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2006-11-08 - 11.30pm previous entry next entry
Arthur's 2nd Birthday Party!!
It's late AGAIN, but I absolutely have to write about Arthur's birthday party before I end up with a TON of new stuff to write about as well, from his actual birthday tomorrow.
We left it pretty late to organise anything for his birthday, party-wise, because we just didn't know what to do. I really wanted to do something though. He doesn't seem old enough, in himself, for a children's party yet though. I mean, he doesn't have a circle of friends yet, he's too little to have "made" friends in any case. I think a children's party would have been for me rather than Arthur, and since he hasn't really socialised much yet it seemed odd to gather a bunch of kids and throw a party this year. I really want everything about Arthur's birthday to be what HE would like best. What he likes best is adult family members, at the moment. He likes the attention and enjoys interacting and playing with adults way more than other children. He loves to follow and imitate older children, but not those of his own age, and we really don't have any older children to invite! So we did exactly the same as for his first birthday - we invited family to a little party for him on Sunday morning. We had planned to go to church but that morning was the only time everyone could make it. It had to be the weekend before his birthday and not after, because my parents were only here that weekend.
The day before his party, I made his birthday cake - milk chocolate cake (with evaporated milk in it) with chocolate fudge icing and smarties on top! I made it in the shape of a car, because that's what Arthur chose when I asked him if he wanted a cake shaped like a car or a train. It had a big number '2' in Smarties on the top, and two candles. I can NOT believe that for the second year running, I did not get a photo of the actual cake! Last year I took a couple of stills from the camcorder, but this year I didn't. There is a video clip of me carrying the cake in and us singing Happy Birthday, etc, and you can see it quite well in that, so that will have to do! I'll post that clip in a minute.
First, here is Arthur helping me to mix his own birthday cake, the day before his party :)
The party went SO well! Even better than last year, everybody said so! We were so pleased. My parents were there, and my grandparents, and my brother and his pregnant Sarah (not showing yet (14 weeks) though she said her uterus had "popped up" 4 days earlier and she could feel it - how exciting!!!). And I'm soooo happy that Neil's sister and her hubby came with sweet little Ella! Also Neil's brother, Ian, came too. He couldn't make it last year, and nor could Leigh (Ella's daddy), so it was a bigger party than last year. Ella is 16 months old now! She is SO so pretty and such a sweetie. She is saying some words and very sociable. The age gap is beginning to close between her and Arthur, which is lovely. They are only 7 months apart. It was hard to believe that Matthew will be that age at Arthur's next birthday - he and Ella share the exact same birthday, one year apart! I can't imagine Matthew walking and chatting and stuff. But anyway, I digress!
So it was lovely. Our little living room was FULL of people, and since that's our only room downstairs (apart from the very messy and small kitchen), that was the only place for everyone to be. Everyone sat on the sofas or on chairs in a circle around the room, which seemed odd in some ways because there was this ring of adults all looking on at ONE child on his birthday (with Ella popping in and out of the circle!), but then, Arthur LOVED it. He loves all the family and he loves attention like that :) So it was perfect for everyone. Everyone loved seeing Arthur, of course!
Anyway. After Arthur went to bed the night before the party, Neil and I were up till like 2am getting ready. Urgh. We had so much tidying to do and stuff. We left a LOT of stuff untidy and un-cleaned, but we also had to put up the decorations we'd decided to have. We had balloons (saying, "Happy 2nd Birthday!") hanging from the ceiling from gold string, so that little ones could be lifted up to bop them :) And I recycled a huge pile of Arthur's paintings (which were only going to turn into a big out-of-hand stack, or else break my heart by having to be thrown away in the end!), by making two templates of the number 2, one big and one small, and cutting out a bazillion of them from his paintings. I hung them up amongst the balloons with gold string. They looked pretty and colourful and in a way, Arthur had made them himself as he had done the paintings. Everyone liked those anyway :) We also had balloons on the front door with ribbons, like last year. I just like that kind of touch :) I kept the withered old balloons with their ribbons from his first birthday, the ones that said "Happy 1st Birthday!" and went on the front door. I know I will never be able to part from them! I found them at the weekend as I was digging around for decorations to use. It was quite a heart-squeezing moment! Suddenly it felt craaazy that a whole year had passed since I took those balloons down, already! Here are the ceiling decorations during the party:
After everyone arrived, Matthew went for a nap, and ended up sleeping almost 3 hours - right through the rest of the party until after everyone had gone home! I'm glad everyone had a chance to see him before he went to sleep - Uncle Ian had never met his newest nephew before! Everyone said how much he has grown and commented on his hair - it's suddenly growing in like crazy. I mean, every day for the past 4 days it has been visibly longer, more coverage of his head than the day before. It's brown, not blonde or red! He has really kept us guessing, hehe! It does have a lot of blonde in it, so I'm sure he'll be fairer than Arthur, but his general hair colour is definitely brown. It's filling in so fast. He already looks so much older to me, just from having hair :( I just want time to slow down!
Anyway so then we did the birthday cake thing, and Arthur did a good job of trying to blow his candles out. He blew soooo gently that they barely flickered, so I helped him. Once he got applause for the first candle being blown out, he seemed more motivated to blow the second one, but I still had to help him. He LOVED the Smarties. He has never had any before, and he ate them first, from his piece of cake! :) The cake turned out really well, and I'm pleased! It was yummy! We still have a small part of it left and we're going to add more Smarties to the icing and put the two candles in it again for another round of "Happy Birthday" with blowing out the candles again tomorrow! Only, with just Arthur, Matthew, Mummy and Daddy this time.
Okay, here is the video clip of the birthday cake part :)
Here's Arthur sitting up with my brother to eat his cake, and then a sweet photo of Ella enjoying her piece!
After birthday cake had been eaten and the plates moved out of the way, we let Arthur open his presents and cards from everyone. We gave him his cards to open first, and he was so sweet, he was so excited about each one of them and never seemed to want to shove them aside to get to the presents! He exclaimed, "Oh, WOW!" at the pictures on the fronts and opened the cards to "read" them. I read the words to him and he got a Noddy badge on one of them which he was thrilled with.
The first present he opened was from Bennie and Sarah, and it was a little Thomas the Tank Engine push along toy, with battery-operated sounds. You can switch it to "train sounds" or the theme from Thomas the Tank Engine. He was so excited!! He loves Thomas the Tank Engine - a newly discovered thing for Arthur, but he has taken to it straight away and just loves it! It was attached to the cardboard packaging the way all children's toys seem to be these days - you know, bound with wires in high security fashion, almost impossible to un-pick! He had a good go at it for a while, and eventually just said, "Mummy?" and when I said, "Yes, Arthur?" he said, "Get it" and handed it to me, hehe! He could hardly wait for me to unpack it, and then he just sat strumming the back wheel, which is the part that makes the music as you push it along the floor. He wouldn't push it on the floor, he just wanted to flick the wheel to make the sound, funny boy! He played with it constantly for the rest of the party, and indeed the rest of the DAY, only putting it down briefly to unwrap another present, before picking it up again and strumming away at the back wheel! He completely loves it. The sweetest thing is, he has been "sharing" it with Matthew this week, which really tells me how much he loves Matthew. Matthew is enthralled with it too! His eyes go all bug-like with eagerness and he grapples at it because furious grappling makes it play the tune, and Matthew loves the tune to play :) Sweet boys!
Here is Arthur opening the Thomas the Tank Engine toy!
He also got a Bob the Builder tool set - including hat! - from Ella and her mummy and daddy, which Ella loved as much as Arthur did:
He got TWO Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs from Nana and Grandy, which he has watched WAY too much already - he loves them to bits. He keeps asking to "wat' train now", no matter if we only switched it off 10 minutes ago! He loves it. He recognises the engines by name already and gets really concerned when the engines have a crash or something or go off the rails. He always draws my attention to it, even if I have already seen that episode 5 times already and know what has happened. He says, "Oh no!" and then "train fall!" and then looks so upset about it. When I say cheerfully, "Never mind, he'll be alright in a minute!" he looks at me and says in a small voice, "Cuggle train?" So sweet! At the moment, if anyone falls or gets hurt, they have to have a cuddle from Mummy, according to Arthur :) Apparently this includes trains on the TV who fall down after de-railing! He really wants me to somehow reach into the TV and give the train a cuddle, he seems so concerned for them! He's such a sweetie pie.
Here is Arthur opening the DVDs - he is really into unwrapping presents this year, much more so than last year!
After that he played with his train and had people push it back and forth with him, and just generally seemed REALLY happy, which was lovely! :)
Here's a little clip of him playing (ish!) with Ella, with his train. He shares pretty nicely, but he is getting more to the age now where he's starting to want toys when he wants them. He is always generous with them though. He shares with Matthew by giving Matthew a toy (placed right under his nose or into his hands), and then after a few seconds of looking pleased with what he has done and watching Matthew play with what he brought for him, he says, "Ah-yah turn!" and takes it back! I am teaching him about turns and he is practising it a lot with Matthew. He is happy and generous as long as he gets his turn when he wants it! If I tell him it's still Matthew's turn, he gets upset and cross, but he does then try getting another toy to replace for Matthew so that he can get the toy he wants from Matthew. Clever boy :)
Anyway - the clip!
A bit later on he had his lunch, some cheese sandwiches, sitting with everyone in the living room instead of banished to the kitchen table, hehe! He had a lap-tray and was very pleased about it! Thomas the Tank had to sit right next to him while he ate. Arthur was very specific about where Thomas had to sit!
Ella ate her sandwich lunch too, and after lunch everyone was still here and chatting, and Ella played with Arthur's enormous array of toys while Arthur - guess what?! - spent some more happy time pushing Thomas the Tank Engine around the floor and strumming his back wheels for the sound effects! :)
After that, my grandparents went home and the rest of us went out into the rather cold and muddy NEWLY-FINISHED back garden!!! People wanted to see what Neil had done (most of them knew the dump it was beforehand!) and Arthur and Ella seemed really excited about getting their coats and shoes on and going outside for a bit, so we all went out. There's nothing much for little ones to do out there yet, no outdoor toys or anything, but they had so much fun all the same! They stood around just looking at the space and squealling with delight! Arthur ran back and forth and Ella watched him and squealed, and they did some jumping and cute little dancing together, and Ella kept wanting to give Arthur huge bear hugs which Arthur seemed thrilled to receive. They get on so well, they are SO cute together! Here are some lovely photos of them, so you can see what I mean!
And by the way, here is that end of the garden (where Arthur and Ella were standing in the photos) in July. The official "before" photo!
Here is the other end of the garden, before Neil's hard work!
Neil did a great job!! :)
After we went in the garden for a while, everybody went home, and my parents headed back to France on the overnight ferry :( Arthur had a nap, and after his nap he was still so excited about the garden that he insisted on going out there again with Daddy in the last light of the day, just to run and throw the ball about a bit. I put Matthew down for a nap while they were out there, and the muffled shouts and happy squeals coming from outside were just so sweet and heart-warming that I snuck into the kitchen and stood next to the noisy tumble dryer, filming them through the window with the camcorder. I just wanted to record it, because it felt like such a nice moment after such a lovely day. Here's what I got on camera:
Arthur had such a lovely day! It all went so wonderfully and we were so happy about that, and so pleased that everyone came. It would have been completely perfect if Neil's mum and youngest sister could have been there, but they live too far away and we didn't give much notice before the party anyway. But it was lovely!! I'm so happy!
Tomorrow is Arthur's actual birthday! He's really going to be two. I have gazed at my two babies' age tickers at the bottom of my diary this evening, seeing them both aged in months together for the last time. I will need to take my '2 under 2!' blinkie off :( I wonder if I'll ever use it again? I think I would be NUTS if I did! ;) So probably not.
It's soooooo late. I need to go to bed, because a) I'm exhausted like always, and b) we have a fun day planned for Arthur tomorrow and I need my sleep for it! I wrapped Arthur's presents from Neil and I this evening, or I should probably say, from Neil, Matthew and I! It was lovely to sign his birthday card from "Mummy, Daddy and Matthew" for the first time :) He is going to open one present in the morning (he won't know he has any others till later!) and his cards, and we'll do the birthday cake again just before we go out mid-morning.
We are going to take Arthur to a local-ish farm - it's one I went to with my local M.E. support group (hello any AYMErs who still read this!!!) shortly after I got healed of M.E. We saw lots of lambs being born and stuff then, but this time of year there will be animals to see close up, and you can pet some of them and feed them, and there are little animals too, like rabbits and hamsters. There are playgrounds and things that I know Arthur will just LOVE. When I went there with the M.E. group, I was nowhere near having children yet, but I remember thinking to myself that I would bring my own children there one day when I finally had some! And now I'm doing it!! I know Arthur will love it - if he doesn't surprise us by being all anxious about animals close-up, that is! He loves animals in books and on TV, and does pretend play about them all the time. He loves farm vehicles like tractors, and he LOVES just being outdoors and playgrounds and stuff. We thought hard about what he might really enjoy doing as a treat, and we think this is it. Either that or a real train trip on a children's railway thing, but there isn't one local enough anyway.
After the farm we'll have packed lunch in the car on the way home and then Arthur should conk out for a good nap. After his nap we are going to let him open the rest of his presents and then do whatever he wants to do with the rest of his day. He might want to play with his presents, but the things he asks to do most often these days are going out to the park, going in the garden, and painting. He loves painting. We did painting this afternoon, actually. He painted three pictures and figured out how to use the glass jar that held the paintbrushes as a printing tool to make circles when he turned it upside down and dipped it in the paint! He loves messy crafts!
So tomorrow will be all about my sweet lil Arthur Boo! My big boy. I can't believe how the time has gone already. And yet it also feels like forever. Tomorrow he also gets to breastfeed on demand. I don't care one jot about whether he eats food or not for tomorrow. He prefers to breastfeed, and I am not about to refuse him tomorrow, not once, if he asks to nurse. I am happy and relieved about that plan! :) I am pretty sure he'll want to eat birthday cake though!
This time two years ago I had been in labour ALL day long, and in the birth pool in our living room for the past few hours. It was at about this time (half past midnight) that it was becoming too unbearable and I had stopped progressing, and we decided I would transfer to hospital for pain relief. Man that was one LONG night! But joy came in the morning :) He was worth every nanosecond of pain, ten times over. I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Arthur was born at 11.28am, and so tomorrow he will be two years old from that time. We'll be at the farm :) I wonder what we'll be doing every year to come at 11.28am? Some years he will be at school at that time. I can't imagine any future years. Time just stands still where I am, because there is so much to take in. I want to stop and smell the roses while I have the chance. I know the season will pass all too quickly and he'll be all grown up before I am ready for it!
Tonight while I breastfed him in bed with the lights out, I prayed out loud for God to bless him, and thanked my wonderful God for the precious gift he gave me in this lovely little boy. I thanked him for the past two years, and prayed for Arthur's next year ahead. I prayed that God would help me be a really good mummy to Arthur this year. I prayed for a good day tomorrow. It felt wonderful to do that with Arthur right there at my breast, listening. I told him before I started, "Mummy is going to talk to Jesus now, and say thank you for her lovely Arthur, and ask God to bless us." Arthur just said, "Yep!" and latched on happily as I began to pray :) It was lovely.
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