An Over-Planned Birthday Bash
My oldest turned 4 the other day. Four years that he’s been with us and I look at him and marvel. I’m someone’s mom. That’s crazy.
What’s crazier is that Logan apparently thought he was turning 14. First thing in the morning, he whispers in my ear: “Can you tell? My voice is deeper now that I’m four.”
Excited about his banana cake.
Blink. Blink. What did he just say?
Logan stares at me, expecting an answer.
“Yes, you’re right!” I lie enthusiastically. Where does he learn this stuff? Clearly, I’m going to need a lot of coffee to get through today.
For his big day, I planned two days’ worth of activities. (Why do I do this to myself?) In the morning we were supposed to meet some friends at a splash park, then have lunch at the Choo Choo restaurant. The afternoon was for baking a banana cake (his request) and then dad would come home and we’d end up with a big hurrah at Chuck E. Cheese.
Yeah even as I type that I’m embarrassed. Though I quit my job, I still have this insatiable get up and go, go, go inside me. Thankfully Logan decided he didn’t want to do the splash park, so we skipped that and instead baked the banana cake.
Logan enjoys cooking and was ecstatic to bake a cake from scratch. He loved the obligatory licking of the beaters best and I can’t blame him.
The next stop was the Choo Choo restaurant, which has a train at the counter that delivers your food. While there, they played the Happy Birthday song and he got a train-delivered cupcake that was heavy on the sprinkles and bearing a torch candle.
He only ate the cake and wanted me to eat the frosting. Of course, because I’m such a good mom and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my beloved children, I ate the icing.
Then on impulse we went to this race car place. It’s straight out of the 1960s, even with ice cream soda and old-fashioned malts. Logan and I rented two remote-controlled cars and this sweet old lady connected them to the track for me and we began to race them.
Racing cars with Dad.
And we raced and we raced and we raced some more. We raced for so long, that I told Hubby to meet us at the race car place when he got off work. Logan was having so much fun we decided to skip Chuck E. Cheese and order milkshakes for the boys. (Admittedly mama had a couple really big sips.)
Finally we returned home, opened his presents and played with them until bedtime. Logan thanked me for a great birthday. I was happy, I had given my boy a good day.
Even though I’ve got a lot of work to do on fixing my over-planning problem, I’m glad I can go with the flow and not feel forced to stick with that over-planned plan. Who knows, maybe for his fifth birthday I won’t even make plans. Ha, yeah right.
That sounds like a great birthday. I think the sign of a good planner is to have a plan, but then be flexible enough to go with the flow!
Thanks! I think so too. I love making plans and executing them, but I don’t want them to dictate my life, ya know? It’s good to be flexible. Reality kinda requires it, right?
The over does tend to slow down after you have two, and by the time the little one is four you’ll be like, “what birthday?” Or something like that.
Good to know! Yeah I’m imagining that maybe by the time the little one is four, I could be: “And what was your name again?” Enough sleep deprivation can cause memory loss ya know.
This sounds so like me! My youngest is turning four this week and despite my plan to “not overplan,” I have indeed overplanned. Ah, well.
Fireman has those same PJ’s!!!! 🙂
I can’t believe our babies are turning four. It’s almost depressing.
It is depressing, it’s like dang, where’s my little boy? But it’s exciting to see what kind of little man he’s growing up to be. Yeah gotta love Kohl’s pajamas. Affordable and comfy. Whenever we have a “home day” I let him stay in his PJs as long as he wants. He loves it. Can’t say I blame him either…
You know I overplan, so I can relate. But the flexibility is definitely the key and taking cues from your son shows what a great mom you are. He’ll remember this birthday forever 🙂
I hope that someday if Adaline tells me she doesn’t want me to throw the “fancy” parties anymore I’ll be able to back off and give her whatever she wants. But I’m very aware of my own selfishness, so we’ll see how that goes 😉 (I mean I’ve totally already come up with a kick-butt theme for her sweet 16! I’m such a freak.)
Awwwww thanks for calling me a great mom. I try, not convinced that I am, but still. Thanks! I’m sure she won’t get tired of the “fancy” parties because your parties sound like so much fun!!