Party.

Have you ever been to a 2 year olds birthday party?
It's a lot like a frat party (Ahem, not that I ever went to them at my short year at LU.  That's what you want to hear, right, mom and dad?);
No one really realizes how incredibly loud they are being,
everyone looks a little lost and confused,
someone ends up crying they want to go home,
the floors are sticky,
and at least one person ends up being a complete mess and pees on themselves.

I think I heard at least 2 of my friends say "Why do we keep having children?" looking around at the chaos that is a 2 year olds birthday party.  This was my attempt at keeping it very small and minimal and calm.  I think the calm is where I was delusional in my planning.

We attempted to take pictures of Little S with his birthday cake BEFORE the party.  I'm not quite sure what I thought was going to happen when we put a cake in front of a toddler then took it away after taking a picture.

You can't tell, but he's screaming at the cake here.

Also, attempting to make good food for your guests is tricky when you put it out and all Little S wants to do is shove his sticky fingers into everything.

Apparently my son was so distraught at being told "No" he just had an overwhelming urge to get naked.  I keep trying to tell him that's not a thing.

For some reason it felt like there were about 50 children there instead of 11.  I think it's because of the sheer amount of running that was going on.  And the shoving.  Lots of shoving and screaming, by children and parents alike.

Also, my child hates wearing clothes.  At one point he was only in a diaper, I think we have a potential nudist on our hands.

Prepping for the party was way more stressful than I initally anticipated.  Maybe it was because Big S's idea of helping is taking a nap.  Or because Little S decided to cut his nap short by about an hour.  Or maybe because I spent my time super wisely and decided to spend about 2 hours blowing up balloons and making this in an attempt for adorable family photos:

If you look from the right to the left, it's like "Aw Little S! Alright, I look decent. Aw Rae is adorable. DANG IT BIG S!"  We were SO CLOSE to getting a normal family photo!  So close.  Then Big S had to go and have a stupid face.

Not that I'm upset about this.  

It's totally fine.

It's fine.

I'm fine.

Sigh.

Now, let's attempt this with 8 toddlers.

How's this going to work?

I know, let's bribe them with Smarties then pump them full of cake.

Anddddd that worked for 3 seconds.

Then we put him in front of the cake again and took pictures.  2 year olds love being put in front of food, being told they can't eat it and forcing them to smile.  Then having 30 tone deaf people sing at you.

Then it was over.

Everyone left and we put the kids to bed.

Big S leaned over to me and kissed me on the forehead and said I did a good job.

But the truth is, we did a good job.

Because Little S, though it was your birthday, a little part of this is just celebrating us managing to keep you alive and happy.  The alive part would definitely be the hardest seeing as your constantly flinging yourself into danger.

The happy is easy.

Tim Riddick Photography, like him on facebook!

Here's to hoping we make it to 3.

M