Birthday Week

In my family, we usually celebrate birthday week. We figure this makes sense, particularly if your birthday falls on a weekday. My sister celebrates birthday month, which I love, too.

X-man's birthday is Thursday. But we started celebrating on Saturday with a family party and then on Sunday with a kid party. This kind of took the whole weekend, so I'm thinking that maybe next year, we'll combine. X-man really could have used some kids to play with on Saturday, and since he's kind of by himself on my side of the family (only one other cousin has had a child and he's 3 months old). I let him open his gifts first, so he'd have some stuff to play with, and that seemed to help. But when I found him at the bottom of the basement stairs in tears because all the adults were talking to play with him and Mom and Dad were too busy getting lunch ready for the all-adult crowd, I started to get tears in my eyes, too.

I loved and hated my birthday as a kid. I got so excited about the fact that there would be one day in the year that everyone would seem excited about me. It might be my turn to be special. And then everyone would sing to me -- and I'd fall apart in absolute tears. Too much attention... And the crying on my birthday  became a theme... for a long, long, long time. So, when I get through a birthday without crying, it's considered a good one. I've had five. Note that this only applies on my actual birthday day. In my late 20's I decided to stop celebrating and told people to just donate money. That was met with some cheers and some anger. Then I went into therapy, where I was told: Celebrate your birthday, Loosey. Celebrate yourself. So, I sighed and kept trying.

So when X-man came along, I decided that, dammit, he was going to have whatever his little birthday desires could be. So, he tells me what he'd like for his birthday, and I go nuts over it. Yes, it's complete spoilage. But no tears. I figure as long as he's being safe, unselfish and not acting like a jerk I'll entertain a lot of things within reason. Though unlike my birthday, this lasts his birthday week. It's crappy, self-indulgent parenting, I know. But I figure the other 51 weeks a year, he gets a hard ass for a mother. So, you know -- I'll go with it.

Today was his friend party. He chose who he invited this year. Mostly it was the people he has regular play dates with and their siblings and then he wanted to invite our neighbors. He's excited about seeing them all outside again when the weather warms. We weren't even home from the Little Gym, when he said from the backseat. "My birthday was great!" Then at home, we got giant "I love yous" and "Thank yous." And he's not even complaining about getting in the tub. Of course,  his new bathtub crayons might be the reason why he's excited about that.

I know he's still four, even though he wanted to wear his birthday shirt today to his Justice League party. But he's so ready to be a big kid 5, it's amazing.

Verklempt

I had this weird emotion today as I was driving away from the consignment store. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and I felt like someone had gone into my heart with a scalpel and cut out a piece. I hit the call button and dialed MacTroll.

My call made him walk out of his meeting. But I was thankful that he picked up.

"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I feel good and terrible about what I just did. So I'm just going to tell you."
"Okay."
"I took the baby jogger into consignment. The good news is that we have a big open space in the garage. The bad news is -- I'm sad that he's not a baby any more." And then my nose started to run and my eyebrows pushed together. I felt like some sort of terrible traitor.

This didn't happen when I got rid of the exersaucer or when we took down the crib or when I got rid of all of his infant clothes. All of that went off without a hitch. But today I got emotional. It's a sure sign that X-man's birthday is coming up. I busy myself with all the preparing and talking with him about what he'd like to do for his birthday (go to the Bloomington Children's Museum and then come home and go out to dinner and see Dora at the Assembly Hall). I think it's just a way for me not to have to think about the fact that my baby is definitely a big boy. It works -- because after our talk at bedtime last night X-man told me he doesn't want to think about it either.

Admitting I have a problem

I'm a control freak. The one thing motherhood has taught me is that since I have no control over the big stupid scary things, I want to have control of all the mundane things. So, when I have to relinquish that control to someone else or the world just decides to tilt suddenly and knock me on my ass, I get annoyed. Sometimes I'm in a better mood than other times about it. I realize there's nothing I can do and just go with the flow. I adapt. I evolve.

Other days I get really whiny about it. And I think the whining and feeling sorry for myself completely makes the whole thing worse. Mostly because I like to think of myself as an overall non-whiner. But clearly, I have my days.

On Friday, I'll be turning 34 years old. Thirty three was a year of major emotional weeding and physical change. I'm hoping 34 is instead a year of self-care taking -- that is, I don't want life to be so harsh on my head or my soul. Thirty three pretty much started with mourning my cat, and it's ending with recuperating from my stupid surgery. And in between were many difficult times for my loved ones.

I know that's the way life goes. But if there is any truth to Karma, I'd like to think I send out way more good vibes in the world and I hope that someone out there is desperately benefiting from them. Because around here, I'm still looking at my people who are fighting tooth and nail as they battle with cancer, lose their jobs, have no health insurance, work jobs they hate purely for health coverage, take furlough days, attend to sick kids, attend to sick parents, try to sell their homes in a wacky economy and deal with uber tight household budgets... I feel a kind of dread about the future, which isn't very Loosey-like.

I'm not an Eeyore by nature. So, tomorrow, I'm rolling out of bed, getting dressed like it's a regular day, taking myself to the gym for Body Blast and getting back to being me. Loveable, Laugh-at-able me.

Everyone okay with that? (The answer better be yes. Remember that I know where most of my readers live.)

:-P

One, Two, Three

At 10:19 p.m. tonight, X-man will be 3. I said happy birthday to him today. He freaked out. 

"Not today! My birthday coming up!" 

So I think it's the idea that he likes the idea of his birthday in the future and not the past, but isn't quite ready to deal with celebrating it today. I think he feels the same way about moving up to the three-year-old room soon. He's going to go from a Turtle to a Tiger. Grrrr! :-)

So, if you see X-man today, please just tell him "Hi! It's nice to see you. I hope you have a wonderful day!" Feel free to throw in an "I love you" if you feel it. 

I.e. Avoid the happy birthday jargon. And I think he'll have a great day.

Yeah, He's My Kid

X-man was around 12 months old the first time an acquaintance actually saw him with my husband. Her response, "Oh, he makes sense now."

What she meant was that standing next to me, X-man and I don't look too related. Mostly because besides the structure of his eyes, the fact that his ears lobe and that he doesn't have a monobrow (all pretty good traits to get from my genetic code) he looks exactly like his father.

But yesterday was X-man's third birthday party, where I watched, with great anxiety, my son emulate me in ways that pretty much felt like someone taking a baseball bat to my head. 

He was so excited about his party and the arrival of Nana that he couldn't nap, which is never good, but in a situation like this makes things 10 times worse. Then when we were getting into the car to go to the party, he stalled. He wouldn't look at me in the eye. He was having a quiet internal freak out where pretending to fill the air on the tires on my bike seemed way safer than going to a party in his honor. I hugged him and asked him if we was worried. He insisted he was happy.

But when everyone arrived... he started to cry. Every 10 minutes. Like clockwork. He melted down. 

He didn't want to share. He didn't want people looking at him. He didn't want other kids touching him. And unfortunately, kids he's most loving to -- namely the Wonder Twins -- got the brunt of the birthday anxiety. He didn't want to be the center of attention. He suddenly wanted to find a quiet corner and have some alone time. And I didn't know how to get him through it. After some awesomely designed cake from the Cake Artist's Studio, he finally settled down and seemed to be in a better mood. It helped that MacTroll sat with him in his lap while they had cake and some fruit. And let's face it, sugar is a great equalizer for kids. At least the pushing and the tackling stopped...

After the party, when the room was cleaned up, we got in the car and went home. I was wiped. I could hardly think. MacTroll said when he signed the room release so we could get our deposit back that the woman said to him, "That's the quietest 3-year-old birthday party I've ever heard."

I think her nose probably grew a foot when she got into her car. :-)

Of course, this morning he's all happy to see his toys and balloons and to play with his Nana. And it looks like it's going to be a glorious day to try out his new T-ball set in the yard, while Mom scoops a whole winter of dog poop up.

A really big thank you to all the parents and kids that were patient with him yesterday. I swear he's not a spoiled brat. He just isn't used to everything focusing on him. He's much more comfortable as part of a pack hierarchy, where he's not the top dog, but he does have some good attributes. Like group hugger. He's a great hugger.