Well, it happened. Lucy turned four.
In light of my previous post, there hasn't been a good opportunity for me to mourn the expiration of my three year old. I've been keeping too busy to be sad, so you might be happy to know that I didn't shed a single tear!
I didn't put much planning into the birthday festivities, yet two lovely parties came together to make for a weekend in Lucy's honor. If you think that so much celebrating might overwhelm a girl of barely four years, you would be correct. She was overly tired and her sass came out like I'd never seen before. And there was a tantrum or two, the worst being at the end of her actual birthday, and she screamed, "I don't love you! I am going to put on my shoes and go back to the hospital and find a new family!" My response? "Okay. I'm sorry that you feel that way. I hope you find your way to the hospital. But please leave all your birthday gifts here so that Max can play with them." Needless to say, she has stuck around.
So, Aunt Merry offered to make Lucy a birthday cake, and Lucy requested an Alice in Wonderland theme. Merry delivered a piece of art that tasted as good as it looked!
We invited some friends and family to eat cake with us, and we also had some very special house guests who had driven into town that afternoon, Andrea, Elsie and Brynn! I quickly put Andrea to work on a 7-layer bean dip while our kids got reacquainted.
It was a fun night which ended in the aforementioned tantrum at bedtime. Oh, the joys of motherhood!
Party #2 was at Build-a-Bear, and though the store suggests a reservation 2-3 weeks in advance, I lucked out and was able to squeak us in for some bear-building fun (or in Lucy's case, a Hello Kitty-building fun).
I thought that this party would rock Lucy's world- that it would be so much fun to be at the mall with her closest friends- what could be more exciting?? In reality, she was pretty mellow, and she nearly fell asleep on the way to the mall, and I found myself being a cheerleader, "Isn't this FUN, Lucy? Oh WOW, Lucy, look at THAT! YOU get to be in the FRONT of the line, Lucy, because YOU are the BIRTHDAY girl!!" Imagine all of this in my best rah-rah cheer voice. One word- exhausting. Don't get me wrong; Lucy had a great time and I think that her friends did too, but sometimes as a parent I wonder if the birthday hoopla is done in vain, you know? Like, Devon and I looked at each other during the party and wondered Does any of this matter? Would she have been equally as happy to stay at home and play? I made a mental note-to-self: next year's birthday, less is more. Will someone please volunteer to hold me to this?
However, there is something special about gathering our circle of friends and celebrating the girl that we love so much. The fact that they took time out of their Saturday afternoons to drive to the mall and hang out in a teddy bear store with a grumpy birthday girl- it means something to me. And out-of-town relatives called to sing Happy Birthday, and an amazing cake was made, and thoughtful gifts were selected and presented, and friends drove from far away... It all feels pretty good.
So, maybe some of the celebrating is in vain.
I sure hope that Lucy felt the love too :)
5 comments:
Ok, I am so glad you are back! And as usual I had to laugh at Lucy's comment about going back to the hospital. How funny she is! And we love her so much, even when she is doing her drama queen routine.
The parties got a lot of people together and I for one enjoyed it so your celebrating was NOT in vain. I hope you get a chance to rest now (I can hope), and don't make us wait so long for a blog post :-)
I'll be back! :) I have been waiting all day for a post, but I can't properly comment just yet!
It was a grand weekend!
You are a rock-star mama and we all had such a good time.
Today, I have a mega fun-over!
Brynn slept for 12 hours last night (no joke) so I would think she suffered her first fun-over as well.
Cheers to you!
It looks like Lucy had an AMAZING time:). That cake is unbelievable!! Also, it looks like all of your guests had a great time too. My vote, TOTALLY WORTH IT!!
Hi! I am back! WOW! You pulled out all of the stops! What a fabulous celebration for miss Lucy! I still can't believe she is four!!! The meltdown and the whole I am going back to the hospital, had me dying laughing. And I loved your response!!! It was worth it, and she will look back on the pictures and only remember loving every minute of it! I am with you though, we have done it both ways and usually end up loving the simple at home with the family type of parties. But you have to throw in a few of the "full monty" parties in there too! We do an every other year thing until they get old enough, then we offer a big gift in place of the big party :)! That's our strategy!
What an awesome cake! That Aunt Merry, boy, what would we do without her?! She is so awesome!
Last but certainly not least, what AMAZING house guests you had!!! I was so excited to see pictures of Andrea and the girls!!! They all look adorable and I am so glad that you got to celebrate all together!!!! Way to put your houseguest to work on her specialty bean dip! I still have yet to have the privilege of trying it!
Okay, shaping up to be one of my "too long" comments! :))) Keep posting, your break is OVER! :)
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