Birthday hangover — slackermama . com

Yesterday was a rough, rough day for me. It was a long day too. We were up and out of the house by 7:30am while the “men” went to a men’s breakfast at the church. I joined up with my friends and we took our youngest members out with us while we did some shopping. We met up with the men at the mall for lunch later on and by then, Liam had HAD IT and wanted a nap, tout suite. We came back home for a while so he could snooze and have a bath and we did some last minute preparations on the food for the party later. I was a little concerned for Liam’s frame of mind. He’s obviously putting through some molars or SOMETHING and has been enormously out of sorts lately. Add to that the raging diaper rash and low-grade fever he’s been sporting and he was definitely not in a party mood.

And for a while, he remained that way. He even snoozed through dinner, rather fitfully. He wouldn’t let me or Kile put him down and was generally a big ol’ grumpy gus. I knew we had a small window of time after dinner, when he woke up and was briefly refreshed. Even so, he started to nut up a bit as we were preparing the birthday cake. And, can I talk for a minute about this birthday cake? NewFriend made it for me, since I was planning to just buy a box of Duncan Hines cake mix, throw it together into a 9×13 pan, bake it, and throw some frosting on top. That’s how I make cakes. NewFriend, apparently, actually MAKES A CAKE and then DECORATES it. And it looks completely fabulous when she’s done. Believe it or not, it tastes even better. This woman has definitely missed her calling. Anyhow, once we brought out the cake, he was a happier boy. Then the presents came out and that made him even happier. Still, there was a shelf life on this happiness and before long we had to return home and deposit him in his crib.

The day was a success. I feel a little more “resigned” to this whole one year old thing today. It still smarts though, especially when I think of that brief shining moment in time when he was my tiny baby.