Two, That's the Magic Number

I want a friggin' medal. And if not a medal, then at least a T-shirt that reads, "I survived my son's 2nd birthday while 9 months preggo."

Yesterday, Doodles turned two. Bizarre for me to comprehend that my little boy has reached the number two. Of course, if you ask him how old he is, he'll hold up one finger and yell, "Fwee!" But two feels like a magic number. For starters, we no longer count in months. And then, he gets cut off his nice rich whole milk and gets switched to skim. And nuts are no longer off limits, which I am soooo grateful for because when you have a child who will only eat carbs, your choices are limited. A whole new world of granola bars and cereals with a new form of protein are opened up for us now.

But getting to two wasn't the easiest. We had a small birthday brunch for him on Sunday, which went well, except that Doodles was most unhappy when another child blew out his birthday candles. We took the easy way out and most everything was store bought, including the cake, which was way more huge and extravagant than I would have imagined. Thank goodness we bought a freezer for our basement on tax-free weekend, so we had a place to store all that extra cake. The Sunday party went well, and I was able to breathe easy that we made it through without the arrival of Sugar Face. Tweedles came to help out and I'm not sure we could have done it without the third person, and I think I now understand why people have kids' birthday parties at other locations. As Adam says, Next year, Chuck E. Cheese.

Then, on Doodles's actual birthday, we had a playgroup party for him and another girl in the group who turned two four days before Doodles. This one was in our backyard.

It didn't start off promising. Doodles awoke from his nap in the fiercest of moods. For forty-five minutes, I tried to calm him down, but all he wanted to do was scream, throw his milk, and hit me. However, once the first guest arrived, he did settle down some and we headed outside.

Then, the party was great except that Doodles has a tendency to want to wander away. We had the wading pool. We had a crafts table with construction paper, glue, and baking sugars (instead of glitter). We had his ball pit out. We had the toddler basketball net up. Three Cozy Coupe-style cars. Two tricycles. A small climber. The sandbox. And my child? "Play mama's car! Play mama's car!" as he breaks for the stairs to take him to the front yard. I'd have to waddle after him and forcibly snatch him back to the back yard. "Mama's car! Mama's car!!" I'd be able to distract him with something else for about five minutes--"Doodles! Look how fun it is to jump and dive into the ball pit!" "Doodles! Look how fun it is to spread the glue everywhere!"--and then he'd be off again. I finally started to bribe him: "If you stay in the back, there will be cupcakes!" How many years till he realizes birthday parties come with cupcakes no matter what he does? Anyway, that actually worked and soon the cupcakes came out. My child--obviously my child--licked the copious amounts of frosting off his cupcake, handed me the cake part back, and declared, "All done cupcake! Want more cupcake!" The child was covered in frosting. All the other kids ate rather daintily, needing only a minor swipe of a wipe to clean them off. I gave up and let my child run around with chocolate smeared across his face, hands, chest, shirt, and shorts.

But soon, the party was over and I was able to chill. I promised myself I could have the glass of wine my doula told me to have to relax, but I was too tired to even contemplate it.

So now, I've made it halfway through Doodles's toddler years and Sugar Face is welcome to come at any point. Of course, if she checks her Outlook calendar, she'll see that her preferred arrival is actually tomorrow. We'll see if she actually obliges. I'm guessing... not.

Regardless, happy birthday to my special little snuggle bunny. It really is going by fast.