birthday: part 2

I had it all planned out and was surprisingly not stressed about this party. I only host this many people three times a year. Kid 1’s birthday. Kid 2’s birthday. Kid 3’s birthday. Usually I’m over-the-top stressed about things.

{And this time, I wasn’t. It felt…………….. odd. Good-odd.}

Sophie was so excited. She woke up on Sunday and immediately wanted to put on her party dress. I worked all morning until noon putting food together and packing the car. The decorations were all sent over the week before. The big kids and I were going to head to my mom’s to set-up shop for a 3pm party. The only thing that kept Sophie together was knowing she was going to have a big surprise when she got there with Daddy later that afternoon. Otherwise, she was attached to my ankle completely freaking out about her vast array of uncles that were going to be there. For some reason she gets very nervous around them.

The moon bounce was rocking. I got a fantastic deal from Kim at The Playroom and what was even BETTER was the fact that they wanted to deliver it a full day early. I was totally ok with that. Less stress the day prior to the party? I’LL TAKE IT.

Let me throw in here that I had to make sure this party could entertain children from 1 year old to 14 years old. That is quite a lot of pressure when figuring out activities, let me just tell you.

MOONBOUNCE

Baby pool

Water table

WATER BALLOONS

SILLY STRING

PINATA

Chinese food

Cake

When Sophie got to the house I was inside putting the final touches on her birthday cake. I missed seeing her perfectly round little face get her first glimpse of the huge blow-up castle sitting in the front yard with two blow up dragons in the same vicinity. But I was very happy to hear she was already bouncing her face off in the castle. Maybe this isn’t going to be so bad, I thought. 
 

Within 30 minutes the kids were into the water balloons. My three had their auntie load them in their swimsuits. It took .5 seconds for 11 kids to go through 150 balloons. No sweat. I’ll make more. I sat in the hot, bug infested driveway with the kids filling water balloons for another hour. Anyone 4 and under had the right to take water balloons at their will. The big kids were restricted since they wanted to host an all out war. How can I host a war if I can’t can’t meet this crazy demand while 11 kids are swiping balloons? RESTRICTED. Eventually, it helped us meet our goal. My nephew and I hid the balloons while he and I were the last to strap on our birthday feedbacks. 

I was able to convince Sophie to join us for some food.

And that was about it…

After she ate in the safety of the dining room with me on one side and her grandma on the other, she refused to go back outside. In fact, she only wanted to hide up in my bedroom. My mom sat with her for a little bit while the rest of us watched the water balloon war. I then tried to convince her to join us for the silly string fiesta. That didn’t work.

oh, poor mia.  this is what brotherly love looks like.
 

Then the piñata….
Nothing.

In fact… it was worse than nothing. Not only didn’t she want to step outside for it, she wanted it to be held upstairs in my old bedroom with just the kids and no adults. Damnnnnnnn, this was getting worse.

I knew it was her birthday, but something inside of me told me I could not get in the trap of letting her control things like that. Was I selfish? Inconsiderate? I’m not sure, because I definitely felt crappy as a mother, but damnit, I had 11 kids outside ready to bust through that piñata (even though it was a pull-string one… they didn’t know it just then). So, we had a Sophie-less piñata extraction.

What was I going to do about her cake? She didn’t want any men around. She didn’t want anyone to sing to her. And now, NOW, she was in the office refusing to leave.

Wiggity wiggity WHAT?!

I couldn’t stand it. I could not stand the thought of NOT singing “Happy Birthday” to my baby. And selfish or not, I took that cake with it’s amazing sparkler candle into that office with 20 people behind me clapping their hands and singing that song. And while I know she could have broken down into tears at any moment, she didn’t. She held it together – and while everyone ate their cake, she happily bounced with some cousins in the moon bounce.

 this is sophie's very nervous smile.

i saw it all day that day.

oye.

Although she refused to open gifts in front of everyone, she happily bid farewell to each guest through the safety of the moon bounce net.

After all but 8 of us remained, that little bugger opened every single gift and ate a cupcake. Thrilled beyond belief that she received so many amazing gifts, all she is going to remember of that day is the ending. She thought it was the best party ever and only had one request for next year…

Girls Only.