baby girl’s second birthday

Grace has learned a new phrase and it’s “My birthday’s comin’ up!” It’s pretty flippin’ adorable, and it’ll be kind of sad after Thursday when I have to tell her that her birthday’s no longer actually “coming up”, but actually has passed.  This past weekend, we had a little party for her, and she LOVED it.  I had been feeling kind of bad because she was gotten the quintessential second child treatment when it’s come to birthdays.  Her brother had an elaborate 1st birthday party, complete with tons of friends and family, themed food, favors, and a pretty serious cake situation that I spent days making for him. (See below.)  Grace didn’t get a first birthday party for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from it being a really crazy time in our lives to “Eh, one-year-olds don’t really appreciate parties, anyway.” I know, it’s fodder for the future therapist, guys.

(The cake I made for Joey’s first birthday.  Did Grace get a cake last year? I can’t remember.)

So, obviously, this year, she was going to have a party, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized we’d ALL be a lot happier with a few close friends and family there to celebrate our girl and eat some cake.  In the end, it wound up being perfect. She was happy as a little clam showing off her insanely girly party dress that my mom bought special for the occasion, eating her (pink, perfectly chocolatey) cake by the fistful, and opening up all the presents that were for HER. (Yeah, there were some issues there when we celebrated Joe’s birthday in February.) We had a beautiful day, which was unexpected since the weather forecast predicted rain, and we were able to sit around outside, grill some burgers and hot dogs, and basically just enjoy each other’s company.

I was a little worried that Joey was going to be all jealous about the attention Grace was getting, but he was a champ.  It didn’t hurt that he has two adoring grandmas who brought him presents, too, and one of his favorite cousins (who’s a minor celebrity around here) was present  and gladly played with him to his heart’s content.

It was everything I could ever dream of in one of my kid’s parties- lots of people who love us, good food, and sunshine.  Pretty good, guys. Preeeettty good.

I’m not going to get all weepy about my little girl turning two, mostly because I just keep loving her more and more as each day passes, and I’m having more fun each day as my kids get older.  Sure, I get a bit misty when I think how quickly the time goes by, but I can’t spend too much time thinking about it, because all-in-all I’m just so super glad that my kids keep growing, getting bigger and funnier and smarter all the time.  I’m so in love with their personalities as they are now that I can’t imagine wishing them to be tiny babies again.  It might help, too, that in a few months, I’ll have another of those tiny babies to snuggle while my other kids run gleefully and determinedly away from me.  It’s all part of the joy of motherhood.