The boy is turning one in about a month. It’s been one heck of a ride. One year ago, I would not have so calmly accepted being thrown up on, being urinated on, having diapers explode on me, or being used as a snot rag. Those are the daddy secrets no one ever tells you about. All futer daddies, consider yourselves warned.
Any way, Mrs. Magill and I are trying to figure out what to do for Pinky’s first birthday. One set of grandparents is coming down, as are his Aunt and Uncle. His god-parents are coming down as well. We are still in an apartment, so things would quickly get crowded if we had a party at our house. Coupled with the fact that neither one of us gave a party for a one-year-old before, so I was hoping for suggestions.
We live on the north side of Atlanta, if that helps.
My experience with one-year-olds is that they’re still pretty much oblivious to the fine details of where they are and what’s going on–they don’t much care whether they’re at the zoo, a drive-in movie or a museum. So find someplace that all these adults from out of town will enjoy where a certain amount of noise is accepted, and have a picnic. Say, a zoo, park, amusement park…
If your apartment complex has a party house, consider renting it for the afternoon. Easy on the toys…they don’t really care about them. Spend more on food (or pictures, movies, etc.)
Whatever you do, make sure you make a little crown out of construction paper with the number ‘1’ on it and place it on his little head just as you are serving him a slice of his cake. Take a picture, quick! Now, encourage him to eat that cake with his hands and smear his little face with it. Take more pictures! Place those pictures in a box and hide them for 17 years, then give them as 18th birthday gift.
YES! Abject humiliation of the boy as a teenager is one of the two reasons I took the job of daddy. The other was so I can take pictures of him in whatever clothing styles will be hip and fashionable fifteen years from now and showing them to my grandkids.
Thanks for the ideas. Now all I need to do is find a good park around here.
A park does sound good! As I’m sure you’ve noticed, a one-year old can only take so much chaos and noise before he burns out, so keep it simple. I have always thrown a barbeque for the grownups and not done anything really for the baby; all the company is more than enough. (We have a lot of family.) Aside from the obligatory cake/photo op, of course. Ours was a pineapple upside-down cake this last time.