Today is my 35th birthday. First of all, I can't believe I'm already 35, because I feel about 22. Also, I swear I just celebrated my 33rd birthday. What happened to my 34th birthday?

This was the most low-key birthday I've ever had. We celebrated at a champagne brunch yesterday, but today the only out-of-the-ordinary thing that I did was take Julian to Hogue Park. I put him in the jogging stroller and ran over there, then we played in the little kids' playground. He had a blast pulling up on everything. They have a fire truck sort of thing, and he pulled up on different parts of that.

Two little sisters came by to play as soon as we arrived, about 2.5 and 5 years old. The 5 year-old came up to him, said, "My name is Ava.", then stared into his face, touched his hand and announced, "I love him." They practically played right on top of Julian for about ten minutes. I kept having to rescue Julian's fingers from being crushed by the 2.5 year-old's sneaker, and her full-face attempts at kissing him. Finally their mother shooed them away.

Julian crawled up onto one of the play structures and experimented cautiously with crawling up and down various sloping ramps. There was a bridge that was shaped like a slight U. He crawled to the edge of it, tapped in front of him with his hand to test it out and make sure it was OK, then gingerly crawled over it. Once he got to the other side he continued speed-crawling again. Very cute. My little adventurer!

He played some music on the musical tubes, turned a steering wheel around and around, and for a grand finale we went down the big slide. Fun! I put him back in his jogging stroller and ran home again. I knew it was past his naptime, but when I got home it was already after 1:00pm...we had been at the park for over an hour and a half! Well, we'll just have to go earlier from now on. It's too bad I can't take Bugs to the park too, but he's not allowed in the playground.

Our baby has been quite the social butterfly lately. Lisa and Ray were over the other night, and Julian woke up not too long after they arrived. He was all fired up and not going back to sleep, so I just brought him downstairs to visit for a while. He sat quietly and contently with us for several hours on my lap and just hung out and listened to the conversation. I was amazed. He made up for his lost sleep that night by sleeping in the next morning, which was great for me.

Whew, the next few weeks are going to be hectic. First we are spending a week in Southern CA with my family, which isn't hectic by itself, but all the traveling and adjusting and having J in a lot of different places that aren't childproofed is going to be challenging. Then back to start packing up the house, we move on January 10-11, and unpacking/putting away after that. I foresee Julian spending a lot of time on my back in his backpack during that time! Not that that's a bad thing...he's cozy and safe back there, and can see what's going on. But my back might be a wee bit sore after all this.

Oh, and Dan and I have our 2nd wedding anniversary on January 3rd. Can't believe it's been two years already. Did time go by this fast before, or do we just have more milestones to gauge it by now?