Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing Baby
After months (literally) of daily mock birthday parties in his room Quinn finally gets the real thing. His birthday started early with a family dinner last night at a Mexican restaurant (complete with Mariachi band) and then kicked off this morning with a wake-up balloon bouquet. I think I managed to live up to his expectations. Tonight was a mellow dinner of his choice at home (carrots, cucumbers, broccoli and pizza. seriously.) This weekend is the “really really really big pahty” as he’s taken to calling it. There will be a pinata, cupcakes, more balloons, goodie bags and even “Enzo”. Yes, I took notes during all those dry-runs.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:13 am
I grew up Jehovah’s Witness, so I didn’t have any birthday parties until after the divorce.
I always imagined birthday parties to be like what you’ve done for Quinn. Better than television and the movies. It took years for me to realize that most kids had very casual and quiet birthday parties. Their birthdays were no big deal.
As an adult, I have a yearly birthday party. It’s very private, but it’s a BIG deal to me. I wonder what I would be like if I had grown up with birthday parties like Quinn’s.
March 24th, 2006 at 10:07 am
Thor and I actually had a debate about my enthusiasm for Quinn’s birthday. I’m in the camp of wanting to create magical memories. He’s in the camp of not wanting to set unrealistic expectations that we can’t live up to. I think there’s a happy medium in there somewhere.
I have to admit that this year is probably a bit over the top. Unintentionally, Quinn will have had 4 parties before it’s all over. One the night before his birthday at a restaurant with a faction of the family that can’t come to the big party this weekend. One at his childcare yesterday. The small one we had last night at home since it was his actual birthday. And then the coup de grace this weekend. All in all probably a bit much. But I can’t help myself. It is so much fun to experience the world through the filter of a three/four year old’s unbridled enthusiasm. All the holidays this past year have been more fun because of his new level of understanding and awareness. And this is really the first birthday that he’s truly fully aware.
I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself in a few years when I’m feeling the need to book The White Stripes for his party.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:14 am
[...] Yesterday was Quinn’s “really, really, really big pahty”, as mentioned in my post the other day. It went off without a hitch. I think the adults had as much fun as the kids. We had Enzo, we had a pinata, we had cupcakes, we had games, we had presents, we had wine. So much fun and activity in fact that we filled our digital camera card. The party was winding down and we had a few more shots we wanted to take. I took the Flash card out of the camera and downloaded some of the photos onto my computer to clear some space. Thor then put the card back in the camera. And deleted all of the photos. No more pinata pix, no more cupcake/candle blowing pix, no more gift-opening pix. Gone. All of them. I was heartsick. I was mad at Thor. I was mad at myself. I was just mad. [...]