Billy LOVED his birthday party this year! He turned four, and Dave and I got to experience what most parents love about holidays and special

Sugar in the mornin' ...

occasions: Our child understood it was a special day, he was excited about it -- before, during and afterward -- and he had a great time.

That hasn't been the case in past birthdays, Christmases, Halloweens, etc. Generally speaking, holidays with crowds, new people and places, strange food and lots of noise have just set him off. We have two years of Christmas pictures of him lying on the floor screaming. Admittedly, one year he was forced to wear the cutest little Christmas suit with a plaid vest and a clip-on tie, and looking back, it does look pretty uncomfortable.

The parts most kids get excited about still probably aren't his favorites. Present-opening, for instance, is still stressful. But I understand his frustration: As soon as he opens something he likes, someone takes it away from him and hands him another wrapped-up package. Ripping open paper isn't nearly as fun as beating on his drum set, so he doesn't see the point.

Last Christmas, halfway through the process, he started singing the “All Done Song: “

Sugar at lunch time ...

“All done presents, all done presents, all done presents, it's time for something new ... ALL DONE PRESENTS!!!!!” He repeated this with an “All Done Santa” song when my dad showed up, decked out in full Santa Claus outfit, dragging a new inflatable space shuttle behind him. Luckily, the space shuttle wasn't wrapped.

And just because Billy is singing, that doesn't mean he wants you to open your mouth. He still has some sensitivity where sounds are concerned, and he doesn't mean to offend when he occasionally puts his fingers in his ears when people start to sing or talk loudly.

In fact, on his birthday, Dave and I grabbed Willow first thing and sneaked into Billy's room while the lights were still out, singing “Happy Birthday” to surprise him. From the darkness, all we heard was, “Please stop singing.”

Sugar at half past two!

I asked, “You want us to stop singing your Happy Birthday song?”

Billy: “It stinks.”

He doesn't pull any punches, my guy.

So we were especially delighted with his delight at his party. We held it at the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science. He ran around wildly as the party prep was going on and greeted most new guests by throwing a beach ball at them and screaming, “Happy party!"

The staff at the museum was fantastic. Our assigned “Educator” led the kids through an activity in the Ecolab where they got to pet a hedgehog, a guinea pig and a horseshoe crab. And other than one minor incident in which Billy attempted to catch his favorite colorful fish out the aquarium with his bare hands, it all went well.

We returned to the party room on a high, and it was time for cake and [groan] singing. But to my amazement, when the room erupted into “Happy Birthday to You,” Billy stood there with a giant grin on his face, looking around and around the room, like it had just occurred to him that the party was for him.

Present-opening was still a mixed bag. He loved all the presents. ALL of them. He gives every item in his possession some attention at some point throughout the week. Yesterday, I found him lying on top of his new Toy Story beach towel, studying all the characters very carefully.

But at the time, he was frustrated, once again, by the unfair request made of him: Open up a totally awesome Hot Wheels workbench and then set it aside and open up something else awesome that you can't play with. Eventually, I had to help with the opening and just settle for showing him the presents while he – and all the other kids – put together his new Thomas track. Anyone else have any ideas about how I can better handle present-opening the next time it comes up?

After present-opening, the little kids and big kids (moms and dads) were each given two tokens to use in the Videotopia exhibit, an arcade disguised as a history of video games. Well, it does have a lot of history of video games in it, but the crowd of kids was around the Star Wars racing game, not the trivia quiz about the history of Sega.

They even have an old Pong video game. Delighted that there was a game the controls of which I could operate, I put my token in and relived my childhood. For a minute. Before staring dumbfounded at the game and wondering, “WHAT exactly is fun about this?” Surely, actual Ping-pong or tennis would have been much more entertaining.

Billy loves the arcade, though I'm not entirely sure he knows the difference between when the game is actually on and when the game is in demo mode. Nonetheless, we've dumped tons of tokens into that “exhibit” over the past couple of months, since it replaced the “Dinosaurs” exhibit. (FYI, I'm told “A Bug's Life,” by the makers of the animatronic dinosaurs exhibit, is probably coming in January.)

His favorite game: something he refers to as “Crazy Train” that he plays with Dave. I'm not sure if that's the actual name of the game or not, since he calls the “Whack a Mole” game “Gorillas!!” and won't be dissuaded that it's not a game about gorillas who jump out of holes in the ground.

At the end of the day, sleepy and happy, he asked Dave, "Do you remember the Crazy Train?" Yes, we remember. More importantly, HE remembered. And he ASKED us about it, something that had happened earlier in the day – the first time that has every happened.

Now we have something else to celebrate.