Happy Birthday Vito, Jr.

Then

Now

Vito turned 4 years old today. The fun started when Katie, Anna & I all went in to his room to wake him up and wish him a Happy Birthday. He was very excited but we were told not to sing to him until later "When there was cake."

Anna made cupcakes and I brought them in to his school for the class to enjoy after lunch. The kids sang Happy Birthday and he received a gift of a finger puppet from the class.

Doma and Vito enjoy their cupcakes.

Vito's buddy Carlos came over for the afternoon and they wrecked the house had fun playing. Carlos just turned 4 in Dec, he's just REALLY tall (or Vito is really short).
We all sang Happy Birthday and then enjoyed the cake that Anna had made (from scratch!). It was delicious!

The present from Mommy and Daddy went over pretty well.
More pictures on our Kodak Gallery Homepage.


You may have noticed that there was no mention of "VJ" in this post. About a week ago, Vito informed us that he no longer wanted to be called "VJ". We were to call him "Vito." OK, we can work on that. So we started to call him Vito. And then the problems began.

He corrected how I pronounced his my our name. He did not like the way I pronounced "Vito." I never realized that I tend to pronounce the "t" more like a "d". This is NOT acceptable to Vito, Jr. When you next speak to him, make sure that the "t" sound comes through loud and clear.

I haven't broken the news to him yet, but he needs to prepare for a lifetime of people saying his name wrong. For 5 years, my next door neighbor in TX called me Vidal. A woman I worked with at Samaritan Hospital thought my name was Guido. She'd greet me with a "Hey, Gui."
Me: "Union National Customer Service, Vito speaking. How may I help you?"
Customer: "Good morning Peter. Can you tell me the balance on my checking account."

You get used to it after a while and it is just easier to answer to whatever they call me (as long as it comes close). Just don't tell ME how to pronounce MY name.