Happy birthday, Biscuit

Today is Biscuit's second birthday, and I've been thinking about everything he's learned in just a couple of years. I've read back over some of the blogs I've written, and it's amazing to me that he started out as a cute little slug who needed everything done for him.

And now, he's a walking, talking little man.

Sunday morning before his party, I was putting the icing on the cupcakes. He walked up to me and said, "Doing, Mom?"

"Putting icing on your birthday cupcakes," I said.

"Need birthday cupcakes, Mom."

"You NEED birthday cupcakes PLURAL?" I asked him.

"Yes. Need cupcakes, Mom."

So I gave him one without icing and told him he could have one with icing at his party. He seemed to think that deal was acceptable.

I wanted to make ham biscuits and some other snacks for the adults who were attending the party, and as I got to the end of the ham, I thought, "I think I can get one more slice off of that ham." Well, turns out I was wrong. I got a nice slice out of my thumb, though.

It was a pretty bad cut, so I was struggling to finish the details of the party. So I called a friend who lives near me and asked if she could come to the party an hour early. Luckily she was able to come over and basically finished getting everything ready.

The party started at 2 p.m., and we had five kids (from almost 1 to 2 1/2 years) and 12 adults (counting Jeff and me). We were really pleased with the turnout.

All the kids were great. I figured there would be at least one "that toy is mine and I'm going to smack you in the head to get it." But nope. No fighting. No crying. No biting. No nothing. They just all played.

We took them outside to run around for a while. Then after they were all tired out, we brought them in to get sugar-ed up on cupcakes!

And this is where the drama begins.

I poured milk or juice in sippy cups for all the kids, but I didn't snap the lid tight on Biscuit's cup. So we sang "Happy Birthday" to him and let him blow out a candle. Then he took a huge bite of his cupcake and reached for his milk.

I never knew a sippy cup could hold that much milk. It went EVERYWHERE. All over Biscuit. All over the floor. Splattered on the table legs, the chair legs. It was just an awful mess.

The heartbreaking part was that Biscuit thought that he had done something wrong. He was pulling at his clothes saying, "Sorry, mom. Sorry, mom." Oh, it broke my heart.

I took him to get his clothes changes and to try to calm him down, but he was inconsolable. I carried him back into the dining room but he didn't want any part of his cupcake or snacks. He laid his head on my shoulder and a couple of minutes later, he was asleep.

At first, I thought, "He can't be asleep. This is HIS party." But then I reminded myself. He's only 2. Who cares?

So I put him on our bed surrounded by pillows and went back out to play with the other kids.

Everybody left around 5 or 5:30, but Biscuit was still snoozing. He must have really been tired because we had to wake him up about 6:30. I thought it was pretty funny because Jeff and I were trying to get him excited about the balloons and the presents and the cupcake that he didn't get to finish. But he didn't care about any of it.

I brought him one of his presents, and after telling him exactly how to open it (tear it right here, pull this paper), he finally got one opened. By the time Christmas was over last year, he had the present unwrapping down pat. As a matter of fact, he tried to help everybody else open their presents, too. So I was a little surprised when he didn't show much interest in the stuff he got for his birthday.

He finally said, "You open, mom." So I opened each of his presents, then he would ooh and ahh over each one. It's been funny to watch him play with things because he clearly has a different favorite each time. It's like he's taking the time to get to figure each toy out.

I'm a big ol' worry wart, so Jeff always has to endure what we call the post-party briefing. It's where I worry that there wasn't enough food or that the food wasn't good or that someone didn't have a good time or whatever worries my brain can cook up. And of course, Jeff being Jeff, he spends however long it takes to assure me that "refreshments were served, and a good time was had by all."

And I think he's right.