Last week I came down the stairs to my lunch break and Beau was walking. Yesterday, I came down the stairs to my lunch break and Sid was almost finished with an elaborate birthday countdown sign. Dang, I really do enjoy working from home!

When I came downstairs yesterday, Sid was putting the finishing touches on this.

As I have mentioned in multiple previous posts, Sloan is, for better or worse, obsessed with her birthday. Since early this summer when we celebrated her cousin’s birthday, she has probably asked us every day thereafter whether it was her special day or not.

This longing for March 17 has forced many premature happy birthday songs in her honor, fits of jealousy at family members’ birthday gatherings, and countless questions about who could be on her guest list in this pandemic era. Quite simply, her birthday is always on her soon-to-be-4-year-old mind.

After brushing off a lot of Sloan’s incessant birthday chatter over the past several months, a page was torn off the calendar yesterday and it was March. I could finally tell Sloan, we will celebrate your birthday this month.

But leave it to my wife for going above and beyond just telling her. Sid took a couple hours yesterday morning to complete a Pinterest-inspired project. Titled Sloan’s Birthday Countdown, it will let our daughter inch closer to her birthday one day at a time over the next 2.5 weeks.

Sloan standing with her birthday countdown.

The board’s centerpiece is a three-layer cake covered in 17 “sprinkles.” Each sprinkle has a number written on it that represents one of the days until her birthday. Since yesterday was March 1, she crossed off the sprinkle with the number 1 on it. Today she crossed off sprinkle 2. And you know how it goes. I guess we are counting up instead of counting down…

Sloan marking off the “1” on her birthday countdown.

Great job to Sid for harnessing Sloan’s enthusiasm for her birthday in an educational and visually appealing way. Tomorrow we will just be two weeks until the big day! Don’t Blink.