Annabelle's 3rd Birthdays

Let's get the questions out of the way first, the ones that I have been asked 8 kagillion times this week:
1. Her legal birthday is March 1 in a non-leap year.
2. We celebrate her on both days - my notion is that "when you don't have a special day, might as well have two!"
3. Leap years happen every 4 years, so no, she has not had an "actual" birthday yet.  This one surprised me this year, I thought people knew that!

I do love third birthdays.  They are the first that the child really understands - both what a birthday means AND that the celebration is all about her.  That makes party planning really fun, and really about the KID for the first time in her life (first birthday parties are for the parents.  Well deserved indeed, but not a bit for the kid's benefit.  I've thrown myself two "congratulations on keeping them alive for a year" parties).

Annabelle and I have been prepping for her big days.  We talked about how old she would be in a month (then in two weeks, then next week, etc) and practiced holding up that many fingers.  We discussed her party and who she'd like to invite.  We discussed the use of candles and what type of treat she would like Mommy to bake for her.  By the time her days rolled around, she was amped and ready!

Saturday, February 28 was a fun and busy day!  We left the house before 10am to make it to the Barnyard Bash being hosted by Annabelle's art teacher.  Pony rides, face paint, crafts and cookies, it was basically a second party without her name on it.  She and Sam both bravely rode the ponies, something I'm not sure either of them would have done a year ago.  Annabelle got to go twice, but clearly had way more fun when her brother was along for a ride with her.  I love watching their little relationship develop into friendship.  And Sam, again, was just as into the crafts in the art room as Annabelle was.  For a kid who resisted all things art related as a preschooler, he sure thinks her stuff is pretty cool now!  By the time we left, they were both seriously fancied up for the remainder of our celebrating.

It was straight to Sam's last basketball game from there, and I'd like to think the other team was intimidated by his Leonardo mask.  Then we went out for BBQ with the team - a yummy lunch with cookie cake to celebrate.  I should note that, by this point in the day, Annabelle had consumed 3 donut holes, 8 raspberries, a cookie, one bite of white bread, one bite of corn, one bite of turkey and half a slice of cookie cake.  Yikes.

After of few hours of singing to herself in bed (details on that in my next post), we brought her out to open presents from family.  Poor little unloved child.  She was appreciative of everything, although less enthused by the clothes than in the past.  She did squeel a bit when she opened her "Shooooooesssss!" from Aunt Becky and spent about 5 minutes putting princess lip smackers on both herself and me.  "See, it doesn't hurt!"  And then came the doll house, and both she and big brother had to be dragged away from it every time we needed them to do something for the next few days.

Then it was off to dinner!  We had asked Annabelle which restaurant she would like to go to for her birthday but "the red one!" just wasn't very descriptive.  So Mommy and Daddy selected Rainforest Cafe - as did, apparently, every other family in Katy that was celebrating a birthday that evening.  Honestly, I'm not sure that a single table did not receive a special birthday treat.  Fortunately that did not seem to lesson the level of special-ness for the kids, who thoroughly enjoyed checking out the waterfall, animatronic animals and decor and sucking down their over-priced, character-cup icee's during our 40 minute wait for our food.  It also gave us ample opportunity to verify with Annabelle that she not only wanted a candle on her cupcake (which was so tasteless that none of us would eat it) but that she wanted the full on sparkler.  We showed her three different sparklers to confirm.  And after we all devoured our food, to everyone's great surprise, Annabelle sat boldly, proudly, happily in front of her sparkler while everyone sang to her.

This is no small thing!  Only a few weeks ago she ran to me and buried her face in my shoulder during her friend's party.  Just this week she covered her eyes as I lit the gas stove to boil some water.  The girl's feat of fire is real.  But it appears that her desire to experience all-things-birthday was stronger than her fear.  Because she didn't just enjoy her sparkler, but also the candle on her Mommy-Made Daniel Tiger Cookie Cake we had when we got home.  Blew that candle out on her first try!

Sunday morning I woke her with another Happy Birthday!  And then we all hurried off to church, where she scored an awesome Birthday Balloon in her class.  Then we came home and...hung out.  We did not clean, prep, arrange, decorate or bake.  Annabelle rested, Sam watched a show and did some homework, Chris paid bills and I worked on bible study.  (Annabelle demanded a candle in her lunch, and singing to go with it.)  All this made possible by one very smart decision that I made this year: Outsource Annabelle's Birthday Party.

It came to my attention a few months ago that Miss Debbie, our Art Class Teacher, also hosts birthday parties.  You give her a theme and a check, she does everything, literally.  Everything from printing your invitations to passing out the party favors she purchased.  She does the food, the games, the crafts, the decorations.  We showed up with some "adult snacks" and ourselves.  It was awesome.  She even takes pictures.  Here is the blurb she posted to Facebook to go along with the pictures from our Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood party:   

"It was a beautiful day in Annabelle Tiger’s neighborhood today where all her friends gathered to celebrate her third birthday. The children started the party with arts and crafts and tiger snacks before entering Annabelle’s Neighborhood where the children had some fun, imaginative play making and selling cupcakes in the bakery, shopping at the grocery store, fixing sick creatures at the animal hospital and fishing on a picnic. The day ended with cupcakes and ribbon sticks all for a special little tiger named Annabelle!"

For the record, she once again reveled in the singing to her and put great effort into blowing out the three candles on her cupcake.  That makes for 4 candle adventures in 2 days.  Is she cured, or is this only a birthday reprieve from her phobia?

After a few friends weren't able to come at the last minute, we ended up with about 10 kiddos at the party.  I think everyone had a good time - I know that my two did!  In spite of our lack of work for the party, the four of us returned home exhausted.  Annabelle opened gifts from her friends, we had a snacky dinner and crashed early

After a whole weekend of celebrating I was a bit concerned that my baby girl would wake up on Monday thinking that it was all about her once again.  To the contrary, she woke up and informed me that it was not her birthday anymore, but that she was three now.  And that she still started with an A (there was debate earlier in the week.  She thought that since her number was changing that her letter would, too.  Clearly we have work to do on our letters and number and their meanings).

And now...we have no baby.  We have no toddler.  Our little family is growing up!