Streamers and Cupcakes and Gifts – OH MY!

By now, most of you know that we celebrated Roman’s birthday last week with a whirlwind weekend that started with a party at the park and culminated at his christening at church. Since I’m writing this account a week later, you also probably know that I am still recovering from the fun. But 4 dozen cupcakes, 3 packs of hot dogs, 2 oversized Elmo balloons and 1 lost voice later – it was totally worth it!

The week was chaotic for me in a number of ways. First, it coincided with my busiest week to date for work, which featured two board meetings and a social event at the Dean’s home that I organized for our top executive group. The social, which took place on Roman’s actual birthday, and the meeting which followed the next day, took most of my creative and collective energy for the week or two proceeding. So my plan was to turn all of my attention to my little one as soon as the event’s ended. That is, until my big one’s back started hurting a few days prior. Maurice has battled back pain before so we both brushed it off as something to pass and planned for the party. We’ll revisit this later….

Since I couldn’t spend time with Roman on his actual b-day, Maurice and I took the day Wednesday to spend with Roman at the park near our house. Roman doesn’t need much – an open field and a “vroom vroom” (car) or ball and he’s happy. After an hour or so, we left the park and hit up Brewster’s for Roman’s first taste of ice cream. He devoured most of my hot apple dumpling and vanilla bean so I guess he liked it!

Thursday morning, I waited patiently outside Roman’s door for him to wake so I could sing happy birthday to him. This is eerily like my laying-in-wait at Christmas to sing – with the same results – lots of smiles but pure confusion on his part. After getting him dressed, Daddy took him to school and brought in cupcakes for his class. He remarked how amazing it was to see a room of toddlers immediately get quiet when someone mentioned cake.

Friday night, Auntie Peg and Uncle Nic, Roman’s godparents, came in town for the festivities. It was so great to have them here and Roman did his usual “performance” that he does when he has an audience to watch – he walked around and strutted his stuff throughout the house for the new guests. Saturday morning, we woke early and proceeded to begin running around like crazy people. I wish I could say that I had all the things ready for the party for 50+ and the christening the next day, but work and being down one helper (Maurice’s back went from bad to worse) made organizing a little hectic. But we successfully picked up 2 dozen balloons, all the hot dogs and hamburgers one can eat, cakes and cupcakes, decorations, and back pain medicine for hubby and were able to arrive at the party only 15 minutes late. Roughly.

The park was great and so many people showed up to see the birthday boy. I was worried at first about it not being a great venue for Roman since he hadn’t mastered walking, but in the end, it was perfect for him and the other kids. He walked all over and spent a fair amount of time on the slides, swings and jungle gym. He also continued his personal “strike” against the expensive shoes Mommy bought at Stride Rite and chose instead to trash his new argyle socks (he did NOT get the chance to ruin his seer sucker blue/orange/white striped pants, though, as mommy WAS smart enough to nix that idea in exchange for trusty jeans. I’m not always smart, but I have moments….). My previously learned lesson of knowing that there are times to pick your battles prevailed, and since it was his day, I let it ride. Besides, $3 socks are totally not worth ruining a day over!

In addition to running all over the park, he got to play with friends Kolby and Sophia, Kaden and Koen, Savanna and Jada and new friends Ella and baby Asher, who joined us with his parents after celebrating his 1-mth birthday (SO glad you guys came!).

After running amok and wearing themselves out, it was time for cake. I fully expected Mr. Busybody to totally tear into the cake, so we got a “smash cake” for him to destroy. This is apparently a recent phenomenon, as I don’t remember EVER having a separate set of sweets to trash, but it didn’t matter as Roman seemed pretty uninterested in smashing anything. Instead, he was content letting us “mere mortals” feed him icing all afternoon.

Sunday brought another beautiful day and again us scrambling to get ready for another event – Roman’s christening. For those of you thinking it might be a little strange to christen a child at 1 year old, you are probably correct. Unfortunately, our church only does the event on an infrequent basis and this was the earliest we could schedule. On top of that, it was the first time they ever chose to do the christening both in service AND after service, so the start time for the event changed no less than 5 times and as recent as the Friday before. But in the end, it was a great event.

Now normally, I am a stickler about planning. I ran through most of the plans for my wedding so often that I could recite all the sections on command. But there were too many parts to this weekend that I missed doing – including trying on my son’s christening outfit in a timely manner. I realized this misstep around 8pm Saturday night, and since the boy was already sleep, decided to simply pray that the outfit would fit the next day. And I guess you can say it did. The pants were fine, but the shirt and vest (in all their shiny white glory) were just a tad too small and had the effect of making him look like a little Hulk busting out of them both. Luckily, he wasn’t in them long and nobody noticed (except me).

The event was small but personalized, as the pastor prayed over each child and offered specific blessings for them and their family. Roman was vocal as usual and seemed to charm everyone there. Afterwards, we took family pictures and headed to lunch/brunch to celebrate. Here is where things get a little dicey…..

Somewhere along the way, Roman must have decided his outfit was not the move and he proceeded to *ahem* soil it enough to need emergency changing. Luckily, this was not a Panera II (click for previous post) but it did result in one destroyed outfit and one happy baby in a too tight onesie! Afterwards, we all took photos despite the wardrobe malfunction and headed to our respective homes to rest from a whirlwind weekend.

It is hard to believe that my son is already a year old. I remember so vividly being pregnant, giving birth, and bringing home this delicate, fragile bundle of joy. The months flew by, as everyone said they would, but no one can prepare you for what it feels like to see your baby becoming a child and on his way to being a little boy. Anyone who meets Roman always remarks on how beautiful his smile is and how happy he seems to be all the time. I am proud to be mother to a son with such an amazing disposition – who can be at ease in any situation and one who brightens the faces of many as he does for me. I know that it was his day, but in a way, it felt like mine too – and I went to bed thanking God for such an amazing gift!