A First Birthday
My dad has been telling me this my entire life, but December birthdays are hard! It’s such a busy time of year, there’s so much on our list to get done, and suddenly we had a first birthday party to plan! And I knew I both needed to, and wanted two for two reasons. One, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of second child gets less. I’m trying hard to make sure that both of my children get enough. Enough love, enough pictures, enough of feeling special. Which means their own day to celebrate their birthday.
Also, a first birthday is something that needs to be celebrated. It’s not only a milestone, but it’s an accomplishment. An infant is hard. Not getting sleep is hard. Carrying around someone for an entire year because they can’t walk, is hard. Same with feeding, same with everything. You lose yourself for a bit, you get less while you give more. And this is a point to acknowledge that and celebrate moving from survival mode to living.
So celebrate we did. Cake, balloons, presents, friends & family - everything that makes up a great party. And all things that baby G loves. As per usual, when there are extra people around, and things going on, he is not a fan of sleep. So he hung with everyone until he was almost passing out sitting up. He chased after all the big kids, and was crackling with joy every time they included him in whatever they were doing.
I wasn’t worried about him eating his cupcake, since this kid loves food. I forgot that some kids cry when everyone sings happy birthday until it was too late, but instead of crying, he was in his element. He seemed to understand that what was happening was for him, and boy was he excited. He was rocking back and forth in his highchair so much it was moving forward, and had a huge smile on his face. And of course he did eat the cupcake, but didn’t seem any more excited about it than any other food. He ate the entire thing, but compared to the other toddlers at the party who were begging for seconds, he definitely didn’t love it.
Overall the party was exactly what I was hoping, and I actually had fun! I loved all the kids running around playing with everything. Low key, awesomeness.