How to throw a 1-year-old birthday party

DANG I'm behind in blogging. But guess what? I'm doing NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month - where I post EVERYDAY in the month of November).

So behind am I in blogging that I am nearly a month late on posting about Peanut's birthday bash. We threw it a week before her actual birthday because my parent's planned a vacation over their first grandchild's birthday and they were basically half the guest list.

If you are doubting my parent's love for Peanut, note this: they took Peanut the other week to a professional sitting and paid an artist to paint a portrait of her. This painting will be their Christmas gift to each other. This has become a hilarious focal point of conversation in our family because my siblings and I always make fun of my parents for being kind of obsessed with Peanut. We fear no other grandkid will get as much attention, and they will instead be delegated to light a candle under the Peanut shrine every time they visit.

So her party. I was all ready to make a stand against huge 1-year-old birthday bashes, making fun of my friends who go all out on elaborate cakes, matching birthday outfits and huge guestlists. I mean the kid is 1, they still poop in their pants and have no friends but their parents. A big party is not necessary.

Then I totally became one of those moms.

10 steps to a ridiculous 1-year-old birthday party:

Step 1: Find a theme. Because nothing screams "I'm 1!" like a themed party your child will never remember.

Peanut's was "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," since she loves that book and is obsessed with eating. Did she get that was the theme? Of course not.



Step 2: MAKE (not buy or e-mail - the shame) invitations by hand.

Or computer, in my case. You see these cute tri-fold invites? I designed them. I'm basically the most adorable person I know.



(Please ignore the obvious copyright infringement here.)

Step 3: Invite anyone that has ever touched or acknowledged your baby in the past 12 months. Your sister-in-laws parent's brother, who once said "She's cute!" at a chance meeting in the grocery store, long-lost relatives you haven't seen since your wedding, your best friend from high school who lives three states away (because of course she'll come), the former roommate you've reconnected with on Facebook, any friend's baby within a years age range of your child who is surely going to be best friends with your kid, your husband's boss and his spouse, the OBGYN who delivered your child.

Albeit an important step to a proper 1-year-old birthday, I refrained on this one. I'm not even going to mention the amount of people on my first list, but by the second, I found it completely reasonable to just do immediate family.

...and then I invited a few extended family.

...and then some more.

...and, oh, some childhood friends from California just moved to Salt Lake, we want to invite them too.




Step 4: Go gawdy with decorations and buy more than is even reasonable for a wedding reception.

Oh, hey, nothing for me to show evidence of in this category, not because I didn't plan them, but because I didn't have time to set them up.


Step 5: Buy or sew an original birthday outfit. Of course your child will not ruin this by food or poop.

Why no, I didn't stay up until 4 in the morning sewing an Eric Carle-inspired caterpillar on her onesie the night before. That would be ridiculous, especially since it would just be ruined mere MINUTES later when anyone held her and tugged on the onesie, proving my sewing skills suck and I can't even make a piece of cloth stick to another piece of cloth!

And no, she did not devour the food of ANYONE that left a plate on the ground or dropped a piece of food in the grass, getting her onesie covered in crap.

AND NO, she didn't have an explosive poo halfway through the party that forced an impromptu outfit change!







Step 6: Slave over a cake and matching cupcakes that will merely be devoured by all the guests and not appreciated for their true artistic baking beauty.







This picture speaks for itself on this one.



LAYERED RAINBOW GOODNESS THERE FOLKS.

Step 7: Let your child open an insane amount of gifts that will just overwhelm and overstimulate them, but remember it's their party, they can cry if they want to, damnit.



Step 8: Keep telling people you're going all out "For the pictures" but then you are so busy you hardly take any pictures and most of the ones that come out look crappy.

Case in point:




Step 9: Don't judge when your child develops a really strange infatuation with the balloon bouquet that night after the guests leave, ignoring all presents to happily get herself tangled in the balloons, crawl everywhere with them attached to her body and scream at said balloons whenever they float away.





Step 10: Oh, you, the mother of said 1-year-old, actually have a birthday two days before said child? NO ONE CARES, NOT EVEN YOURSELF.

'till age 2 Peanut!