I can’t believe its been a whole year, since we became a family of 3 plus a doggy, and our lives will never be the same. Of course, why would we want that? We love her to pieces. It’s been a fun, yet challenging year, watching our little one grow, while learning and changing so much ourselves.
I felt some pressure to make everything perfect for her party. I’m not sure for who, but I did. Maybe it was social media, ideas on pinterest about what was possible. Maybe it was just me trying to be a perfectionist at wearing a number of different hats for the party.
To make things a bit simpler, we decided to cater a turkey dinner, and keep the guest list tiny. Just immediate family for a few reasons. One, we were living at my mom’s place getting ready for our trip, and two, its a pretty overwhelming day for a one year old to have a large crowd.
So, the food was taken care of, the cupcakes were made by a friend with a homebased cake company. Check. Then there was being the party host, the mom, and the photographer. Of course there were a few people with camera’s but I am picky about my shots, so with hesitation to put my camera down for a brief period, I couldn’t help but grab it again a few times. The mom hat was 100% of time, its pretty hard to drop that for much more than a minute or two.
It was all fine and good until the party host role took a turn for the worst when the food didn’t show up. We had two starving toddlers on a schedule, and me who was stressed about it, calling unsuccessfully to find the food. We were about 5 minutes away from going to get little caesars pizza for everyone when it arrived. Cold, and one hour late. So, everyone gobbled down cold turkey in a hurry so that baby girl could blow out her candles before she had a tired meltdown and was ready for bed.
Despite feeling a bit rushed, and barely enjoying dinner the cupcake part went great. She loved it, and we got some great shots of the whole thing. She opened her gifts before dinner, thank goodness for that, and just like that it was over. I was stewing over the stupid food, but nonetheless I think down the road we will remember it as a great first birthday.
The next day after the dust had settled on the party hats, I caught a cold. My first one in at least two years. And, not so great timing, as we had 12 month shots that day. Luckily for us, she hadn’t caught the bug yet. But, that means she made it 365 days without getting sick. That, to a nurse, is a pretty great achievement.
