Birthday Parties

Ok Moms if you never gave yourself permission before and you are waiting for it, I’m giving it to you right here and now:

You do not have to have a huge birthday party for your child.

It’s said and don’t  you ever tell me you “have” to again.

Mom’s have this tendency to go overboard when it comes to their children’s birthdays.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love parties.  Maybe it’s the fact that we love having something to look forward to and to take our minds off the day to day drudgery that motherhood can tend to bring.  Maybe it’s a competitive edge between mother’s to try and have the biggest and best birthday party for their child.

Overall I think Mother’s really just have so much love for their child that the day they were born means so much to them and brings up so many memories that they need to mark it with a huge party with lots of amazing food, and favors, and games, and decorations.... even if the child is 1 and has absolutely no idea it’s their birthday, who the people there are, or what month it is, or where their toes are.

What they know is they like cake.

Cake.  The single ingredient to an awesome birthday.  Cake, it’s all you have to remember.

But seriously I planned my E’s first birthday party with grand ideas of make your own pizzas, amazing homemade chocolate cupcakes, and some games for the kids.  

So I invited my mommy group of four other kids all born within 2 months of each other.  E is the oldest.  That means the rest of them were 10-11 months.  Games, hah!

So how it all went down was I made all the pizzas with just random combinations while trying to keep E out of all the decorations until I could get a picture of it all.  Then all the kids just ate pizza on the floor.  Then we took turns putting the pizza covered kids in the high chair to eat chocolate cupcakes.  By then all clothes were removed so we had tomato sauce and chocolate covered tots crawling/walking all over the house and totally tuckered out.  Our solution?  A group bath.  The ultimate activity and photo op at a birthday party.  And you know only one year olds could get away with a naked party ending in a group bath.

For some reason I learned nothing from this experience or my friend’s experiences of one year old parties either.  I repeated this mistake with his second birthday although this time at least I had help.  We had a dinosaur themed party as E asked for with tons of food and themed cake and sandwiches (St’egg’ asarus salad!).  I had games but they were more age appropriate, so at least I guess I learned something.  Games such as pin the tail on the dinosaur, color the dinosaur, and then plaster the dinosaur with stickers!

Still the entire time I felt stressed and like I had to moderate, coordinate, facilitate, and lots of other words ending in -ate.  Even with help I only physically relaxed and enjoyed the moment after my guests left.

Still I did not learn.  Repeat again for O’s first birthday.  He was cranky the whole time and instead of telling everybody to go home please, the birthday boy needs a nap, I pushed through and tried to make him eat cake for the camera even though by a year old he really ate nothing, he more of garberuated it than ate it.  No games this time but in order to accommodate everyone we had three birthday parties.  For a one year old.  *Face palm.

That was three cakes, well a cookie cake, cake, and cupcakes to be accurate.  

I see it time and time again from me and my friends.  Frazzled mom’s just trying to make it through the day.  They prep with every spare second when they are not mothering, so their free time, those precious minutes before bed and into when they should be recharging for the next day all spent away.  Then they have the party trying to make the most of each moment while simultaneously trying to keep every guest happy and in awe of your amazing party planning and mothering skills.

So a little advice to everyone.

1)  I said it before and here it is again.  Moms, no one is judging your party by how cool the decorations, cake shape, games, and costumes are.  They are just happy to be out of the house and that their kid will have a sugar crash nap later.  Give yourself a break.

2)  Plan easy and simple and especially according to age.  I heard once that the number of guests should be your child’s age plus one.  I also read a good guideline is the party should be an hour per age, obviously capping at some point unless it’s a sleepover.

3)  If you are at another birthday party and you see the mom slaving away, ask to help.  Cut the cake while she takes pictures of her kid devouring it.  Or take pictures as she and dad bring the lit up cake over to the birthday kid, that’s a memory they will want documented and will forget that someday they would like to have a couple pictures to prove they were there.  

4)  Please, please, please cut out the goody bags!  Seriously money is better spent elsewhere than on dollar store toys that get thrown out or more sweets that continue the hyperness for hours longer.  What my friends have come to learn is that if you have a theme just simply gifting a part of a costume to wear during the party (dollar store fire hat, fairy wings, or fairy wand) is amazing and can be added to the dress-up box when they get home.  Otherwise just forget about it and buy coffee or wine for yourself, depending on your preference.

5)  Think through your ideas before you become really attached to them.  In your head a ‘choose your topping grilled cheese bar’ sounds like an amazing, fun, cheaper than ordering pizza idea but in reality making 21 grilled cheese sandwiches takes a really. long. time.  Seriously, it does, I know.

6)  And remember:  Don’t forget the cake.

To be fair most of you will not heed my advice, nor have I managed to either.  Maybe I will learn eventually just to relax and that imagination is the best activity for a party.  That my child simply wants to feel love of friends and family on their special day. Not have mommy in the kitchen, stressed out, trying not to burn the grilled cheese, occasionally snapping pictures of the fun.  But honestly every once in awhile you strike gold and that look on E’s face when he got to sit in a real live fire truck on his 3rd birthday after asking for a firefighter birthday party, was priceless and I’ll never forget it.

My special place...

It’s hard to decide which I find more therapeutic:  writing or baking cookies.  

Everyone needs to have a special place or activity, mothers especially!  Something they can go to when the world has stressed her to her breaking point.  Mine are writing and baking cookies.

Obviously one is better for the snugness of which I wear my skinny jeans, but honestly both feel like a creative, nurturing process.  Both activities I am building something from scratch.  With baking I am taking flour as a base, sugar to sweeten and/or brown, eggs (or an egg replacer such as applesauce in this house) to hold the batter together, and baking powder to rise it up.  Each ingredient plays a special role in how the cookies turn out.  Forget one and everything’s off.  

With writing my ingredients are different but still present.  My writing never turns out without a realistic topic for the base, personal experience to hold everything together, some good honest emotion which makes it rich and inviting, and of course humor for a lightening agent.

If I try to write without a topic of meaning to me, I fall flat and my batter doesn’t rise.  If I try and write without my personal opinion being involved there is no raw honesty.  There would be no richness of flavor and no relatability of anyone to me.  I never, ever explain my way to be “the way.”  Oh god, I think I’ve learned a thing or two more about motherhood than that!  But if I don’t stick myself out on a limb and say “this, this is what I believe in.  This is what my heart tells me to do even if there is no other reasonable explanation involved or science or research.  This is me,” then I have absolutely no more to offer anyone than an encyclopedia.  Approximate truth (at least what most thought the truth was at the point when written).  

Motherhood is all about instinct.  That gut feeling, that grounded, firm, feeling like you can feel roots coming out of your feet and cementing you to the ground in your belief, that this is the way it’s going to work for me and my family.

Now if we could only all manage to feel firm in our decisions and beliefs while extending the same courtesy to other mothers of holding firm in their own decisions and beliefs.  I like to think that is where we are moving in society (and obviously after the last statement, feel free to disagree with me, hehe.)  The minute we as mothers begin to pick apart each other’s decisions, that is the moment we lose all connection with one and other.  We lose our sense of self in the larger community of mothers because we are choosing to see the worst in others rather than that they are following their hearts with all the tools they have been given.  So instead extend hands and offer up the best version of yourself, the truest, the brightest.  One thing my children have taught me is that I can yak their ear off about “the right behaviour” but they only learn it when they see me displaying it.  The same is true with adults.

So tonight I write (and bake cookies).  I think both turned out sweet and hit the spot.

Eli's Third Year!

My oldest is 3!!!!  Ca-razy!

Here is a photo journal of what my amazing boy accomplished in the last year!

Eli at his 2nd Party so excited to start the year!

March: Eli beginning to do yoga with Momma, helping me with my yoga specialty project!

April: Easter bunny pancakes and his first real Easter egg hunt with hundreds of kids!

April/May: First stitches.  Four of them.  Took four of us to hold him down and screaming filled the ER!

June: New house!  He adjusted well the the move!

July:  New favorite activity:  blowing bubbles!  And lots of beach time!

August:  Another fabulous PNE - first time on the Stanley Park Train.

September:  First Haircut!  Courtesy of Salon BABA - Also started to ride his Balance Bike

October:  penguin for Halloween and trip to a pumpkin patch!

November:  Playing in leaves with Baba just like me when I was a kid!

December:  First time decorating a gingerbread house!  Plus lots of new Christmas Traditions!

January:  First time making a full fledging snow man.  Rolling the snow balls and everything!

3 year anniversary!

Well faithful readers!  Our third anniversary of this blog has rolled around.  I have a three year old, very hard to believe.  Most days are hectic, crazy and full of yelling and laughter.  Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in a vortex of craziness and that I'm just watching myself go through the motions going, "oh, you shouldn't have done that," "why aren't you handling this better?"  "Have more patience!"  "You're not really a very good mom." 

A few wise people have said to me that the best sign that you are a good mom is the constant worry that you are a bad mom.  I hope this is true.  

Sometimes my handling skills need a tune up.  Lately I've been finding I have three ways of dealing with my children when they are not acting ideally:
1) Patience - calm voice, reasoning skills, teaching with love.
2) Mount Vesuvius - explosive, lashing out, listen now or else.
3) Escape into the Abyss - deep inward withdrawl, sometimes locking myself in a room sometimes just mentally escaping.

Obviously #1 is the best answer but let's face it, not always going to happen.  Out of #2 and #3 I'm not sure which is scarier to be honest.  Perhaps sometimes I get a little too rough physically with #2 by grabbing an arm or pushing Eli off his younger brother, but #3 I just don't even recognize myself.  Withdrawing from the situation is one thing but I feel cold and emotionless when this happens.  It's much more peaceful than the out of control spiral of Option #2, but it almost feels like the eye of the storm and the worst is still yet to come.  Eventually I will have to deal with those emotions.  But sometimes It's what I need to centre and come back to the situation with a fresh outlook.  At least that's what happens when I withdraw properly, not just avoid.  Otherwise I'm back quicker than I can say "Stop hitting your brother."

So all in all, what have I learned in three years of being a mom?  Not a whole hell of a lot.  I know to be more flexible in every aspect of my life.  I know to always bring a change of clothes for everyone when I leave the house.  I know if I don't bring the stroller I will need it and if I do bring it, likely it will end up just being a large, empty pushing device.  I've learned a double jogging stroller is a waste of money because 2 kids and a 50lb stroller is way too much trouble to push while running.  I've learned kids pick up every habit from you good and bad.  I've learned that even after the worst day, when your child goes to sleep and you see them soundly sleeping you think you are the luckiest person in the world.  Most importantly I've learned every kid is completely different and yet completely the same and love is always enough to carry you through.

I also have a new list I am working on.  It's called "Things you think you shouldn't have to teach your 3 year old but you do".  Here's a working sample, feel free to send me any other suggestions:

1) Don't touch the dog poop.
Enough said.
2) Food coming off a pot or pan will be hot still.  
It's like the moment it hits the plate they think it's instantly cool enough to eat.
3) Don't stand on toys or they will break.
Yes, if you stand on your dollar store plastic wheel barrow it will snap.  If you stand on your mega blocks they will break and take a one way ticket to garbage city.
4) If you are tired you should go to sleep.
Don't hit, don't whine, don't throw things. Go. To. Sleep!
5) Kissing it better only works when you hurt someone unintentionally.
You don't bite him so you can kiss it better!

Anyway, just a start, many more to come I'm sure.  I'm also going to be posting "A year of Eli" blog post soon in commemoration of his third full revolution around the sun.