The Need to Party

The Little Man turned six months old this week, and for some reason I was obsessed about doing something to celebrate. Six months seems to be a big milestone, so much more of a milestone than, say 5 months, or 8 weeks. Anyway, my spirits sagged until I got something planned to celebrate, a little dinner party with some of his grandparents.

The more I think about it, though, the more I'm wondering if my obsession didn't just make the poor guy's existance miserable. For starters, the day in question we had a well-baby checkup. That landed him with shots - ow! - and some work on his Unit such that it is now a huge sore spot that his mother has to clean multiple times a day - owwwwww! We also received the news that, consistently with all of his past growth measurements, we have a tall, skinny baby with a teeny-tiny head (though that last bit probably bothered his mother more than it did him).

Then his mother went to lunch with his dad and some friends, completely messing up lunch time and sealed the deal on messed up nap times. When we got back to the house, it was pick-up time, then time to start cooking. Mommy and Little Man Play Time was severly truncated, which did not please him.

That evening, guests arrived after his oh-too-short nap and a dose of Tylenol to counter the low-grade fever brought on by the shots. We had a fine meal, as did he, though the menu ended up being quite weird. He had a cracker, a piece of avacado, prunes, carrots, rice cereal and water. Then, the grandparents had brought him a Little Debbie vanilla cake, so we gave that to him to roll with because it's his birthday! And we're celebrating! Never mind the fact that he hasn't yet had cake in any form, and the most sugar he'd been involved with was in applesauce. But, he ended up with very little of it acutally in his mouth; most of it went in his hair, on his clothes, into the carpet and smashed into his high chair tray.

Then it was on to the bath for the Little Man, and we started the process of putting his little over tired, sugar high, Tylenol doped butt to bed. However, never underestimate the need of a grandparent to fraternize with the grandchildren (and then leave the parent to deal with the wreckage). They kept coming in to "see him" and ended up taking him back to the living area to watch a football game until 10:00. This, of course, woke him up completely again, and he didn't get to bed until 11. Which is likely why he woke up at 1, 3, 4 and 7 the next night.

But, we celebrated his birthday! Another milestone remembered with people, food and cake.

I bet he's glad that's over.