Don't worry. The celebration wasn't belated... just the reporting of it...
I don't know where to begin.
First of all, I've been feeling very nostalgic about my baby's birthday this year. She is 4 now. She will start Pre-K in the fall (er, late summer). I will no longer have her all to myself three days a week. She will likely learn to read very soon. She is grasping pre-reading concepts very well. She will become even more independent. But she will always be my baby.
Saturday, the day before her birthday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium as a family. This seems to be somewhat of a birthday tradition for us. Starting with when we took Evan to the Aquarium for the very first time on his first birthday. His sister was 4 weeks old, so we left her home with GranNan and Poppy and had some special bonding with our birthday boy. So, this year, it seemed fitting to celebrate there with P.
The kids both thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was a good outing. Until.... When it was time to leave, we headed out through the gift shop and noticed that the rains had started coming down. These rains had been predicted. I don't know why we weren't better prepared. But we weren't. We had no umbrella.
So, I stayed in the gift shop with the kids while their sweet, sweet Daddy, who would do anything for them (all of us, really) paddled out into the rain to get the car. He called me when he was close, and we headed out to meet him. If you've been to the Aquarium, you know that no door is anywhere close to any street. So we had to run for it. Corin left the car, grabbed an umbrella and came to meet us.
But it was too late. Pressley had gotten wet.
For most children, certainly for our first-born child, this would be NO BIG DEAL. But for our Sweet P, it was the END OF THE WORLD. She cried like her heart was broken. "I'm wet! I have to change clothes when we get home!! There is water in my HAIR!!! And on my skirt!!"
Bless her heart. She finally calmed down a little, but I just hope the incident didn't ruin the whole experience for her.
On Sunday, we celebrated her birthday all day. She got to pick where we would eat lunch after church. Moe's, of course. Then we went home for quick naps before turning back around to head to Monkey Joe's for the party.
You may recall that Monkey Joe's is not historically one of her favorite places. But here's the deal: She wanted to have her party at Candler Park again this year - just like last year. Which I thought was great, because here is the thing about a birthday party at Candler Park: It is FREE. But what should have stood out to me was that we had great weather last year, and what are the chances of that happening two years in a row. Slim to none, right?
Right!
So, the forecast was 40-50% chance of showers for Sunday. After not sleeping the prior Sunday night and Monday night, I knew we had to do something. We talked about it Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we made the decision to move the party indoors. By then, the two other jumping places (without giant scary purple monkeys) were booked up. So, I had given Pressley an option: A) We could have the party on her birthday at Monkey Joe's and do our best to keep Monkey Joe away from her; or B) We could wait 10 more bedtimes (that is how she judges a day) and move the party to the next weekend. Since 10 more bedtimes is a lifetime in the eyes of an almost-four-year-old-anticipating-her-birthday, she chose Monkey Joe's.
The party was a big success - even though the weather turned out to be gorgeous. (I was consoled by the memory of the giant mud puddle that totally stressed me out last year and was surely present this year as well on account of the torrential downpours from Saturday.)
And even though Monkey Joe was an ever present source of contention throughout the party.
After Monkey Joe's, all the local family came over to the house to eat pizza and watch P open her gifts. She got lots of fun stuff and was excited by pretty much all of it. But, when my sister's family had to leave (on account of my nephew taking the CRCT the next day), we all ventured out onto the front porch to tell them goodbye.
The ulterior motive of all venturing out to the front porch to tell them goodbye, was the opportunity to show her the new bike that was sitting out there waiting for her. The problem with the way we did it was that she was very confused. She couldn't figure out why someone would leave a perfectly lovely princess bike just laying around like that. Bless her heart. As we finally explained enough that she started to figure it out, she said very slowly, "So, you mean this is my bike?" And then came the grin. The all-over-the-face-kind-of-grin that makes a mommy and daddy SO happy to have made their baby happy.
Happy Birthday, precious Pressley. Mommy and Daddy love you very much!
(Many, many more pictures at the April '10 tab above. Including a close-up of my first-ever two-tiered birthday cake, featuring Jasmine - the princess du jour.)
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