Birthday party

It went off with a suitable amount of fanfare and a single flaming sparkler in the smiley face birthday cake.

I had originally suggested that our invitations request best wishes only, since Dex got such a windfall of presents for his first birthday.  Tavish wouldn't be any the wiser.  Amy quickly disabused me of that notion, citing one instance where she attended a baby's birthday for which the invitation had similarly suggested frugal attendance, and she was the ONLY ONE not to bring a present.  If it's a kid's party, there are going to be presents; the parents have no say.

So Tavish presided over the day in a state of chubby, blissful indolence, and seemed to take the maelstrom of people and things and food and noise pretty much in stride.

Here are a few pictures.

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Saturday morning as we were getting ready.  I bought a disposable helium tank from Toys 'R Us the day before and it was way more fun than buying inflated balloons and trying to drive them home in a car.

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Grandma and Grandpa Farley drove the five hours up from Lethbridge to spend the weekend.  The dill pickle rice crisps were a big hit with both boys.  (If there is some trick to breaking the grandparent - grandchild - junkfood trifecta, please let me know.)

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The height of the party.  That kid in the overalls is all, like, Yeah!  You stay down there Declan!  You take cover under Grandpa's feet or I'll taunt you a second time!

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Dex even got a present of his own so he wouldn't feel left out.  Colouring books that make noise and are Cars (the movie) themed are always a big hit.

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Tavish got a whole piece of birthday cake to eat by himself as he saw fit.  He saw fit to mush it around his face and seemed to relish the bits that made it into his mouth.

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Mmmm.... Juice Box!

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Mama gives Tav a hand in opening his presents.  There are three big smiley faces in this picture.

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Kids and helium balloons are always a big hit.  They never get tired of letting go of the string and then pissing and moaning until an adult retrieves it to repeat the process.

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The lull after the storm. 

Comments

[Linda]

Dee-lite-ful post and pics. The screwy candle on the cake is cool. Tav's eating cake pic is one of the best I've seen. Tell Amy I like her hair like that. Junkfood trifecta- lol. Your boys get cuter every day. Tell us just how much you enjoyed the helium...

[Tasha]

If you find the solution to the junkfood trifecta, please pass it along. Ben was, oh, 3 months, maybe, when my mom was getting him to lick danish filling off her fingers. I was thrilled...

[Tal]

Awesome pics Simon. I have to agree with Linda about Amy's hair. Looks great!

So what kind of loot does a one-year old amass anyways?

[Alvis]

My son has a birthday party coming up in less than two months. And it's only about five weeks after his baby brother will be born. Oh boy!

Dude, c-o-l-o-r. :)

[Moksha Gren]

Thanks for sharing the party with us. I really liked the shot of Tav with the ribbon on his head and the one od Dex looking up at the balloon. Tav becasue it really captures the joy, Dex becasue it's just a well done shot and he's lookin' cute.

And maybe this is just cuz I haven't reached the children's tv age just yet...but what the heck are you guys watching in that group shot?

[Mark]

Birthday party pics are always fun, but good ones are even better.

There's no stopping the junk-food onslaught. Try living close enough to grandparents that your kid sees them three times a work or more. Now, that's a challenge in every aspect of child-rearing.

Not trying to one-up ya. Just saying.

Um, Amy changed her hair? Maybe it's just guy thing, but I didn't notice

Tal, if you only knew. It's insane what people heap on a defenseless baby.

[Simon]

Linda, I will pass along the hair comment. Also, you should know that she came to get my attention while I was changing a diaper this week and pointed out the tag on a new pair of Tav's pyjamas. It read "Poopiedoo." Funny!

Tasha, there's a deeply ingrained sub-culture of grandparents and -kids aligned in direct opposition to parents. I'm becoming more fearful by the day.

Tal, the short answer is: too much. Slightly longer answer: toys and clothes. The closer the relation between our son and the gift giver, the noisier the toy. Gah!

Alvis, I refuse to be influenced by your (sic) spelling habits. Congrats, though, on the impending addition.

Moksha, I'm actually not too familiar with that show. It's something like Circle-Square. Bunch of uber-happy teens running around on the screen singing songs and dancing, encouraging the kids at home to emulate their spastic flailings and noises. As long as it's not Barney or the Teletubbies, I'm happy.

Mark, my own parents (all four of them) live within 20 minutes of us, so it's a regular struggle with the junk food. And yeah, Amy changed her hair just a couple weeks ago. Lookin' sharp!

[Amy]

The show is called four square. The kids love it.

[Linda]

In defense of grandparents and not at all because I felt incriminated at all, but I must say (and I will send JuJu over to back me up if she can find the time)... I fully recognize that there are tons of grandparents who shamelessly but not necessarily consciously undermine parents of grandkids. It doesn't have to be that way. Really. I do not heap ridiculous shit on my grandkids just for the sake of heaping. Junkfood is pretty much scarce in my offerings. One exception, last weekend when the kids were here, I baked chocolate chip cookies (intending them for us adults) but Little Juju took a liking to aboot 2 dozen of them. Even candy holidays like Halloween and Easter, I'm conservative. I truly believe in heaping Love and Time on kids, not junk. Poopie is not as disciplined in this area as I... I do admit though, it takes discipline NOT to spoil grandkids. But I really love my daughter...
No helium story?

[Émilie B.]

Re: grandparents and junk food solution : get my mother-in-law. She's quite nice, but I'm nervous to admit when we've had fajitas for dinner, let alone McD's on weekend lunches...

Frank's grandmother (my mother in law's mother in law) used to have him play a game of "memory" that goes like this : "See if you can remember all the meals you've eaten during the week." It's almost subtle.

It seems like it was a happy birthday, thanks for sharing the pics! Beautiful kids!

[TerriTorial]

My kids love Four Square, but those dudes in the blue tights flip me out. Really. Do we need to see THAT!

Our ceiling in our living room is 17 feet. If they lose a balloon it will be wacked by the huge ass ceiling fan, which will then wind up the pretty ribbonl, before it makes a horrible griding sound.

Yah...we don't do helium anymore.

[wil]

Spoiling the grandmonsters with junk food is the purview of all grand parents! It's so much fun to wind the ankle biters up to a sugar-induced fever pitch and then let them loose on their unsuspecting parents.

Payback -- It's Priceless!