of two great poop stories... but certain people would be very upset with me if I told the other one here. Those of you headed to Lakeside Cabins this summer will have to remember to ask Busia about it after a couple drinks.

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Back to the birthday...

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Early Sunday, we headed to the backyard to unveil a couple presents:

The little house is from Busia and Dziadzia... and Zoe loves it.

She spent nearly the rest of the day inside, serving everyone soup from the little kitchenette, sweeping the floor with her new broom and talking on the make-believe phone.

She did find time, while we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of Aunt Tephs and Jason, to take a ride in her new wagon:

Aunt Tephs joined us after she got out of work and brought along this very cool sandbox. (People of my generation call it a sandbox, anyway. Apparently they're now "sensory tables.")

We had a great time and thank everybody for joining us... and thank the whole Honeycutt clan again for the previous party. Zoe is one lucky, lucky girl.

Sonja and I played hooky from work Monday to extend the birthday celebration by one day. Coincidentally, we still drove to Domino's Farms for a visit to its petting farm:

On the way there, Zoe was pretty excited. We thought that would be the case since she's very into animals right now... frequently choosing animal-based books to read and mimic. It started OK with the potbellied pigs, which she liked:

She was significantly less thrilled with the cows, llamas, goats and other animals of that size. She called them by name and made their noise... but wasn't interested in getting very close.

The photo below shows a pretty typical distance between Zoe and the animals:


All of us were pretty intrigued by this little guy. I'm not sure if this is some sort of strange half-breed swan-duck... or if he just walked with an extraordinary amount of self-confidence. Whatever the case, he sure stuck out from the rest.

As Sonja and I both predicted, the second we strapped Zoe back in her carseat she started her new mantra: "See mo aminals. See mo aminals. See mo aminals."

Lunch was next on the itinerary, but Zoe zonked out about five minutes (and 31 "See mo aminals") into the drive. Instead, Mommy and Daddy enjoyed a quiet, 90-minute drive around the outskirts of Washtenaw County until our princess was ready to turn her nose up at the chicken and veggies we ordered for her.

Once we got home, there were plenty of noodles waiting.

In a way it was good to know that no matter how quickly you're growing up, or where you choose to poop, some things don't change.