Kyla's birthday party...

For Kyla's birthday party, Gavin was invited to Build-a-Bear--his first experience there. Gavin was the only male attendee, and I'm guessing that that had something to do with his shy day. The Build-a-Bear employee that was facilitating the party asked the kids to dance--something that's usually right up Gavin's alley--and he got completely and totally unexpectedly embarrassed. I was so surprised! But for the duration of his time in the store, he was super clingy and cuddly (kinda nice, gotta be honest) and not my "normal" gregarious Gavin.

You can kind of detect the beginning of his sweet but confusing, shy little funk in the picture above. We've been talking about embarrassment over the past couple of months (I was surprised that he had brought it up, though I'm sure that it's developmentally appropriate), and looking back, maybe Kyla's party marked the beginning of Gavin's awareness around this subject.

Of course, all bets were off once he'd inhaled a birthday donut. There's my boy!