P Is For Party
Posted By jayna on April 9, 2010
We’ve been talking cakes a lot around here lately. Flower ones, ladybug ones, Clifford ones, caterpillar ones, princess ones, and horse ones. Cakes, cakes, cakes. This year, we have not one, but two on order to top last year’s confectionery creation that I nearly ripped my hair out over.
Two.
Two birthdays.
Two birthdays that are going to smack me upside the head with so much reality about my babies growing up that I can feel the headache already. I don’t have a chubby-cheeked toddler that is just learning to string long, meaningful sentences together. I have a tall, skinny, freckle-faced thing that sasses back at me on a daily basis. There is no shortage of sentences coming from her little brain. The “Why?” epidemic started months ago and has only been fueling her arsenal of big, grown-up words. She reasons, she lies, she has compassion and she loves to learn. She does every fun little thing a three year old should do, and then some of the things they shouldn’t.
She loves her baby sister with all her heart, even when she’s shoving her away from toys and yanking things out of her hands. Her baby sister, the one I begged and pleaded with to hurry up and come. The one that certainly did hurry up and come. The baby sister that has kept me up every. single. night. since that day in May. The one that makes sure things are her way or the highway, our bed or no bed. I’ve watched her change from the helpless, little, swaddled bundle to the roly-poly firecracker toddling around the house, determined to bust every baby-proof lock and find every scrap of paper. She fights back when her sister steals her toys, chases the cats and causes mayhem wherever she goes. Her first word may just be ‘dog’, but it won’t be long before she can tell a stranger to quit staring at her hair.
I thought the first year was the hardest to watch end. But then we hit the second, and that was just as painful. Now, I’m practically digging in my heels, determined to put off hitting the third. And the baby? I’m living in complete denial, pretending that nope, she really isn’t turning one. Pretending that both of them aren’t actually growing up before my eyes.
Nobody warned me about this part of being a mom.
Obviously, this is why we have gigantic birthday bashes. Not for the kids, but to aid us poor mothers in slipping past the big day, lost in party hats and streamers and up to our elbows in purple icing.
Because, really, what takes the edge off a bit of depression like a giant vat of purple icing?
Wait until the oldest turns 5. I cried. Don’t know why it hit me so hard, but that was the magical age where I realized that my *BABY* wasn’t a baby, or even a toddler, anymore.
AND I understand about the joint birthday parties…All 3 of my kids were born within 11 days of each other at the beginning of May. Oh, what a joy that 2 weeks is ;)
With baby #2 I keep on doing thing or witnessing things and saying, “this is the last time I will use this newborn outfit” or “this is the last time we will have a one month old”…. I’m clinging to every last moment because it seems with this baby things are flying by.
And then the why stage turns into the repeat the same well-articulated question stage. Over and over. And over. :)