A birthday's in the works

This past weekend was T's big first birthday celebration. His actual birthday isn't until next week, but I'm trying to prevent years of therapy for making him share all his birthday attention with Santa, so we celebrated this weekend instead. Since this was my first foray into hosting kids' parties, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. There were no kid meltdowns or boo-boos, my pets didn't break free from their "safe zones" and attack or be attacked by any random toddlers, and my little man actually ate his cake, as you can see from his nicely dyed face and my permanently stained carpet.

The kid takes after his mom in one way...he likes his sweets!

The way Saturday morning started though, it wasn't looking good. T tends to be a super predictable little kid. I don't know if his super-duper internal clock is due to the fact that I'm a bit anal and we live and breathe "the schedule" - but you can set your watch by the time he wakes up, wants a meal, needs a drink, and goes to bed. Every day. Or, should I say, every day except Saturday. Go figure. Party day, he wakes up a little later than normal and refuses to nap. The timing of the party was chosen for no other reason other than the fact that he is always up at that time, always rested at that time, always happy at that time, and always ready to go down for a nap by the party-end time. Perfect right? Ahh, the best laid plans. Party finally starts and Birthday Boy is zonked out in his crib. Yup, the guest of honor is fast asleep. Which is actually fine by me, because happy...he was not. Nope, my typically happy little guy was turning into more and more of a crankpot as the minutes, then hours, past his nap he got, so I was envisioning full on grizzly mode in time for cake.

But once I stopped worrying about the lack of sleep and the random runny nose he woke up with (the jury is still out on if it's teething or daycare germs, since he's fine now...but what a lovely way to start party day, no?), momma managed to settle in and have a good time among all the crazy kiddo chaos. And T ended up having fun "playing" with his little friends.

Now I'm getting the hang of this birthday fun stuff...

"Why, thank you, A, I will gladly take that toy from you."

So, you ask, how did I celebrate surviving not only my first kiddo birthday party but my first year as a mom? That night, with the kiddo fast asleep, right on schedule, a good ole glass of vino (or two) and some Elmo cookies in hand. Gotta love it.