Matthew's 1st Birthday Party

We set the date 14 December, to be the party day for Matthew's Big ONE. It is quite a milestone for him and for myself. For the baby, the transition from a newborn to a sitting up baby to a crawling one and finally walking on his own. For me, the initial tough months of not having enough sleep, constantly worried about breastmilk supply and quality and then having to cope with a newborn and a terrible 2 toddler. It is a misconception that I had it easy since I have a helper at home. But the thing is... parenting can NEVER be outsource.

I never had my helper to wake up in the middle of the night to tend to the Jon and Matt, not even when Jon was very sick and had raging fever. In fact, I needed her to have a good sleep so that she would be alert in the day to care for Matt. She doesn't discipline my children. She doesn't parent them. Okay, that's to set the record straight.

So with Matt turning one and being the last child in my family, I really wanted to splurge a little more for him. For a lot of reasons, I always feel that Matt is always being shortchanged by people, situation and circumstances. Hence, if I could, I would always give a little more to him.

But as it turned out, it was a party that had everything gone wrong. Sounds serious? I am still pretty upset by over the whole thing.

First, guests. It was already a small party to begin with. Only immediate family members and close friends invited. But as it turned out, only half of the guests were able to come despite the ample notice.

childhood friend & her family

my biggest supporter - Angeline

Good friend from work

my family

Secondly, the helium balloons. I had always ordered my party balloons from this vendor. Yet it seemed that this round, the balloons didn't exactly float as they were meant to be. The boss came down as soon as possible to do an exchange yet, it got flattened again.

surviving balloon bouquets

whatever remained at the end

Thirdly, the birthday cake. Perhaps figurine and cream cake just don't go well. While the blackforest cake tasted good, but the whole outlook was not quite what I expected. I wanted the bakers to have a little boy with a pet dog, playing with a ball, looking at the starry night. These were Matt's favourite things. The whole figurine set just looked weird on the cake.

his birthday cake

blowing the candle

Fourthly, the entertainer. Maybe the crowd wasn't right. There was not much response from the guests for the magic show. However, his balloon sculpturing was well received.

zacchaeus, the brave volunteer

the magic act

balloon sculpturing

Lastly, my camera battery went flat. I came out with a full bar but it just died on me during the cake cutting. Luckily, we had smartphone to the rescue.

from Angeline's phone

There were a lot of food wasted and the party-goers dispersed much earlier than needed.

While I was covering my sadness by putting on a brave smile, Matt didn't even notice that it was a lousy party. In fact, his pure joy at having a party of his own magnified throughout. A childlike ignorance is surely a bliss to the soul.

Blessed Birthday, my dearest Matthew!

enjoying his birthday party

birthday boy with his blessings