Last night at 8:07 pm Austin asked to blow out his candle
again. And again and again and then about 20 more times. Next he went to his
newly acquired monkey bean bag chair and screamed "boutros boutros
ghali" before jumping into it and sliding down another twenty times.
Austin was the life of the after party.
He turned two yesterday and woke up and stayed grumpy for
most of the day. He didn't take his usual long nap and I thought "uh oh.
This is going to be an annoying night."
But as guests arrived he perked up and was back to normal. He played with all of his new toys. He insisted to open them up as guests
arrived with them. We didn't wait until the usual after the cake organized kind
of way. A fight broke out between Austin and Kyle over the toy Therese gave
Austin. It was an endearingly if annoyingly consistent rematch of the fight they got in over
Therese's toy for Kyle 11 days earlier. Clearly she has her finger on the pulse
of what they like and clearly she has the hardest job in the world.
We sang happy birthday and Austin, with a lot of help
from Kyle, blew out the candles and was really psyched to eat cake ( after his
dinner of cookies).
Parents mingled well, albeit with haste. I heard one dad
express relief that his kid wasn't the worst kid at the party. I saw the dad of
the worst kid at the party step outside with his little one for some
"fresh air."
My mom kept saying " I forgot about this. I forgot
how hectic these parties are." I laughed. Her forgetting meant she could
referee a few of the scuffles while I grabbed a quick chat here or there.
Once the crowd left, a wake of new toys scattered
everywhere, the party really began. Austin, who needs time to warm up, was
ready. There was dancing, frenetic story reading, lots and lots of chatter (he
is light years ahead of his peers in speaking full sentences to articulate just
about anything) and of course the candle re-blowing.
