BIRTHDAYS (continued)

The cool thing about being the mother of more than one child is the opportunity to refine your parenting practices, whereas if you only have one child some bridges will be crossed only once…so you better “walk good” the first time! But parenting more than one child—“do overs” are not only likely, but they are also inevitable!!!

Like I mentioned before, I LOVE birthdays!!! As is the case with most of my “loves” the tendency to go overboard is inherent. I should also mention at this point that I LOVE event planning and CRAFT MAKING…I’m sure you can see where this is going!

Case in point, Zenzele (my guinea pig) has had more “formal” birthday parties than Tafara and Lion have had and may ever have. Simply because, when the newness of the birthday party thing came up at age 1 (she was asleep before she could even open her presents) and 2 (she wouldn’t even play with her friends/guests) and 5 (I was pregnant and burned myself out throwing her a LUAU!!! BUT she had a great time), I became more enthralled in the planning of the party, the theme, the party favors, the food, etc. etc. but after having BABY #2 and now #3 my focus has since shifted from creating a BANG to getting the most bang for my BUCK (with the least amount of clean up involved)!

I’ve learned to have more fun with the celebration and as the children get older they are more vocal about their likes and desires. Tafara loves animals and was clear in telling us that she wanted to go to LION COUNTRY SAFARI…she didn’t care about anything else as long as animals were involved, so we did that and I threw her a class party complete with gift boxes (with stuffed animals, granola, and gummies in it and each child’s name on it in leopard printed stickers…see what I mean about going “overboard”). This year she wanted a safari party and I did that (with animal print goodie bags and animal themed grab bag gifts and masks…but we didn’t have cake…instead we had donuts…pink ones… with sprinkles)!

Today…Lion will quietly munch donuts with his classmates, drink a little apple juice and call it a day (but I did stay up last night decorating Cheerios boxes with customized stickers…after all what’s a party without favors?)…until Saturday when is Uncle Myki and Auntie Pamela, throw him a party! The $26.00 spent on today’s party and the piece of mind that accompanies it is a definite sign of my growth and understanding that I can express my love in ways that will not deplete my energy or my limited finances!

Gotta love those Lion-O's!Lion's classroom bday party


Lion's 2nd birthday shirt...yet another tradition ....