Happy birthday Nathan!

Two years ago, my wife and I were blessed with our second son, Nathan Wallace.  Most folks probably don’t realize it — but Nathan’s name has a special meaning.  When Kenny was born, we choose a name that would give him his own personal identity.  Most folks in our family had thought that Kenny would take my name (I’m a junior), but I really wanted to give Kenny his own name and identity.  And while there is a story behind his name, I’ll save that for another time.  Anyway, that’s how we came up with Kenneth Terry. 

Nathan however was an answer to a prayer and a culmination of a very long pregnancy for my wife.  So when we were trying to come up with names for our second — there was one name that really stuck out — Nathan.  The name Nathan is of Hebrew origin and translates as God has given.  Considering some past events — this name really fit — he is a gift that was given and we knew it.  Like Kenny, Nathan’s middle name is significant as well.  Wallace happens to be Nathan’s great-grandfather’s (on my dad’s side) first name and this was something that I wanted to do for my grandfather.

So in our house, Sept. 11th is Nathan’s day.  He’s a little boy that’s 2, going on 5.  I wonder if that’s the case with all younger siblings.  Nathan wants so bad to be able to do everything that Kenny does — and Kenny, like a good big brother, dutifully lets Nathan tag along whenever possible.  I think that we’ve been pretty lucky that the two boys are so close.  It’s funny sometimes to watch.  Recently for example — Kenny was out riding his bike out on the street.  Well, out comes Nathan pulling Kenny’s old Red Rider out of the garage.  He’d seen Kenny riding and he wanted to ride his bike too.  So we dusted off Kenny’s old bike helmet and onto the bike he went. 

If you look carefully, you can see that his feet just about reached the pedals :).  Which of course made me think about Kenny’s first time on this little bike.  Kenny was actually the same age as Nathan when he got this bike (2 years) but really didn’t start riding it until he was three — so to the pictures I went and look at what I found…

The first picture is at Kenny’s birthday.  The second is when he is 3 after we moved to our new house.  It’s funny looking at pictures of the two boys.  They are such different little people….So…

On Saturday, family came up and celebrated Nathan’s birthday with us, which was pretty funny.  I don’t think Nathan quite understood what was going on — but I think he’s probably hoping that every day will be like Saturday was.  He got cake, pizza, presents, lots of toys, etc.  as well as getting to be the center of everyone’s attention. 

Right now, Nathan is really partial to Nemo.  So this year, we had a Nemo birthday cake made for him.

This was obviously a crowd favorite.  Not only was Nemo and Dory on the cake, but Nemo and Dory were bath toys — after we started cutting the cake, he got to keep these two little guys as toys. 

Now Nathan is very different from Kenny in one way — Nathan love’s sweets.  Kenny really didn’t start liking candy, cake, doughnuts…until he was around 3, 3 1/2.  Nathan, on the other hand, has always liked his sweets.  And he really gets into them.

If you look closely, you can see that Nemo is enjoying a little bit of cake as well.  As I said, he was pretty thrilled that he was able to play with Nemo and Dory as well.

And what is a birthday party without presents?  And Nathan came out with a pretty good haul. 

Some new clothes (lots of Cars themed sweaters), some trucks (lots of trucks) and a few other things.  At this point, he’s really into cars and trucks — so he spent the rest of the day carrying his new favorite trucks around the house.  (Did I mention he went to bed with them :)?  No, well he did.  For about an hour after he went to bed — I’ve been hearing, “Ninny (that’s how he pronounces Kenny), its a truck!  Vurroomm, Vurroom.”  I’m glad he had such a good time and hope he enjoys a night filled with dreams of trucks towing cars.

–TR