Birthday Wrap Up

That child had three--count 'em three--opportunities to eat cake and he refused all of them. And it was three different varieties of cake (chocolate with vanilla frosting, vanilla with rainbow frosting, and ice cream cake), so it's not like he just didn't like vanilla or something. Not that I'm trying to force food on him, especially sweet food, but... oh, hell, yes I am.

The birthday weekend (which went from Sunday through Tuesday) was a busy one, but it was a happy one. Doodles had no idea all the festivities were for him. The Saturday party was forced indoors because of lousy weather, but other than that, everything ran smoothly. No baby meltdowns, no Mommy meltdowns, and enough food. That, for me, is a good party these days.

On Monday I brought cupcakes to Doodles's day care. I went by at 1:20, and Doodles was asleep; I was told he fell asleep at 12:45. "Come back in an hour," the teacher suggested. So at a bit after 2 I returned. That child--who never sleeps more than an hour for me--slept for two hours and fifteen minutes. I had to sit around the infant room with all the other awake babies until mine decided to peer up from his crib (yes, I was tempted to wake him, but what kind of mother wakes her child from a nap on his birthday of all days?). I set him up with a cupcake... and he was furious until the Goldfish came out. All the cupcakes were eaten; just none by my child.

Finally on Tuesday we had a playgroup birthday party for Doodles and his playmate J., who turned one a few days before Doodles. The hit of the party was a tub filled with water and plastic duckies (a hard plastic). While all the other kids splashed in the water and poked at the ducks, Doodles grabbed a duck, shoved it into his mouth, realized it wasn't rubber and yanked it out, and then one by one took the duckies out of the tub and placed them at his feet. If he couldn't eat the duckies, then, dammit, no one else was going to either! Needless to say, he refused all offers of ice cream cake and screamed until I found some Goldfish in my bag. The upside is this is I'm going to get to eat his free ice cream from the Baskin Robbins Birthday Club.

Basically it was a four-day celebration of the fact that Adam and I survived the first year of parenthood (and we appropriately toasted that fact on Monday night). Doodles is alive and healthy, we're still married, and no one has yet been committed.

And now onto the toddler years...