Armanno turn 3

Armanno's 3rd birthday was approaching quickly. I had a great idea this year or so I thought! Armanno loved loved loved Toopy and Binoo. For those who aren't familiar with this cartoon, it's the one with the gray mouse "Toopy" and his little friend Binoo. This cartoon was the worse cartoon ever. It had no educational value whatsoever, well maybe it was good for promoting imagination, I'll give it that. Anyways point being, I decided to make him home-made Toopy & Binoo dolls. I was so excited, he was going to love them. I went out and picked up all the supplies which cost about 40 bucks.

I procrastinated making it, I do that with a lot of things. But none the less a few days prior to the big day, I started making this doll from scratch. I guess I had under estimated the time it took to pull off this project. I found myself getting closer to his birthday and scrambling to get it finished. I wanted it to be perfect for him. By the end of it I had my husband and his friend working on it with me. I even ended up missing the first 30 mins of his birthday party trying to put the finishing touches on it.

So the moment arrived and I had Toopy all ready to go in a gift bag. I wasn't able to get Binoo finished. I handed it over to Armanno to open, preparing myself for his intense excitement over Toopy. Well Armanno opened that bag with a bit of hesitation and a very serious face. He pulled Toopy the mouse out and stared at it with a straight face and said nothing at all. No expression, no excitement, no words. I said "Armanno", in a very excited voice, " who is it?". He replied "Mousie?" I said  " no it's Toppy". Armanno gave me a quiet "oh" and put it back in the bag.

All the anxiety of getting this doll perfected and finished and that was the reaction I got! Well that's the last time I make something so special! But it wasn't just me, everyone had gotten him all these cool gifts and he was expressionless to them all. Except these two gifts in particular. One was a very simple small army tank that drove on its own and silly putty. He went nuts over the silly putty. He was so excited, jumping up and down like he had won the lottery. It was at that point I realized I didn't need to waste my money on gifts for Armanno I could just give him silly putty!

The 5 months leading up to Armanno's birthday without Julio seemed to go by fast. Although it went by quick I was exhausted and both Julio and I were really missing being together as a family. Armanno was also not dealing with it very well. He was mad at Julio, he didn't understand why Dad was barely ever around. Armanno wouldn't talk to Julio on the phone and wouldn't do FaceTime with him. He kept saying, I don't like dad. Julio knew it was just Armanno's way of dealing with the fact that he missed his Dad, but it was still heartbreaking. We both came to the realization that we were not going to be able to continue being apart for much longer. I needed Julio's help with Armanno and more importantly Armanno needed his dad back. We decided if we didn't sell the house by sept we would pack everything up and find an apartment in Halifax. So that's what we ended up having to do!