Sugar rush!!!!!

Yesterday, I took Nicholas to a birthday party at The Little Gym. Having recently hosted a birthday party for Owen at a similar facility, I actually had the opportunity to reflect on just how crazy such events truly are. Silly me -- I was approaching this event as an opportunity for Nicholas and me to have some "one-on-one" time. I envisioned us happily romping across the play mats of The Little Gym, bouncing on a trampoline, taking a little tumble or trying out a summersault. Since he already takes music class and loves it, I was expecting this to be a variation of that, just with a little more focused physical activity thrown in. As it turned out, the focused physical activity was mostly mine.

If I were to look in on my life and actually SEE myself hovering over my two year-old, I would annoy me. Before I had children, I would disparage all helicopter parents with little reflection whatsoever. They were suffocating their children, not allowing them to have the fun that they needed to have in order to experience authentic childhood. Now, I am at the point of realizing that unless I continually hover over Nicholas, he might not make it through childhood.

Mistake #1: I told Nicholas that we were going to a birthday party. I told him this in advance. At least a day in advance. I should have known better. When you tell any two year-old "Tomorrow afternoon, we are going to X's birthday party, but you have to be a very good boy or else you won't be able to go," here's the actual translation: "Tomorrow you are having a birthday party!"

Mistake #2: I chose to stash all of our belongings (shoes, socks, jackets) in the cubby DIRECTLY next to the gift table. Did you know that even when every gift on the table is in a pink gift bag or wrapped in Disney princess theme paper, it makes no difference to Nicholas, who would happily open ANY if not ALL of said gifts in no time? Ironically, he had little interest in opening all of the gifts that Santa's elves slaved over wrapping.

Mistake #3: I acted enthusiastic about all of the group activities and tried to encourage my toddler to participate. I should have acted as if I could care less about the parachute game or the Head and Shoulders song. While the rest of the group clapped, stomped and sang along, Nicholas made a run for what interested him most of all: the water fountain. He lapped up water like a German shepherd. Which leads me to:

Mistake #4: Allowing Nicholas anywhere near the water fountain, which made the party room a visible location to him. Once he saw the table set, the apple juice waiting in plastic cups and the pizza boxes stacked sky high, he had zero interest in "riding" the zip line. Luckily for me, the ice cream cake was still in the freezer.

Mistake #5: Actually believing that Nicholas was having a good time as he ran across the gym gleefully, not realizing that he was headed for the open lobby door to make another hit at the gift table. Then he saw me chasing him down and made a turn into the management office instead, where he discovered the goody bags that had not yet been set out. This is where the grandma of the birthday girl saw me and said, "I see he's settling in finally." Daggers...

Mistake #6: Allowing Nicholas to dig to the bottom of the ball bucket for what I believed to be the ball of his choice. He really just wanted to crawl into the bucket. Which was a garbage can.

Mistake #7: Allowing Nicholas full and total access to his goodie bag on the car ride home. Actually OPENING the goldfish and the Welsh's fruit snacks for him to consume while I recovered from my workout. A minute before we pulled into the driveway, I wondered what he was crunching on and discovered he was halfway through a piece of sidewalk chalk.

Of course, all of the above concern me since Nicholas' birthday is not for another six months and Peter's will be next week. The old version of Oona might never contemplate having backup gifts for siblings to assuage the anticipated stress of said birthday party. But Oona 2.0 might very well have a different plan of action. Until next week!